

RFC 3092 - Etymology of "Foo" (2001) - auvi
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3092

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pilif
Back in my high school days, when I started my first step towards programming
for real as opposed to the stuff I've done with DOS batch files, one of the
first books I read was the Camel book (Programming Perl - that's what
everybody was using for their CGI scripts back then).

Their use of foo, bar and foobar without explanation was extremely confusing
to me and made the whole book very difficult to understand for me as my brain
constantly wasted brain cycles on trying to understand these words in the code
samples.

Of course it didn't help that back then my English was practically not
existent yet.

It's funny how these completely made-up words have become real jargon one has
to know when working in this industry, to the point where at least for me
personally, not knowing them was a huge barrier to understanding a basic book
about our profession

(I might also just have been too young yet. I remember reading the chapter
about regexes (littered with foobar) and thinking "nobody in their right mind
can find this useful for anything")

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taspeotis

        RFC 3092 - Etymology of "Foo" (2001) (ietf.org)
    

The 2001 in the title really should be 1 April 2001, lest someone thinks this
RFC is otherwise notable in some way.

~~~
Angostura
Why? It's not a prank.

~~~
taspeotis

        Angostura 15 minutes ago | link | parent | flag
        Why? It's not a prank.
    

I sense that you have a future in marketing [1].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools'_Day_Request_for_Co...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools'_Day_Request_for_Comments)

~~~
GauntletWizard
It depends on your definition of "prank", I guess, but most April Fools RFCs
present perfectly accurate, if somewhat bizarre, takes on their subject
matter. IP over Avian Carrier and IPv6 over Social Network both were
implemented.

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kubiiii
In France we use toto and tata. At least it's easier to see those words as
examples. As a teenaegr, learning some languages, I thought using foo & bar
was mandatory. Very confusing.

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onion2k
"toto" and "tata" may well be easier for you, but I find it easier to see
"foo" and "bar" as examples. The point is that _no_ word will be universally
seen as an example without meaning, so documents like the one in the link are
necessary.

Comments like "xyz is easier" forget that we aren't all the same.

~~~
kubiiii
It is easier for you now that you know that they are examples. The syllabe
repetition in toto and tata make it a little more obvious I think. But you are
right we aren't all the same, which was the point of my initial post. Then I
managed to pretend we are superior :)

~~~
dsr_
But Toto is the name of a band and Tata the name of an industrial complex that
produces, among other things, cars.

~~~
brudgers
Toto is a fictional dog. Tata is a now famous football manager.

Foobar applies to most of my code.

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evincarofautumn
“Many smoke but foo men chew.”

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu_Manchu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu_Manchu)

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trekky1700
foo /foo/ n. People whom Mr. T pities or otherwise considers distasteful.

~~~
noblethrasher
Actually, it was just Balboa.

