whats up with foobar?

[DaFunkyUnit]

Why is it that the word 'foo' is always used as examples in UNIX coding? After reading many, many sources (I'm taking an operating systems class in school) I've noticed that 'foo' is always used as the textbook example filename. Is it pretty much the same story as "Hello, world!" ?

someone please enlighten us!

[Cubsfan]

Everyone has a different explination it seems. Here's a discussion on it at /.

http://slashdot.org/askslashdot/99/02/12/1433221.shtml

Some more ideas:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foobar

[DaFunkyUnit]

wow, thats cool.

theres so much subtle humor in computer science, you know? like how the "number of the beast" corresponds to having global read/write permissions (in UNIX), or how you have to "Reap dead children" when you're doing process management.

:)