Smokey Stover, the 1935 "Where there's foo, there's fire" guy, was a TV cartoon in the 1970s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Stover#Animation Influenced by german furchtbar/foobar/fubar, MIT used fu() and bar() in the late '30s.
readthenotes1 1 days ago [-]
The paper goes deeper
ksec 1 days ago [-]
A lot of programming languages uses "Foo bar" during introduction without actually explaining why "Foo" and why "bar". Before the age of Google and Internet it was perhaps one of the most common question from speakers of non-English language.
mvkel 1 days ago [-]
This was one of the biggest hurdles I had to overcome when I was a wee lad combing through "Professional PHP Programming." All of the examples it gave were foo/bar, and I couldn't make the intellectual leap to understand what the real world use cases would be.
It wasn't until I tried building something (mad libs) that things "clicked"
thenoblesunfish 1 days ago [-]
This location in Switzerland reminded me of some placeholder Python code.
I stole this handle from GLS many many years ago and I use it pretty much everywhere. I guess I just love the idea of metasyntactic variables, and using that phrase whenever anyone asks me about my handle!
fholec 22 hours ago [-]
Turns out “foo/bar/baz” has lore. I assumed it was just tribal placeholder magic.
Now I’m wondering what other dev fossils we still carry around - IDDQD (Doom god-mode) is a personal favorite. What’s yours?
samplatt 20 hours ago [-]
In case anyone else has ever wondered:
IDDQD stands for Id Delta Quit Delta, a fraternity created by DOOM programmer Dave Taylor who released that if you drop out or quit a course you get a statistically-better final grade than you would by failing the course. Of course, you still end up not achieving a degree, hence when used in-game it shows "Degreelessness Mode" activated.
kunley 22 hours ago [-]
Excuse me, fossils?
samplatt 20 hours ago [-]
It's only offensive if you're being carried around.
maxbond 20 hours ago [-]
I think they're referring to the artifacts (like foo) rather than people.
kunley 12 hours ago [-]
Yes and still don't comprehend why to call certain things fossils if they are still used by virtually everybody
maxbond 1 hours ago [-]
Petroleum is used by everyone right? And it's a literal fossil. I wouldn't call it a fossil because all terminology has lore, but the idea as I understand it is that it's an artifact that outlived the context it was originally relevant in.
rast1234 16 hours ago [-]
> It has been plausibly suggested that "foobar" spread among early computer engineers partly because of FUBAR and partly because "foo bar" parses in electronics techspeak as an inverted foo signal.
Can anyone educate me what "inverted foo signal" means here, in connection to electronics?
chordbug 15 hours ago [-]
I believe Ā is notation for "not A" and is read out loud as "A bar".
rast1234 37 minutes ago [-]
thanks! this makes sense
tombert 1 days ago [-]
Being largely self taught, I ended reinventing a lot of lingo myself. My placeholder words are generally “blah”, “yo”, and “fart” unless other people are reading the code.
I never claimed I was terribly mature.
paradox460 24 hours ago [-]
I've used Blarg and Honk ever since Red vs Blue carved them into my mind
1970-01-01 9 hours ago [-]
I always hated foo, bar, & baz. These vars are always pushed by uncreative individuals. I directly equate it with middle-management types that drive black BMWs and have the personality of milquetoast and golf. No thanks, I'll stick with zig, zag, and zip. If you don't like it too bad, write your own throwaway code.
jibal 1 days ago [-]
April 1, 2001
PaulRobinson 1 days ago [-]
IETF have a habit of posting "fun" RFCs on the 1st April each year. Some of them are more famous for being completely daft ("avian carriers" and climbing into trees to watch 0s and 1s painted on the top of tanks being the two stand-out ones), but it doesn't mean that everything they do on that date is to be disregarded as nonsense.
jibal 19 hours ago [-]
Something can be humorous without being nonsense, such as this RFC.
B1FF_PSUVM 21 hours ago [-]
I'll have an apotropaic inscription to go, please.
zahlman 1 days ago [-]
> First on the standard list of metasyntactic variables used in
syntax examples (bar, baz, qux, quux, corge, grault, garply,
waldo, fred, plugh, xyzzy, thud)
I've seen foo, bar, baz, qu+x, plugh and xyxxy actually in use, not the others.
I've not used "qux" or followed the convention of adding more u's. From me it's been just foo, bar, baz, quux and then some Monty Python inspired ones: spam, ni, ecky, ptong.
Although eventually I learned enough about how to name things that I don't feel the temptation any more. I'll gladly pay that bit of joylessness to understand myself months later.
orsorna 1 days ago [-]
I've never seen qu+x, except in the title of that Gundam installment released last year, Gundam gquuuuuux. I found this speculation on myanimelist sufficient, but there's no real confirmation afaik. https://myanimelist.net/forum/?goto=post&topicid=2209708&id=...
zabzonk 1 days ago [-]
naming is hard.
my advice to junior programmers after i see them agonising over a name - "just call it x or foo for now, you are going to change it later anyway"
paulddraper 1 days ago [-]
“It might be hard, but don’t let that stop you from making it worse” :)
IFC_LLC 1 days ago [-]
I don’t understand how this article is not at the top of all times
i first heard "foo bar" from eric allman at berkeley office of britton-lee, mid 1980s. i vaguely recall eric wrote a column about history of "foo bar".
darth_avocado 20 hours ago [-]
I’m disappointed it’s not originating from the Mexican “Foos”.
mac3n 1 days ago [-]
Now, tell us about "ZQX3".
stackghost 24 hours ago [-]
This is the first time in my life encountering "ZQX3" in some context that suggests it has broad meaning.
What does ZQX3 have to do with TFA?
taybin 1 days ago [-]
No mention of “baz”
hk__2 1 days ago [-]
It’s literally in the first sentence of the first definition:
> bar /bar/ n. [JARGON] The second metasyntactic variable, after foo and before baz.
rendaw 19 hours ago [-]
In the etymology section, I presume. And I can't find it either, if it is there.
stephenlf 1 days ago [-]
Part 2, 3rd definition of “foo”mentions baz
Rendered at 22:33:09 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
It wasn't until I tried building something (mad libs) that things "clicked"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo_Pass
I found that hilarious as I was hiking through that pass last year (beautiful area).
https://www.foobarclt.com/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metasyntactic_variable#Italian
IDDQD stands for Id Delta Quit Delta, a fraternity created by DOOM programmer Dave Taylor who released that if you drop out or quit a course you get a statistically-better final grade than you would by failing the course. Of course, you still end up not achieving a degree, hence when used in-game it shows "Degreelessness Mode" activated.
Can anyone educate me what "inverted foo signal" means here, in connection to electronics?
I never claimed I was terribly mature.
I've seen foo, bar, baz, qu+x, plugh and xyxxy actually in use, not the others.
I've not used "qux" or followed the convention of adding more u's. From me it's been just foo, bar, baz, quux and then some Monty Python inspired ones: spam, ni, ecky, ptong.
Although eventually I learned enough about how to name things that I don't feel the temptation any more. I'll gladly pay that bit of joylessness to understand myself months later.
my advice to junior programmers after i see them agonising over a name - "just call it x or foo for now, you are going to change it later anyway"
i first heard "foo bar" from eric allman at berkeley office of britton-lee, mid 1980s. i vaguely recall eric wrote a column about history of "foo bar".
What does ZQX3 have to do with TFA?
> bar /bar/ n. [JARGON] The second metasyntactic variable, after foo and before baz.