Talk:Learning Learning/Parable 2

What is foo and foobar? These terms are often seen in American documents about programming where they are often used as items in examples. Are they phrases from some well-known American children's book or something like that, something which Americans have known about since childhood yet which are unknown as regards their origin to people elsewhere?

Foobar derives from an acronym, FUBAR, that was used by the American (and British) military during World War II. It is commonly said to stand for Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition, although there is a much less polite interpretation. I don't know the history of how it became popular in computer science, but by the time I came to MIT in the mid70s, it was quite commonplace as a variable name in programming examples. (See the Wikipedia entry). Walter 21:11, 30 April 2006 (EDT)