On Thu, 25 Jul 2002, Daniel Mose wrote:
> Other words in this ML (and in too many other places =( ) that
> make my own brain go rivetted and short circuit are the "foo"
> and/or "bar", not to mention the "foobar" place holder.
>
> I realize that most folks In LKML use "foo", "bar" and it's dad,
> "foobar" with outmost joy and that there is complete and utter
> understanding of what the "foos" and "bars" actually stand for
> in your contemporary discussion partners reasoning scheeme.
>
> Or is it?
Well, there's indeed a meaning behind it, apart from "fucked over and over
beyond all repair."
Firstly, there was foo, way back when in the 1930s when I was a bit
younger. Its meaning was not always technical, I think it came from some
kind of comic strip, but I'm not sure.
It became a buzzword soon, it was used all over. Then came up the
technicians. Remembering the german word "furchtbar" (meaning "terrible",
actually) they introduced the term fubar, fucked up beyond all repair. It
later transformed to the well-known foobar. Actually, think of foobar as a
foo with a bar over it - foo inverted.
Later it was used in its current meaning by e.g. dec in their decsys
manuals, go read it if you like, I don't have them handy.
Regards,
Thunder
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