"Foo" dates earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33747944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33747944 https://catb.org/jargon/html/F/foo.html https

"Foo" dates earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33747944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33747944 https://catb.org/jargon/html/F/foo.html https://catb.org/jargon/html/F/foo.html It was probably paired with "bar" because of FUBAR though. My dad referred to the figure known as the "impossible trident" ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trident ) as a "foobar". It was used as a warning to engineering students to check their technical drawings.