A new word?

[Mark A. Mandel]

Towse <my.cache at GMAIL.COM> writes:
>>>
The "foo" in code examples is a phonetic rendering of the FU in FUBAR
which is not the "fu" in code-fu.

On 8/15/06, Dave Wilton <dave at wilton.net> wrote:
> This one is additionally interesting because "foo" is commonly used in
> software code examples to stand for a username, password, file name, or
> other variable character string. When I first read Wilson's post, I
thought
> it was an alternate spelling of this.
<<<

But it's not the only source for "foo". I first learned the word from the
comic strip Smokey Stover, in the late 50s or early 60s if I recall
correctly. Programmerese might have already had "foo" < "FUBAR" by then, but
I'd be quite dubious about its having spread beyond what was then still a
small and highly esoteric subculture.

-- Mark A. Mandel
[This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.]

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