Talk:Foobar/Archive 1

foobar
So... this page and the snafu page both claim that foobar and fubar have separate etymologies. I think this is false. I think foobar is fubar-lite, for wishy-washy computer scientists who can't deal with the "fu" part of fubar. Of course, I have no evidence for this belief, but, well, NEITHER DOES THIS ARTICLE! Graft
 * Foo was a nonsense word used in the surrealistic Smokey Stover comic strip, which may have given the syllable a little extra punch, but the statement that foobar and fubar may have different etymologies is just plain silly. Ortolan88
 * I agree, with absolutely no citing, fubar should be listed as a "possible" origin, and not used in a factual context like it is now.

Either way, this shouldn't really be called a disambiguation page so much as it is a stump. "Foobar2000" isn't "Foobar" so it should be a "common mistake" type thing, and the link in the Fubar part links to SNAFU. This should instead by a Fubar article. I don't do much with wikipedia other than read it, so I'll leave the decision up to the comunity (or the passerby).

My first introduction to the word was as "foobar", not "fubar". (Given, I was hanging out with a lot of hackers at the time.) I recall the Jargon File saying it's debatable whether it was originally based on "fubar" or not. --69.234.62.83 11:08, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Hopefully, I've solved all the grievances mentioned.

&mdash;Jndrline 19:13, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Bass ackwards redirect?
This article is mainly about Fubar, although it leads with one sentance on Foobar. So why is it under the one and not the other? brenneman (t) (c) 00:26, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Shorten intro
Maby the intro shoul be shortened with a headline over the second parapraph, so that the TOC appears on top? --OverDriv3 05:24, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

What's with the physics allusion? Nothing more is said other than that "foobar" may come from physics. Suggest deleting the sentence. --drauh 22:26, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Move Foobar to FUBAR
While I do understand newbie programmers (of the last decade or so) who heard their elders saying "fubar" and didn't know how to spell it, resulting in the popularization of the mis-spelling of foobar among net programmers, most people who use the word do still understand its original meaning, and probably a majority of people still know how it's actually spelled.

Therefore it would make more sense for the article to be named FUBAR, not Foobar. If nobody objects, I'm going to move it to the proper spelling. --Kaz 18:07, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd go one further and sepaRate the two by moving the fubAR section to A FUBAR pAge and leaving the computing stuff here. Pipedreambomb 05:21, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I first came across the use of FOOBAR in Computer Science as the result of the first edition of the UNIX operating system user manual. I had always assumed this is where the FOO BAR spelling came into more common usage among comp sci-types. A quick glance through said manual will show countless examples of it in the form of variable names and function names etc. Snafoo 17:42, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Disagree. foobar has its own life now, as a pseudo-code class/method/function/variable identifier. It has 6 letters and looks really nice in Pascal (FooBar), Camel (fooBar), and underscore (foo_bar). For this reason it is used in hundreds, if not thousands of code examples all over the world. While the meaning might originally have been 'FUBAR', foobar is part of out programming vernacular and stands on its own. Mrcsparker 16:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

this is all FUBAR!
this page should ONLY talk about foobar, foo and bar, and the origins of the computer use of this word. another page, called FUBAR, should cover the military term, which foobar should link to (since it was derived from it). there should NOT be a disambiguation page. 68.35.201.102 18:35, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I agree. It starts off talking about the place holder, but most of the article has to do with the military acronym. Fightindaman 06:32, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Since I see no disagreement over several months, I'm moving the FUBAR content to FUBAR. There will be disambiguation pages (with the disambiguation in parentheses) to cover use in titles and the like. Dpv 15:42, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't know if you've changed it already, but I think FUBAR should not redirect to foobar, there should be a page that says "there are many uses of FUBAR," whatever that is called. --Awiseman 16:16, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
 * "Fubar" now redirects to "FUBAR", and the FUBAR-specific content is over there. Dpv 17:01, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Runic alphabet
If every child in Norway knows this about the runic alphabet, there should be a reference where it can be verified. Even more in need of a reference is the suggestion that "foobar" may have been derived from a mis-reading of the runes. Dpv 01:35, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I thought foobar meant "all fucked up" in military slang did'nt think it was some computer thing.

The reference to the unknown museum in Aarhus is perfectly ludicrous and completely out of context! Even if there is a Futhark with a missing k rune in "some" museum in Aarhus, there is no connection between those runes in Aarhus and the expression "foo bar" (as far as anyone can tell) I think that sentence simply ought to be deleted. Symkyn 14:50, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


 * That museum is probably Mosegaard museum

Right, I removed as unsourced speculation, and far more likely to be coincidence than not. We don't want to spread someone's idle speculation as information. If the speculation was made by someone outside of Wikipedia, then we could link to it. The removed material is displayed below. Herostratus 07:44, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

''===Runic roots?=== unreferencedsect It has been speculated that foobar is a phonological interpretation of the first letters of the Runic alphabet. Like Qwerty and Abcde, this expression might have attracted various computer programmers. In a museum at Aarhus, there is a large wooden bar with the runic inscription f u þ a r, where fu is pronounced like foo. However, the letter þ is actually pronounced like an unvoiced th, not a b. The name for the Runic Alphabet, Futhark, is derived from its first letters, being f, u, þ, a, r, and k.''

fubar?
"FUBAR," not "fubar". The word is an acronym. You shouldn't make it "fubar". It just wouldn't be right. Imperfect. Messy. Not good. Bad. It'd be ba(bleats)ad. Not good. Gotta be FUBAR. Not "fubar". "fubar" bad.

wierd boxes
RRg, Everytime i edit, some of my stuff ends up in these wierd boxes and i just cant figure out why. If someone could fix my edits to the page and tell me what im doing wrong! Thanks... QuintusMaximus 01:53, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

final fantasy 12
The "foobar" is featured as an enemy in (at least the UK version of) final fantasy 12. Interesting piece of trivia.

Alternative Origin?
Unfortunately, I cannot provide references for this, as I read it quite some time ago. I'm recording this comment in the hopes that someone else may remember the proper source for it.

F00 BAR (as in Eff Zero Zero Base Address Register)

The meaning being that if the base address register were set to F00, it would indicate a critical failure of the program being run. Some specific hardware was mentioned (DEC/PDP?), and a particular instructor, but I no longer have a clear memory of either. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.187.234.110 (talk) 20:25, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

foobar = barfoo = barf ???
When I was in University in the early 80's, I read some reference suggesting that foobar was a pig-Latin-ish word for barf. I was reading Goedel, Escher, Bach at the time while also taking freshman-level programming (basic and FORTRAN) courses, so I couldn't tell you WHERE I read this. Surely, though, I am not the only person who ever read this? Anyone have any old intro to computer programming texts? Goedel, Escher, Bach? --72.94.157.91 13:18, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

foobar = Pooh-Bah = factotum
I always thought that foobar came from Pooh-bar a character from The Mikado who has the title of "Lord High Everything Else" (i.e. everything but executioner) and so has the role of doing everything asked of him. Analogous with foobar an arbitary variable which may be called upon to do anything. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maths folk (talk • contribs) 18:55, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

The C code example
Currently, the C example implementation of foobar just sucks. Bar is not declared in foo, so that will give a warning. Then, bar is declared as a conflicting type which will FUBAR. ;-) Lastly, it does not have a symbol called 'foobar'. 62.88.179.183 (talk) 09:01, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, it claims that "bar" will never be reached (referring to the bar call within foobar) but this isn't plainly obvious.. and on first glance it's incorrect, since foo calls bar and it is in fact this call that starts off the recursion. In conclusion, bar /is/ reached and this is why the /other/ bar isn't reached. :) I'm going to go ahead and try to make this clearer since no-one else has touched it in a while. Tomalak Geret&#39;kal (talk) 20:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

(Missing) Lisp example
Given the DEC provenance, and heavy usage at MIT, wouldn't an example in Lisp be appropriate? 04:19, 07 July 2008 (UTC)

Stores
I was in Akihabara and saw a japanese chocolate bar called "Foobar", in romaji it was "fuubaa" but the english text said "Foobar", maybe a misprint - anyonce have pictures? My camera is my hotel and when I came back the shop was closed.

PHP Code
The PHP code example had the starter tags , I removed them and fixed the echo statement, because putting variables in quotes isn't the best idea. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.77.96.128 (talk) 20:21, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Merge with Foo
Merge foo, bar into this page? MahangaTalk 15:00, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Any reason why this aricle significantly contrributes to explaining a seperate concept from Foo. This is duplicate information. Only one article is necessary.--ZayZayEM (talk) 03:32, 27 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed - Foo, Bar, and FooBar should all be on one page. Currently content is repeated across the three pages. Jaruzel (talk) 07:20, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I also agree- however, it's worth noting that the Bar page redirects to foobar, so technically there are only two pages. Regardless, the pages represent the same concept, so I'm fine with a merge. Gforce20 (talk) 05:35, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * They're also mostly the same article already. Reconciling the edit histories on them will be a mess, but I'll merge them.  Since Foobar is the older article by far, I'll keep this and redirect the other. - Jason A. Quest (talk) 12:40, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Saving Pvt. Ryan
Mentioned quite frequently in the movie and its book adaptation. They claim it is a German slang/curse word. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.122.68.199 (talk) 08:53, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
 * That's FUBAR. - Jason A. Quest (talk) 14:08, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

history before use as computer term
The article makes it seem that foobar originated with computers. I think there needs to be more discussion of pre-computer use of the word foo. The Foo meme was particularly strong in the 1930's I believe. The term Foo Fighter, which were unexplained sightings by WWII pilots might be worth linking to at least. stib (talk) 00:04, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Standartisation of "Hello, world!"
Unless not possible due to language limitations, shouldn't all output the same? Python, PHP and Actioncode miss the comma. Python also misses the space (no idea if this is intentional). LSL has the comma, but the comment states that it doesn't. 85.146.78.111 (talk) 05:30, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Another early source
Cab Calloway and his Orchestra recorded "Foo A Little Ballyhoo" in New York City, September 18, 1944.

Someone posted a live performance broadcast August 14 1945 from The New Zanzibar New York City: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTfMC6h3lTY

[I have no idea who wrote it or when the score was copyrighted, so I can't add it to the article.]

Fubab: Beyond All Belief - We know how "fouled" up things are, we simply cannot believe it. I coined 'fubab' sometime in the mid-eighties while attending Arizona State University. If anyone knows where I might have heard it before that time, please let me know. Hpfeil (talk) 20:29, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

"german american" roots of the etymology - just a guess
is some computer programs the variable foobar apears. for german natives it reads like "furchtbar" - an attribute to something terrible. i guess there war some german military adviser in the vietnam war who's vocabulary contained a world for something like "terrible ugly". i heard somewere on the radio the marines call walky talkies in the end only "foobar" was understood. which sounds like the britisch "lurking horror" or so. the eymology sounds like that red from here in germany. in the movie rambo "krautmann" apears as a warrior adviser. some veterans of the vietnam war are done with the state. so what is the right etymology of the word foobar in american english ?

not signed so i leave the article to the americans to find some truth in wp. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.234.253.145 (talk) 09:45, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Colloquial usage of the term (which I know rather spelled as phoo-ba) in English in place of "mistake", "mishap" has always made me assume a French etymology actually, in that it's rather derived from faux pas. Would be great if anybody could find a source for anything like that. --79.193.31.235 (talk) 02:46, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

First lettes of Runes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runes#Elder_Futhark_.282nd_to_8th_c..29 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.134.76.200 (talk) 06:04, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

A simple German-English dictionary search confirms the translation as "awful", "dreadful", "terrible", etc. Is a standard online dictionary a reliable source to be cited in the main page, since the translation is missing a citation? --Chocoholic Jedi (talk) 15:11, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

PHP example
Is that PHP example supposed to be the direct analog of the code above and below it? Constructing an array and then "imploding" it, while the other two are simple concats? Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:00, 14 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Moreover: Can anything PHP actually be called "code"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.4.245.215 (talk) 16:25, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Date of RFC3092
1 April 2001. Is this a cause for concern? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.254.47.175 (talk) 15:15, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Isn't Foobar derived from Fubar?
I'm an IT guy of 23 years experience, I always understood Foobar to be derived from military slang Fubar - at least thats how the ex-Vietnam veterans who taught me IT used it. Eworrall (talk) 17:24, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

History and etymology
I'm surprised there's no mention of it being used in digital logic design. Prior to software taking over the world, there was the rise of digital design. You'd have a bunch of combinatorial logic that would output some signal (or collection of signals) that you mark as "foo". The NOT of that signal would be "foobar" ($\overline{foo}$).

Man, it's tough to read those example phrases, the fact that they are written like that (using inline quotations within an abstract narrative), despite what should be used in this; it is peculiar to see that stylization in the context of a Wikipedia article, stylistically, under the auspice of proper writing (for the sake of abstraction in non-fic. online encyclopedia.

Every time I read it... My brain automatically goes: '*Derp!*' 24.246.236.191 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:31, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I admit that the fact the EECS buildings were adjacent to Building 20 is an anachronism. Hackers were using "foo" and "bar" in the 50's before EECS had buildings there. At least, not the ones currently there. I leave it to a better historian than myself to uncover how close Building 20 was to the original LISP community. For all I know, LISP was invented in Building 20. As for my other additions to this section today, I was there 1980-1984. I know what I'm talking about. -- tbc (talk) 17:30, 14 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Having been there is not sufficient to remove sourced claims and add unsourced claims. You may be right, but you need some evidence beyond your own memories to make those fairly significant changes.  —Torchiest talk/edits 19:59, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality
I believe that the neutrality of the section "Criticism" isn't... well, neutral. It leans very heavily towards discouraging use of the hackerism. Is there any reliable and verifiable source that denounces foobar? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.144.188.2 (talk) 17:11, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * No there isn't, the whole paragraph consists of unsourced claims and weasel-wording. I removed it, but an IP user knee-jerked and reverted the whole junk back in again, followed by a well-meaning but IMHO ineficcent user inserting a bunch of maintainance tags. This whole paragraph should go, I see no need to cling to such sub-standard writing.-- Seelefant (talk) 17:58, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Disagree on neutrality. The criticism, albeit removed, is relevant for as long as 'foobar' is in use. - Mardus /talk 03:32, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Suggestion: Add Python's variation on their deriviation of Foobar
In Python, instead of using Foobar as a Metasyntactic variable, the community (and examples) generally use the placeholders "eggs", "ham", and "spam" from the Monty Python sketch. Should we add this in? — Preceding unsigned comment added by LawfulLazy (talk • contribs) 20:45, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Translation into Swedish
I would like to translate this page into Swedish but I get the following error message:

Detta är en pågående översättning av KartikMistry. Se till att du samordnar med användaren som översatte den nuvarande översättningen.

This error message means:

There is a current translation by KartikMistry. Be sure that you coordinate with the user who translated the current translation.

I've been getting this for a long time now and the button to abandon the translation doesn't work. Please help someone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Huey Duck (talk • contribs) 17:29, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Baz and qux
No information about how  and   got included? — howcheng  {chat} 22:47, 22 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Baz and quux are from MIT, probably ITS slang. "The Great Quux" was Guy Steele's nickname at MIT in the late '70s and his nom-de-plume as a humorous artist. They were listed in the Jargon File and ESR's expanded version "The New Hacker's Dictionary". -- Resuna (talk) 16:17, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Not metasyntactic at all!
A meta-syntactic variable is one which holds a piece of syntax to be substituted in its place.

The parameters of macros are meta-syntactic.

Most uses of  and   in example program code are not "meta"; they are just ordinary identifiers.

The ANSI Common Lisp standard simply calls them "nonsense words": http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/iiip/doc/CommonLISP/HyperSpec/Body/sec_1-4-1-6.html

The programmer doesn't have to replace  with a different identifier; it is possible to just. Sometimes entire, working samples of code use  and. They can be taken verbatim and executed: no syntactic substitution takes place to replace  or   with anything else.


 * True, you don't have to replace them, it's just that they are generally used as pedagogical placeholders "you have a variable say int foo..." with no intention that the listener will actually use the variable "foo" unless they're a lisp hacker. -- Resuna (talk) 16:20, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

A meta-syntactic variable occurs in a statement like "Your home page is located at ." Here,  must be replaced with the instance of the user name; the URL with the uninstantiated meta-syntactic variable isn't correct; nobody's user name would ever be   with angle brackets and all.

KazKylheku (talk) 21:33, 25 April 2018 (UTC)