What are metasyntactic variables such as Foo, Bar? The difference between Slang, Jargon, and Techspeak.
The line between the vocabulary of hacker slang and technical programming and computer science is very thin and is not known well by programmers, many of whom are not hackers.
What is slang?
Slang is an informal language from mainstream English or non-technical subcultures (bikers, rock fans, surfers, etc). What is jargon Jargon, without a qualifier, denotes informal ‘slangy’ language peculiar to or predominantly found among hackers — the subject of this lexicon.
What is techspeak?
Techspeak is the formal technical vocabulary of programming, computer science, electronics, and other fields connected to hacking.
What is a metasyntactic word?
A word used in examples and understood to stand for whatever thing is under discussion, or any random member of a class of things under discussion. In the computer era, these words are called Metasyntactic variables because They are generally variables in the metalanguage used to talk about programs etc; They are variables whose values are often variables
Common metasyntactic words:
foo, bar, baz, quux, quuux, quuuux...:MIT/Stanford usage, now found everywhere (thanks largely to early versions of this lexicon!). At MIT (but not at Stanford), baz dropped out of use for a while in the 1970s and '80s. A common recent mutation of this sequence inserts quxbefore quux.bazola, ztesch:Stanford (from mid-'70s on).foo, bar, thud, grunt:This series was popular at CMU. Other CMU-associated variables include gorp.foo, bar, bletch:Waterloo University. We are informed that the CS club at Waterloo formerly had a sign on its door reading “Ye Olde Foo Bar and Grill”; this led to an attempt to establish “grill” as the third metasyntactic variable, but it never caught on.foo, bar, fum:This series is reported to be common at XEROX PARC.fred, jim, sheila, barney:See the entry for fred. These tend to be Britishisms.flarp:Popular at Rutgers University and among GOSMACS hackers.zxc, spqr, wombat:Cambridge University (England).shmeBerkeley, GeoWorks, Ingres. Pronounced /shme/ with a short /e/.foo, bar, baz, bongoYale, late 1970s.spam, eggsPython programmers.snorkBrown University, early 1970s.foo, bar, zotHelsinki University of Technology, Finland.blarg, wibbleNew Zealand.toto, titi, tata, tutuFrance.pippo, pluto, paperinoItaly. Pippo /pee�po/ and Paperino /pa�per�ee'�no/ are the Italian names for Goofy and Donald Duck.aap, noot, miesThe Netherlands. These are the first words a child used to learn to spell on a Dutch spelling board.oogle, foogle, boogle; zork, gork, borkThese two series (which may be continued with other initial consonents) are reportedly common in England, and said to go back to Lewis Carroll.
Foo Bar
When ‘foo’ is used in connection with ‘bar’ it has generally traced to the WWII-era Army slang acronym FUBAR (‘Fucked Up Beyond All Repair’ or ‘Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition’), later modified to foobar. Early versions of the Jargon File interpreted this change as a post-war bowdlerization, but it now seems more likely that FUBAR was itself a derivative of ‘foo’ perhaps influenced by German furchtbar (terrible) — ‘foobar’ may actually have been the original form. Further Reading: - http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/index.html - https://learndocker.online/ - Quick Info about SSH and SSH KEYGEN? Read the full article