Who ever came up with Foo for this forum?

[Propools]

Who ever cam up with Foo for this thread?

According to Wiki:

The word foo itself has no meaning and is merely a commonly used logical representation that is used much like the letters 'x' and 'y' in algebra.

I've read that:

"FOO" often appeared in the "Smokey Stover" comic strip by Bill Holman. This surrealist strip about a fireman appeared in various American comics including "Everybody's" between about 1930 and 1952.

Foo may just be a short vernacular for Fooey ......OR.......
Is Foo just Foo. Tomorrow night, I'm not gonna say Foo but "Boo", as per the halloween vernacular standards committee (version 304.61.4a).

[Marcia]

I've believed that it's based on "fubar," which I always thought represented a "wild card" in Perl programming, but according to the definition at Wikipedia I guess I was wrong [google.com].

Incidentally, it's always been a secret desire of my heart that if I were young and capitalized, I'd love to start a soup and sandwich bar type lunch kitchen in Silicon Valley and call it the "Foo Bar."

Correction:

Wrong spelling! It is actually an internal variable [google.com] in programming, so that must be the reason for the original naming of this forum.

[edited by: Marcia at 4:57 pm (utc) on Oct. 30, 2007]

[Propools]

Marcia, great idea. I think someone may have kinda 'beat you to the punch'?
[ddj.com ] ;)

[LifeinAsia]

It definitely predates Perl- foobar was our prof's favorite variable name in my Pascal class in '85.

Hmmm, showing my age...

Another interesting read on the Etymology of Foo: [faqs.org...]

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Just as long as you don't have a stutter and say Foofoo ...
[urbandictionary.com...]

[King_Fisher]

Foo
Fooey (on you)
FooFoo (ostentatious)
Egg Foo Yong (egg dish)
Foo ManChu (moustache)
Foo Fighters (rock band)

Still begs the question! Who named this section of the forum? Was it Brett T.?

Second question what does Foo mean in Chinese?...KF

[grandpa]

Who named this section of the forum?

There may be a clue in the forum Charter [webmasterworld.com]

I would like to know why the Charter name is FOO!, but we only get Foo in the index?

[Propools]

Well, maybe someone, not naming names, had a complex or favorite saying. For example, Why is 'The Wall' thread called 'The Wall'? Using a little Freudism, would that mean someone has a propensity towards Pink Floyd? Great Song too.

[rocknbil]

^ ^ I'm going with the graffiti allegory on that one, "back in the day" the IRC bots had a "wall" members could drop notes on.

Foo Fighters (rock band)

And before that, in WWII, "Foo Fighters" were unexplained "mysterious orange balls" that seemed to fly an intelligent path, many of which followed some of the planes. Know this, no one ever said UFO.

The term Foo, as I understand it, originally came from a 1930's comic strip about a firefighter, "where there's foo there's fire." How it got into programming . . . . well . . . :-)

Personally, I prefer Bill the Cat's "ACK."

if (result) { &WOOT; }
else { &ACK; }