alt.hn

2/8/2026 at 2:32:28 PM

RFC 3092 – Etymology of “Foo” (2001)

 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3092

by ipnon

2/8/2026 at 3:17:55 PM

There is an entire paper looking at the history, meaning and cultural significance of the foo, bar, baz words: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-019-00387-2

by tpetricek

2/8/2026 at 4:15:57 PM

Smokey Stover, the 1935 "Where there's foo, there's fire" guy, was a TV cartoon in the 1970s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Stover#Animation Influenced by german furchtbar/foobar/fubar, MIT used fu() and bar() in the late '30s.

by ahazred8ta

2/8/2026 at 10:15:50 PM

The paper goes deeper

by readthenotes1

2/9/2026 at 10:36:19 PM

Paywalled link? Come on, we're past that. Here's the article:

https://sci-hub.st/10.1007/s13347-019-00387-2

Foo, Bar, Baz…: The Metasyntactic Variable and the Programming Language Hierarchy / by Brian Lennon

by einpoklum

2/8/2026 at 4:33:24 PM

A lot of programming languages uses "Foo bar" during introduction without actually explaining why "Foo" and why "bar". Before the age of Google and Internet it was perhaps one of the most common question from speakers of non-English language.

by ksec

2/8/2026 at 8:06:37 PM

This was one of the biggest hurdles I had to overcome when I was a wee lad combing through "Professional PHP Programming." All of the examples it gave were foo/bar, and I couldn't make the intellectual leap to understand what the real world use cases would be.

It wasn't until I tried building something (mad libs) that things "clicked"

by mvkel

2/10/2026 at 3:36:35 AM

Even many decades later I remember the frustration in university 100-level CS courses of every new concept demonstrated with a mess of foo(), int* bar, void** baz scribbled on a overhead projector.

Descriptive names are helpful, people! I think even back in the 90s C supported at least 31 characters.

by exidy

2/8/2026 at 4:58:14 PM

This location in Switzerland reminded me of some placeholder Python code.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo_Pass

by thenoblesunfish

2/8/2026 at 9:15:04 PM

If you opened a bar there, it'd be the Foo Bar. Full circle.

by junon

2/8/2026 at 10:22:04 PM

Actually the river that goes next to it is called the Foobach (which would be pronounced close to foobar).

I found that hilarious as I was hiking through that pass last year (beautiful area).

by tonfa

2/8/2026 at 10:48:51 PM

Hire a barman named Baz

by paradox460

2/9/2026 at 10:37:34 AM

And have them serve a cocktail called the quux

by ithkuil

2/8/2026 at 8:53:26 PM

I stole this handle from GLS many many years ago and I use it pretty much everywhere. I guess I just love the idea of metasyntactic variables, and using that phrase whenever anyone asks me about my handle!

by greatquux

2/9/2026 at 12:13:43 AM

Turns out “foo/bar/baz” has lore. I assumed it was just tribal placeholder magic. Now I’m wondering what other dev fossils we still carry around - IDDQD (Doom god-mode) is a personal favorite. What’s yours?

by fholec

2/9/2026 at 2:37:04 AM

In case anyone else has ever wondered:

IDDQD stands for Id Delta Quit Delta, a fraternity created by DOOM programmer Dave Taylor who released that if you drop out or quit a course you get a statistically-better final grade than you would by failing the course. Of course, you still end up not achieving a degree, hence when used in-game it shows "Degreelessness Mode" activated.

by samplatt

2/9/2026 at 12:29:49 AM

Excuse me, fossils?

by kunley

2/9/2026 at 2:25:44 AM

It's only offensive if you're being carried around.

by samplatt

2/9/2026 at 2:59:14 AM

I think they're referring to the artifacts (like foo) rather than people.

by maxbond

2/9/2026 at 10:03:35 AM

Yes and still don't comprehend why to call certain things fossils if they are still used by virtually everybody

by kunley

2/9/2026 at 9:30:58 PM

Petroleum is used by everyone right? And it's a literal fossil. I wouldn't call it a fossil because all terminology has lore, but the idea as I understand it is that it's an artifact that outlived the context it was originally relevant in.

by maxbond

2/11/2026 at 12:54:24 PM

I think foo never outlived what it was from the beginning - a way to harmlessly goof around while describing complex systems & patterns. So, really dunno why the commenter above wanted to atribute all the fooness to something "ancient".

PS. Unsure why to mix petroleum into this discussion..

by kunley

2/11/2026 at 10:07:16 PM

Not the usage, the context.

by maxbond

2/8/2026 at 7:19:13 PM

Being largely self taught, I ended reinventing a lot of lingo myself. My placeholder words are generally “blah”, “yo”, and “fart” unless other people are reading the code.

I never claimed I was terribly mature.

by tombert

2/8/2026 at 10:49:18 PM

I've used Blarg and Honk ever since Red vs Blue carved them into my mind

by paradox460

2/9/2026 at 6:44:39 AM

> It has been plausibly suggested that "foobar" spread among early computer engineers partly because of FUBAR and partly because "foo bar" parses in electronics techspeak as an inverted foo signal.

Can anyone educate me what "inverted foo signal" means here, in connection to electronics?

by rast1234

2/9/2026 at 7:57:54 AM

I believe Ā is notation for "not A" and is read out loud as "A bar".

by chordbug

2/9/2026 at 9:56:09 PM

thanks! this makes sense

by rast1234

2/8/2026 at 4:52:14 PM

April 1, 2001

by jibal

2/8/2026 at 10:05:17 PM

IETF have a habit of posting "fun" RFCs on the 1st April each year. Some of them are more famous for being completely daft ("avian carriers" and climbing into trees to watch 0s and 1s painted on the top of tanks being the two stand-out ones), but it doesn't mean that everything they do on that date is to be disregarded as nonsense.

by PaulRobinson

2/9/2026 at 3:47:42 AM

Something can be humorous without being nonsense, such as this RFC.

by jibal

2/9/2026 at 1:39:05 AM

I'll have an apotropaic inscription to go, please.

by B1FF_PSUVM

2/8/2026 at 7:13:44 PM

> First on the standard list of metasyntactic variables used in syntax examples (bar, baz, qux, quux, corge, grault, garply, waldo, fred, plugh, xyzzy, thud)

I've seen foo, bar, baz, qu+x, plugh and xyxxy actually in use, not the others.

I've not used "qux" or followed the convention of adding more u's. From me it's been just foo, bar, baz, quux and then some Monty Python inspired ones: spam, ni, ecky, ptong.

Although eventually I learned enough about how to name things that I don't feel the temptation any more. I'll gladly pay that bit of joylessness to understand myself months later.

by zahlman

2/8/2026 at 4:34:02 PM

naming is hard.

my advice to junior programmers after i see them agonising over a name - "just call it x or foo for now, you are going to change it later anyway"

by zabzonk

2/8/2026 at 6:40:34 PM

“It might be hard, but don’t let that stop you from making it worse” :)

by paulddraper

2/8/2026 at 4:50:44 PM

I don’t understand how this article is not at the top of all times

by IFC_LLC

2/8/2026 at 2:59:09 PM

Echoes of ARPANET.

by alhazrod

2/10/2026 at 8:26:03 AM

At work we had a server called "fubar".

I said this is going to inadvertently end up in customer communication, maybe we shouldn't be implying the word "fuck" to customers.

Management agreed and had it renamed... to foobar.

by suprjami

2/8/2026 at 3:30:52 PM

f*kt up beyond all recognition. semper fidelis

i first heard "foo bar" from eric allman at berkeley office of britton-lee, mid 1980s. i vaguely recall eric wrote a column about history of "foo bar".

by johnthescott

2/9/2026 at 2:39:07 AM

I’m disappointed it’s not originating from the Mexican “Foos”.

by darth_avocado

2/8/2026 at 6:25:10 PM

Now, tell us about "ZQX3".

by mac3n

2/8/2026 at 10:35:54 PM

This is the first time in my life encountering "ZQX3" in some context that suggests it has broad meaning.

What does ZQX3 have to do with TFA?

by stackghost

2/12/2026 at 9:52:35 PM

folklore was that IBM used it as an example of a bad variable name, based on Zarathustra Q Xerxes III

Here it is, in fact! Page 19:

http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/ibm/360/os/...

> But if the programmer decided to use ZQX-3 in pl.ace of MINIMUM-BALANCE because it is shorter, or because he once met a cab driver named Zarathustra Q. Xerxes III, then it is a bad name.

by mac3n

2/10/2026 at 2:46:18 PM

[dead]

by selenajennifer

2/10/2026 at 2:48:11 PM

[dead]

by selenajennifer

2/8/2026 at 3:10:15 PM

No mention of “baz”

by taybin

2/8/2026 at 7:54:20 PM

It’s literally in the first sentence of the first definition:

> bar /bar/ n. [JARGON] The second metasyntactic variable, after foo and before baz.

by hk__2

2/9/2026 at 3:32:40 AM

In the etymology section, I presume. And I can't find it either, if it is there.

by rendaw

2/8/2026 at 3:37:48 PM

Part 2, 3rd definition of “foo”mentions baz

by stephenlf

2/9/2026 at 1:35:53 PM

I always hated foo, bar, & baz. These vars are always pushed by uncreative individuals. I directly equate it with middle-management types that drive black BMWs and have the personality of milquetoast and golf. No thanks, I'll stick with zig, zag, and zip. If you don't like it too bad, write your own throwaway code.

by 1970-01-01