What is the history of the use of "foo" and "bar" in source code examples?

Re:What is the history of the use of "foo" and "bar" in sour... by thiht on Saturday October 05, 2024 @06:02PM (#41753262)

When I started to learn programming (by myself), I had a really hard time understanding what foo and bar were and what they meant in various tutorials and blogs. I was already trying to learn the syntax and programming concepts, throwing some unknowns words in the mix did NOT help. For some time I thought foo had special meaning in PHP, or that it meant something in English (not my first language, and I was much less proficient in English at ~14 than I am today).

Using foo bar baz qux is lazy when you can easily find countless examples.

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Re:What is the history of the use of "foo" and "bar" in sour... by Dylan16807 on Saturday October 05, 2024 @09:50PM (#41754141)

If they used 'thing' and 'stuff' would you be happier? A B C? What would you suggest as a generic variable name?

> Using foo bar baz qux is lazy when you can easily find countless examples.

Countless examples of what?

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Re:What is the history of the use of "foo" and "bar" in sour... by thiht on Monday October 07, 2024 @07:58AM (#41765123)

> If they used 'thing' and 'stuff' would you be happier? A B C?

Yes to both.

> Countless examples of what?

Anything illustrative. Like libraries/books, cars, whatever. Anything is better than foo/bar

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