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Re: FOO vs FO
- To: xsl-list at lists dot mulberrytech dot com
- Subject: Re: [xsl] FOO vs FO
- From: Wendell Piez <wapiez at mulberrytech dot com>
- Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2001 13:49:38 -0400
- Reply-To: xsl-list at lists dot mulberrytech dot com
I think we are asymptotically approaching some kind of "knowledge" on this
important question.
My own folk etymology cortical implant tells me that "Foobar" is an
adaptation of "FUBAR", a military acronym (originally ca. WWII) that stands
for "f****d up beyond all recognition". As in "Situation normal -- foobar".
(Jim, "Fouled Up Beyond All Belief" would be "FUBAB" wouldn't it? but it'd
get past your obscenity filter anyhow.)
How it got from that, to being CS nonsense-word placeholders, I dunno. But
of course a great deal of early programming happened in the military. David
Marston's explanation of "foo" from the Smokey Stover comic strip seems (to
this ear) altogether plausible. Maybe when they needed a second one, since
they had "foo" they went to "bar" since they all knew about "fubar" (and
didn't care too much how it was spelled).
Anyone have a notion as to "baz"?
Anyway,
Wendell
At 07:58 AM 9/6/01, Doug wrote:
>Does anyone know why FOO was chosen to mean anything?
>
> >From the W3 site, in a message at
>"http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/msg00613.html", someone asked
>"What does foo.bar mean in CSS?". The response was:
>
> Ah, a puzzle!
>
> 1. The literal answer is probably not the answer the author is
>looking for.
>
> 2. `foo' and `bar' are commonly used as placeholders for arbitrary
>character strings.
>
>In XML Bible by E. Harold, page 52, the author says that FOO means "whatever
>you want it to". Further down, on page 517, we find that for formatting
>objects, the defacto standard prefix is "FO".
>
>Why was FOO and FO chosen instead of something less confusing? I can
>understand FO for formatting objects, but why FOO? Why not XXX or ABC??
>
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