Subj : Re: Why always FOO and BAR
To   : comp.programming
From : Rob Thorpe
Date : Tue Jul 19 2005 03:02 am

Scott Moore wrote:
> pegasus wrote:
> > Can any body tell me why in any example and ppl always refer foo and
> > bar.......
> >
>
> The acronym comes from the WWII FUBAR, which standands for "Fouled Up
> Beyond All Recognition", with the "F" usually stated in vulgar terms.
> Programmers, for some reason, misspell this as FOOBAR.
>
> Also from WWII is SNAFU, "Situation Normal, All Fouled UP", which
> has similar changes for the "F".

It's not clear that FUBAR has any relation to foo and bar, though it's
certainly possible.

In the UK meta-syntactical variables were traditionally "fred", "jim"
and "sheila".  In the BBC computer the memory ranges for hardware I/O
had these names.

.