7 ms·

While the original phrase was FUBARed, the common use of "foo" and "bar" as placeholder variables has lead to programmers using foobar instead. Of course foo an

While the original phrase was FUBARed, the common use of "foo" and "bar" as placeholder variables has lead to programmers using foobar instead. Of course foo and bar come from FUBAR, just using 3 letters for each.

eridius 13y ago
"foo" and "bar" are metasyntactic variables that have nothing whatsoever to do with the meaning of FUBAR. Using "foobar" to mean FUBAR is utter nonsense, and serves only to show that the writer has no idea what FUBAR is and is spelling it phonetically. Which is to say, they're typing the word wrong.
- collyw 13y ago
  Does it matter?
  - eridius 13y ago
    For reading comprehension? Yes, absolutely.
    - collyw 13y ago
      No it doesn't. You can guess what they are talking about from the context. If a variable is named "foo" or "fu" makes no difference.
      - eridius 13y ago
        For a variable name, sure. "foo" is a metasyntactic variable, it's used as a placeholder for something else. If you want to name it "fu", I'll be mildly curious as to where you came up with that name, but from context I'll assume it's a placeholder name (if this is production code and not example code, then why are you trying to use placeholder names? In production code I'll assume it has some meaning that I am not aware of). But that is entirely unrelated to trying to use the acronym FUBAR in english prose. I can figure out that when the author said "foobared" he really meant "FUBARed" because I can speak it aloud and figure out that the author was phonetically typing something. But that's an error correction mechanism, the same mechanism used to try and discern the meaning of a misspelled word. It's not one you can rely on correctly identifying the real word, and it does not legitimize the use of the incorrect or misspelled word. For example, if the author had written "barfued" instead of "FUBARed", I would most likely not have been able to recognize that the author meant "FUBARed". If you expect me to be able to understand the words that you are writing, you need to make the effort to actually use the correct words to convey your meaning.
        collyw 13y ago
        "foobered" does not have a meaning. "FUBARed" has a meaning ( to a relatively small percentage of the population I would guess). I think given the context, if foobar is used, then we can assume the context (and lack of any alternate meaning) we can safely assume that the prose "foobared" is equivalent to "FUBARed". What else would you expect it to mean?
- acqq 13y ago
  "foo" and "bar" of course have a lot to do with the meaning of FUBAR, there's even a RFC(!) about that: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3092.txt http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3092.txt
  - eridius 13y ago
    > 1 April 2001 This is an april fool's joke (one that significantly postdates the rise of "foo" and "bar").
    - acqq 13y ago
      Which still doesn't mean the material isn't well researched. Nobody up to now refuted the historical references. In short, "foo" and "bar" didn't "just fall to Earth" they were written by the people who were surrounded by "FUBAR." Which again means that it's better if you don't consider them as the innocent "no meaning" variables. They have as much "no meaning" as WTF means "worse than failure."
      - eridius 13y ago
        The jargon file, which is what that RFC references, provides no evidence for its claim that "foo" in conjunction with "bar" has generally been traced to FUBAR. It's a plausible-sounding claim, because of pronunciation, but that's by no means definitive. In addition, it freely admits that "foo" predates FUBAR. The entry on "foobar" (as opposed to "foo") also stresses that "foobar" does not generally reference FUBAR: > Hackers do not generally use this to mean FUBAR in either the slang or jargon sense. And once again, it suggests that "foobar" may have been spread among early engineers partly because of FUBAR, but it provides no evidence for this suggestion aside from its apparent plausibility. So yeah, ok, it's plausible that the popularity of "foobar" was boosted by the acronym FUBAR. But regardless of the truth of that, the meaning of "foobar" has nothing to do with the meaning of FUBAR. It's a metasyntactic variable, and that's it.
        acqq 13y ago
        If you still believe in non-relatedness then you certainly believe that when somebody names the variable SFU in his source examples, he could have been just thinking of Microsoft"s "Services For Unix" "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Services_for_UNIX http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Services_for_UNIX Or "nothing, just metasyntatic" but absolutely no chance that he have been thinking about http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/STFU http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/STFU I've already mentioned the another example: http://thedailywtf.com/ http://thedailywtf.com/ Initially it really meant what the internet would first think it meant. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/WTF http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/WTF As the site got more popular, it was necessary to make the name less offensive for the uninitiated, so the "worse than failure" tag was invented much later. http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Worse-Than-Failure-Programming-Contest.aspx http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Worse-Than-Failure-Progr... Just "metasyntatic." Three nice letters. Don't try to associate with anything rude. We're all polite here.

eridius 13y ago

"foo" and "bar" are metasyntactic variables that have nothing whatsoever to do with the meaning of FUBAR. Using "foobar" to mean FUBAR is utter nonsense, and serves only to show that the writer has no idea what FUBAR is and is spelling it phonetically. Which is to say, they're typing the word wrong.

collyw 13y ago
Does it matter?
- eridius 13y ago
  For reading comprehension? Yes, absolutely.
  - collyw 13y ago
    No it doesn't. You can guess what they are talking about from the context. If a variable is named "foo" or "fu" makes no difference.
    - eridius 13y ago
      For a variable name, sure. "foo" is a metasyntactic variable, it's used as a placeholder for something else. If you want to name it "fu", I'll be mildly curious as to where you came up with that name, but from context I'll assume it's a placeholder name (if this is production code and not example code, then why are you trying to use placeholder names? In production code I'll assume it has some meaning that I am not aware of). But that is entirely unrelated to trying to use the acronym FUBAR in english prose. I can figure out that when the author said "foobared" he really meant "FUBARed" because I can speak it aloud and figure out that the author was phonetically typing something. But that's an error correction mechanism, the same mechanism used to try and discern the meaning of a misspelled word. It's not one you can rely on correctly identifying the real word, and it does not legitimize the use of the incorrect or misspelled word. For example, if the author had written "barfued" instead of "FUBARed", I would most likely not have been able to recognize that the author meant "FUBARed". If you expect me to be able to understand the words that you are writing, you need to make the effort to actually use the correct words to convey your meaning.
      - collyw 13y ago
        "foobered" does not have a meaning. "FUBARed" has a meaning ( to a relatively small percentage of the population I would guess). I think given the context, if foobar is used, then we can assume the context (and lack of any alternate meaning) we can safely assume that the prose "foobared" is equivalent to "FUBARed". What else would you expect it to mean?
acqq 13y ago
"foo" and "bar" of course have a lot to do with the meaning of FUBAR, there's even a RFC(!) about that: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3092.txt http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3092.txt
- eridius 13y ago
  > 1 April 2001 This is an april fool's joke (one that significantly postdates the rise of "foo" and "bar").
  - acqq 13y ago
    Which still doesn't mean the material isn't well researched. Nobody up to now refuted the historical references. In short, "foo" and "bar" didn't "just fall to Earth" they were written by the people who were surrounded by "FUBAR." Which again means that it's better if you don't consider them as the innocent "no meaning" variables. They have as much "no meaning" as WTF means "worse than failure."
    - eridius 13y ago
      The jargon file, which is what that RFC references, provides no evidence for its claim that "foo" in conjunction with "bar" has generally been traced to FUBAR. It's a plausible-sounding claim, because of pronunciation, but that's by no means definitive. In addition, it freely admits that "foo" predates FUBAR. The entry on "foobar" (as opposed to "foo") also stresses that "foobar" does not generally reference FUBAR: > Hackers do not generally use this to mean FUBAR in either the slang or jargon sense. And once again, it suggests that "foobar" may have been spread among early engineers partly because of FUBAR, but it provides no evidence for this suggestion aside from its apparent plausibility. So yeah, ok, it's plausible that the popularity of "foobar" was boosted by the acronym FUBAR. But regardless of the truth of that, the meaning of "foobar" has nothing to do with the meaning of FUBAR. It's a metasyntactic variable, and that's it.
      - acqq 13y ago
        If you still believe in non-relatedness then you certainly believe that when somebody names the variable SFU in his source examples, he could have been just thinking of Microsoft"s "Services For Unix" "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Services_for_UNIX http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Services_for_UNIX Or "nothing, just metasyntatic" but absolutely no chance that he have been thinking about http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/STFU http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/STFU I've already mentioned the another example: http://thedailywtf.com/ http://thedailywtf.com/ Initially it really meant what the internet would first think it meant. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/WTF http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/WTF As the site got more popular, it was necessary to make the name less offensive for the uninitiated, so the "worse than failure" tag was invented much later. http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Worse-Than-Failure-Programming-Contest.aspx http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Worse-Than-Failure-Progr... Just "metasyntatic." Three nice letters. Don't try to associate with anything rude. We're all polite here.