Hello! I can confirm your posting (or musings) regarding the word "foo". It was indeed the license plate indicator for that illustrious gentleman. I remember seeing the comic strip someplace and the plate struck me as amusing.
I believe the words "Fubar" and "foobar" surfaced during the Un*x epoch, they were certainly popular during the BSD time period. There's a reference of sorts in the book that Cliff Stoll wrote on his efforts to track down a nest of crackers during the middle eighties. As for the rest of it, I suspect Google might know but I'm not going to be accepting bets on it. I see no real reason why someone at ITSO would get his proboscis out of joint concerning the meaning of words such as these. -- Gregg C Levine [email protected] "The Force will be with you always." Obi-Wan Kenobi > -----Original Message----- > From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of RPN01 > Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 11:46 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [LINUX-390] OT (was Re: RHEL 5.4 Beta is out in the wild) > > Actually, "foo" is unrelated to "fubar". Foo was the licence plate on Smokey > Stover's two wheeled car in the comic strips, dating back to the 1920's or > 1930's. "Fubar" and "foobar" came into use later, as far as I can tell, but > it's hard to trace things like that. > > -- > Robert P. Nix Mayo Foundation .~. > RO-OE-5-55 200 First Street SW /V\ > 507-284-0844 Rochester, MN 55905 /( )\ > ----- ^^-^^ > "In theory, theory and practice are the same, but > in practice, theory and practice are different." > > > > > On 7/2/09 8:20 AM, "Michael MacIsaac" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Rob, > > > >> Maybe you could get a position at the ITSO as an editor and flag > >> the phrase "kill a daemon" > > > > I recently got a variable named "foo" edited out by an ITSO editor. > > Because everyone knows that foo is a variant of fubar which is an acronym > > with a *bad word* in it - "foo" might offend a reader. The compromise was > > to name the variable "goo". > > > > The next step may be to disallow all variables starting with "f", and who > > knows, maybe "s" too, for good measure :)) > > > > "Mike MacIsaac" <[email protected]> (845) 433-7061 > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or > visit > > http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or > visit > http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
