Re: Test

["Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@attbi.com>]

>> Where do "foo", "bar" and "baz" come from?
> 
> 
> I don't know. Foobar is supposed to come from fubar, an acronym for 
> fv<ked up badly all round, but this is the 1st I've heard of baz.

Foo actually comes from the TMRC (Tech Model Railroad Club) at MIT.  In 
the early 60's there was probably ten times as much effort put into the 
automatic switching network than into the actual HO gauge layout.  It 
was all run with telephone stepper switches (moving in 1964 to a 
crossbar switch)  From any of about a dozen control stations, you could 
dial the number of a control block on the layout and take control of a 
train sitting there.  The system would follow the train from block to 
block, avoid moving you into another occupied control block and all that 
good stuff.  If you were approaching a set of points from one of the 
legs, the points would be set correctly.  If you were approaching from 
the other direction you could dial the number of the points/switch and 
change the direction you would take.

There was of course a large display on the wall with the status of the 
layout, showing occupied blocks and switch settings, etc.  There was 
also a display with a character and two digits that showed error 
conditions like two trains headed for each other, and so on.  The two 
digits were the block or switch number associatied with the conflict. 
F-codes were used for more general problems, and F00 was an indication 
that the system had crashed--the logic had tried to resolve an 
unanticipated condition.

Since most TMRC hackers were also into computers, and many worked 
part-time on Project MAC, in the MIT AI lab, or with the TX0 and PDP-1 
machines in Building 16, FOO became the first metavariable.  BAR became 
the second metavariable due to the pun with FUBAR.  AFAIK, the third 
metavariable was always FOOBAR, while the fourth was either FOOB or BAZ. 
  BAZ is again a homonym--what comes after BAR? BAS.  How do you 
pronounce it?  BAZ.  So use BAZ and avoid the confusion which can come 
from reading (or thinking) about a program verbally and typing something 
other than what was meant.

Why was FU never used as a metavariable? Same problem, there is a 
tendancy to read it as eff-you.  While often a sentiment you wanted to 
express to the computer when debugging, it could again lead to misspellings.