[comp.sys.mac] "foo"

fozzard@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Richard Fozzard) (04/08/89)

In article <669@occrsh.ATT.COM> jdsb@occrsh.ATT.COM (John_Babcock) writes:
>P.S. What is foo in foo.bat?

My guess is that "foo", a common scratch name for things (files, etc.), esp.
in LISP, comes from the military expression "foobar" or "fubar" - Fucked Up
Beyond All Repair.

Any other theories?



========================================================================
Richard Fozzard
University of Colorado				"Serendipity empowers"
fozzard@boulder.colorado.edu

jyen@cs.utexas.edu (John Yen) (04/09/89)

In article <7999@boulder.Colorado.EDU>, fozzard@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Richard Fozzard) writes:
> In article <669@occrsh.ATT.COM> jdsb@occrsh.ATT.COM (John_Babcock) writes:
> >P.S. What is foo in foo.bat?
> 
> My guess is that "foo", a common scratch name for things (files, etc.), esp.
> in LISP, comes from the military expression "foobar" or "fubar" - Fucked Up
> Beyond All Repair.

  Richard!  And after all those other people tiptoed around the f-word.

  I'm just kidding.  J*O*K*E.

John Yen (jyen@cs.utexas.edu)

templon@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (jeffrey templon) (04/10/89)

I thought that it was "beyond all recognition", not "beyond all repair."
Sounds a little nuttier, I think.  In the same vein as SNAFU: "situation
normal, all f**ked up."

				jt