Whet does the word FOO come from?
char...@writeme.com
> I read occasionally messages, programming books or even code
>that contains the "word" FOO.
Mr. Bar, who used to post here often years ago, used to give examples
of code using cryptic variable names such as "A", "B", "A1", "B1".
If I remember correctly, a certain Mr. Ulbart Long (ULONG), complained
about it one day. Next post, from Frank Bar, had names such as Foo,
Fum, and Far. Somehow, FOO is all that now remains of BAR.
Stephane T. Roll
David Ness
I thought `Foo' was a corruption of variable names that entered
the programming lexicon in the early 1960s. If so, they were
probably introduced by Frank Bar's ancestor, the well known
(and certainly oft quoted) F.U. Bar.
To the best of my knowledge the relationship between Mr. Bar and
the almost equally well known S. N. Afu is suspected but not well
documented. It may have been a product of their military experience.
Allen J. Baum
In article <34eefdad...@news.xs4all.nl>, Tanstaafl@?geocities.com
(Tanstaafl) wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I read occasionally messages, programming books or even code
> that contains the "word" FOO.
>
> Where did it come from?
> And what, if anything, does it mean?
Let me do something and answer this without referring to a copy of the
Hacker's dictionary.
Foo is a contraction of Foobar (you'll often find them together, e.g. a
variable named Foo and another namerd Bar)
which is a misspelling of Fubar,
which is an old (military?) acronym for Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition--
except, being the military, they usual chose a word other than 'Fouled'.
--
***********************************************
* Allen J. Baum *
* Digital Semiconductor *
* 181 Lytton Ave. *
* Palo Alto, CA 94306 *
***********************************************
Rackmount
Tanstaafl <Tanstaafl@?geocities.com> wrote:
: I read occasionally messages, programming books or even code
: that contains the "word" FOO.
: Where did it come from?
: And what, if anything, does it mean?
I could be mistaken, but I do believe that 'foo' comes from 'foobar',
which is commonly used to refer to example filenames. Thus, 'foo', 'bar',
and 'foobar' can be used in an example. Kind of a play on
F.U.B.A.R. --> F**ked Up Beyond Any Recognition. :)
I may be COMPLETELY incorrect on this, so if I am, someone please post a
correction. I have seen many a UNIX manual use these words in command
line examples.
--
QUOTE: <No words of wisdom for today, kiddies.>
Stephen S. Edwards II -- r a k m o u n t @ p r i m e n e t . c o m
Homepage: http://www.primenet.com/~rakmount (under construction)
Pub FTP: ftp://ftp.primenet.com/users/p/rakmount
Marco S Hyman
David Ness <dn...@home.com> writes:
> To the best of my knowledge the relationship between Mr. Bar and
> the almost equally well known S. N. Afu is suspected but not well
> documented. It may have been a product of their military experience.
Ehhh.... Talking about my relatives?
// marc
Donald Jardine
Originally from a WW2 slang word FUBAR, an acronym for "F----d Up Beyond All
Recognition". Possibly Royal Air Force, but in widespread use. "The New
Hacker's Dictionary (1991) has a long exposition on it, and states,
"The etymology of hackish FOO is obscure", although when coupled with
BAR undoubtedly originates with FUBAR. Use of FOO alone has been traced back
to 1938 in the NHD.
--
Donald Jardine, Kingston Ont. Canada
BBReynolds
Ah, goes back to early days of CICS: in PL/I, one set up addressibility with
"base address registers", XXXBAR, YYYBAR, some vaguely obscene ...BAR; us old
farts saw the relationship with the Smokey Stover term FOOBAR; back propagation
soon made FOO a variable.
And if you don't know what Smokey Stover was, ask your (grand)parents.
--
Bruce B. Reynolds, Systems Consultant:
Founder of Trailing Edge Technologies, Glenside PA and Niles IL:
Sweeping Up Behind Data Processing Dinosaurs
William Hamblen
On Mon, 16 Feb 1998 19:21:39 GMT, Tanstaafl@?geocities.com (Tanstaafl)
wrote:
> I read occasionally messages, programming books or even code
>that contains the "word" FOO.
>
> Where did it come from?
> And what, if anything, does it mean?
From the Jargon File:
FOO 1. [from Yiddish "feh" or the Anglo-Saxon "fooey!"] interj. Term
of disgust. 2. [from FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition),
from WWII, often seen as FOOBAR] Name used for temporary programs,
or samples of three-letter names. Other similar words are BAR, BAZ
(Stanford corruption of BAR), and rarely RAG. These have been used
in Pogo as well. 3. Used very generally as a sample name for
absolutely anything. The old `Smokey Stover' comic strips often
included the word FOO, in particular on license plates of cars.
MOBY FOO: See MOBY.
David Given
In article <abaum-16029...@terrapin.pa.dec.com>,
Allen J. Baum <ab...@pa.dec.com> wrote:
[...]
>Foo is a contraction of Foobar (you'll often find them together, e.g. a
>variable named Foo and another namerd Bar)
So what about Baz, the third of the traditional triplet? I've had
temporary files called foo, bar and baz many a time.
David Given
d...@freeyellow.com
Joe Morris
[mailed and posted]
bbrey...@aol.com (BBReynolds) writes:
>Ah, goes back to early days of CICS: in PL/I, one set up addressibility with
>"base address registers", XXXBAR, YYYBAR, some vaguely obscene ...BAR; us old
>farts saw the relationship with the Smokey Stover term FOOBAR; back propagation
>soon made FOO a variable.
Um...the Smokey Stover strip frequently had "FOO" pasted over just about
anything that would hold a few pencil lines, but I don't recall ever seeing
"FOOBAR".
And regardless of its ultimate etymology (which I doubt will ever be
resolved to anybody's satisfaction) the use of "FOO" as a programming
metasymbol far predates both CICS and PL/I. I recall using it back
in the early 1960s, and at that time one of the entries in the club
dictionary published by the MIT Model Railroad Club had an entry
somewhat along the lines of:
FOO: the first syllable of the sacred chant phrase FOO MANE PADME
HUM. Our first obligation is to keep the foo counters turning.
(Yes, that's part of the entry for FOO in The New Hacker's Dictionary.
Yes, I wrote that part of the entry.)
And a couple of years before that the MIT alleged humor magazine VooDoo
(look at the initials) had an article that featured a drawing of the
Foo Counters mounted on a (model) railroad car. IIRC the artwork
was done by Alan Kotok of TMRC...and I wish that I still had a copy
of the article.
>And if you don't know what Smokey Stover was, ask your (grand)parents.
A couple of years ago I found a new collection of the Smokey Stover
strips in a bookstore, so they aren't *completely* lost. And the
slapstick comedy was still as funny as I remembered it when I first
read them in the Sunday newspaper comics pages.
Joe Morris
George R. Gonzalez
My first encounter with Foo was when I sent a bug report to DEC sometime
around 1974. They had a bug in the PDP-8 text editor where if you hit
Control-C while the editor was writing out the file, the editor would
expand all the TABs in your document to spaces.
They sent back a test case where the filename they used was FOO.TX
So apparently it ws in common usage out east around that time.
It was unknown here in the prairies until then.
John Varela
Charlie Gibbs
In article <6ccd0i$m...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>
ja...@world.net.att.net (John Varela) writes:
>Another popular expression in Smokey Stover was "potrzebie" (sp?),
>which I later discovered used as an exclamation by a character
>(the evil sergeant?) in _Beau Geste_ but I still have no idea
>what it means.
Although I'm old enough to remember seeing Smokey Stover, I'm not
old enough to remember much more about it. I don't remember seeing
"potrzebie" there, although it often appeared in Mad magazine.
I do remember seeing Smokey Stover drinking foo juice, though.
--
cgi...@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs)
Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply.
Tom Harrington
David Ness (dn...@home.com) wrote:
: To the best of my knowledge the relationship between Mr. Bar and
: the almost equally well known S. N. Afu is suspected but not well
: documented. It may have been a product of their military experience.
Didn't Bar have a slightly less-well-known colleague by the name
of F. Baz? You don't hear about Baz quite as often as Bar, but he
seems to have left his mark.
--
Tom Harrington --------- t...@rmii.com -------- http://rainbow.rmii.com/~tph
"Imagine 100,000 articles a week on every topic under the sun in no
particular order!" -Bob Allisat on his vision for the ideal Usenet
Cookie's Revenge: ftp://ftp.rmi.net/pub2/tph/cookie/cookies-revenge.sit.hqx
John Varela
bidscan
On 17 Feb 1998 13:59:07 GMT, jcmo...@mwunix.mitre.org (Joe Morris)
wrote:
>Um...the Smokey Stover strip frequently had "FOO" pasted over just >
> about anything that would hold a few pencil lines, but I don't recall ever seeing
>"FOOBAR".
I always understood it to be FUBAR,
standing for "F**ked Up Beyond All Recognition" .... something I
first heard around the late '60s or early '70s, normally in the
ellectrical/electronics field, usually after a particularly inept
apprentice had applied his "talents" to a piece of equipment,.
Cheers
Frank
Remove "binned-" from the reply address to respond via e-mail
David Ness
Tom Harrington wrote:
>
> David Ness (dn...@home.com) wrote:
>
> : To the best of my knowledge the relationship between Mr. Bar and
> : the almost equally well known S. N. Afu is suspected but not well
> : documented. It may have been a product of their military experience.
>
> Didn't Bar have a slightly less-well-known colleague by the name
> of F. Baz? You don't hear about Baz quite as often as Bar, but he
> seems to have left his mark.
If you look carefully, I think you'll find that he actually
`... left his MOC...', as I seem to remember BAZ MOC being written
up somewhere...
Charlie Gibbs
In article <6cfa9j$p...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>
ja...@world.net.att.net (John Varela) writes:
>On Tue, 17 Feb 1998 19:12:15, "Charlie Gibbs" <cgi...@sky.bus.com>
>wrote:
>
>> Although I'm old enough to remember seeing Smokey Stover, I'm not
>> old enough to remember much more about it. I don't remember seeing
>> "potrzebie" there, although it often appeared in Mad magazine.
>
>Perhaps I did confuse them. Either way, what does potrzebie *mean*?
Damfino. Did it mean anything? The only reference I can recall is
a note in Mad stating: "There are 37 way to pronounce 'potrzebie',
all of them incorrect."
Paul Repacholi ( prep )
The term, I think, predate WWII, and are reputed to come
from the long lines division of Western Electric. 38227, 76238,
and 82738 were dialed severity codes used for initial reporting
in of the trouble.
--
~paul ( prep ) Paul Repacholi,
1 Crescent Rd.,
zrep...@cc.curtin.edu.au Kalamunda,
+61 (08) 9257-1001 Western Australia. 6076
William Hamblen
On 18 Feb 1998 18:46:11 GMT, ja...@world.net.att.net (John Varela)
wrote:
>On Tue, 17 Feb 1998 19:12:15, "Charlie Gibbs" <cgi...@sky.bus.com> wrote:
>
>> Although I'm old enough to remember seeing Smokey Stover, I'm not
>> old enough to remember much more about it. I don't remember seeing
>> "potrzebie" there, although it often appeared in Mad magazine.
>
>Perhaps I did confuse them. Either way, what does potrzebie *mean*?
Didn't it have something to do with 43-man squamish?
Eugene A. Pallat
Foobar is a corruption of the acronym fubar which I think originated during
World War 2. It stood for Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition.
Remove the '-glop-' for sending email to me.
Gene eapa...@orion-glop-data.com
Orion Data Systems
Solicitations to me must be pre-approved in writing
by me after soliciitor pays $1,000 US per incident.
Solicitations sent to me are proof you accept this
notice and will send a certified check forthwith.
Derry Hamilton
Hi,
foobar is a corruption of fubar, aa acronym coined in the British Army
arount WW1. Stands for Fucked Up Beyond All Repair. (literal quotation so
excuse the language)
Its use as the first two metasyntactic variables is understandable, but
does anyone know where baz (as the third) originated?
Derry Hamilton
ras...@tardis.ed.ac.uk
jmfb...@ma.ultranet.com
In article
<Pine.GSO.3.96.98022...@tardis.tardis.ed.ac.uk>,
Derry Hamilton <ras...@tardis.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>Hi,
>foobar is a corruption of fubar, aa acronym coined in the British Army
>arount WW1. Stands for Fucked Up Beyond All Repair. (literal quotation so
>excuse the language)
>Its use as the first two metasyntactic variables is understandable, but
>does anyone know where baz (as the third) originated?
I started using baz in 1969. The timesharing system that we had
was very strict about filenames and had several extensions
reserved, none of which contained the letter sequence foobar.
Now the format for filenames were xxxxxx.xxx (stored as SIXBIT).
Whenever I wanted to reserve a file for place holding or
temporary backup, it was understood that FOO.BAR was a good
name for a scratch file. Now, whenever I needed two scratch
files, I also used FOO.BAZ. That way a "delete *.bar,*.baz"
would purge all personal scratch files and clean up the disk.
/BAH
Tom Harrington
Paul Repacholi ( prep ) (zrep...@cc.curtin.edu.au) wrote:
: The term, I think, predate WWII, and are reputed to come
: from the long lines division of Western Electric. 38227, 76238,
: and 82738 were dialed severity codes used for initial reporting
: in of the trouble.
82738? I got the other two, but so far this one's not parsing into
anything familiar. I'm guessing it ends in ...fu.
--
Tom Harrington --------- t...@rmii.com -------- http://rainbow.rmii.com/~tph
CAUTION: This planet may be hazardous to simplistic, black-and-white
world-views. Proceed at your own risk.
Robert Billing
In article <Pine.GSO.3.96.98022...@tardis.tardis.ed.ac.uk>
ras...@tardis.ed.ac.uk "Derry Hamilton" writes:
> foobar is a corruption of fubar, aa acronym coined in the British Army
> arount WW1. Stands for Fucked Up Beyond All Repair. (literal quotation so
> excuse the language)
I was once told that FUBAR and SNAFU were used in telegrams to
describe bomb damage to telephone exchanges. FUBAR indicated that the
entire exchange would have to be replaced (it was basically a smoking
crater) and SNAFU (situation normal, all f****d up) to describe an
exchange that was out of action but repairable, for example if all that
was needed was to replace the power supply. (Yes, exchanges have PSUs,
I've been inside one).
--
I am Robert Billing, Christian, inventor, traveller, cook and animal
lover, I live near 0:46W 51:22N. http://www.tnglwood.demon.co.uk/
"Bother," said Pooh, "Eeyore, ready two photon torpedoes and lock
phasers on the Heffalump, Piglet, meet me in transporter room three"
Marco S Hyman
t...@longhorn.uucp (Tom Harrington) writes:
> 82738? I got the other two, but so far this one's not parsing into
> anything familiar. I'm guessing it ends in ...fu.
tarfu: things are really f**ked up
// marc
Gene Buckle
: 82738? I got the other two, but so far this one's not parsing into
: anything familiar. I'm guessing it ends in ...fu.
TARFU. Things are *really* fucked up.
HTH.
g.
Craig Pickering
Tanstaafl (Tanstaafl@?geocities.com) wrote:
: Hi,
: I read occasionally messages, programming books or even code
: that contains the "word" FOO.
: Where did it come from?
: And what, if anything, does it mean?
Easy one. "Foo" and its friend "bar" come from the acronym "FUBAR". It got
turned into "foo bar" and "bar" doesn't get much attention these days.
FUBAR? Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.
-Pik.
--
-- PiKTag v0.01L
> Compulsive lying aside, I don't have a single fault.
Daniel P. B. Smith
In article <6cc53b$m...@top.mitre.org>,
Joe Morris <jcmo...@mwunix.mitre.org> wrote:
>[mailed and posted]
>
>bbrey...@aol.com (BBReynolds) writes:
>
>anything that would hold a few pencil lines, but I don't recall ever seeing
>"FOOBAR".
That is the same way I remember it.
>And regardless of its ultimate etymology (which I doubt will ever be
>resolved to anybody's satisfaction) the use of "FOO" as a programming
>metasymbol far predates both CICS and PL/I. I recall using it back
>in the early 1960s,
Yes. I wasn't a member of the TMRC and don't know what "foo counters"
you are referring to, but Dick Gruen had a device in his dorm room, the
usual assemblage of B-battery, resistors, capacitors, and NE-2 neon tubes,
which he called a "foo counter." This would have been circa 1964 or so.
>And a couple of years before that the MIT alleged humor magazine VooDoo
a) Well, _I_ thought it was funny. b) Kennedy's assassination occurred on
a Friday. It is easy to for me to remember this trivia point, because
Voo Doo (there was a space in it) always came out on a Friday, they often
had some kind of "Voo Doo stunt," and when I heard about the assassination
my initial reaction was, "It's the Voo Doo stunt," because on the whole
Voo Doo was somewhere to the right of the M.I.T. student body, which in
turn was somewhere to the right of other colleges, which in turn were
nowhere near as far left as they became a few short years later. And
(a point which many forget) Kennedy was not very popular and was the
target of a good deal of not-all-that-right-wing hatred, mean-spirited
jokes, etc. And a Kennedy assassination would have been just the sort of
thing Voo Doo crowd would have thought was a knee-slapper.
>A couple of years ago I found a new collection of the Smokey Stover
>strips in a bookstore, so they aren't *completely* lost. And the
>slapstick comedy was still as funny as I remembered it when I first
>read them in the Sunday newspaper comics pages.
PLEASE, PLEASE... exact title? publisher? author/or editor? ISBN number?
I still remember the strip in which Smokey and his sidekick are drilling
holes in the roof of the firestation. They are each using a brace and
bit. Smokey says, "That's funny... this one-inch bit is making six-inch
holes." The holes are not irregular at all, they are precise, perfectly
round six-inch holes. His sidekick says, "Well, why don't you use this
half-inch bit--then you'll only get three-inch holes." The perfect
metaphor for every time I've ever used a mystery fudge factor on
something.
>Joe Morris
--
Daniel P. B. Smith
dpbs...@world.std.com
Simon Slavin
In article <6ck0o0$dvr$1...@decius.ultra.net>,
jmfb...@ma.ultranet.com wrote:
> [snip]
> Whenever I wanted to reserve a file for place holding or
> temporary backup, it was understood that FOO.BAR was a good
> name for a scratch file. Now, whenever I needed two scratch
> files, I also used FOO.BAZ. That way a "delete *.bar,*.baz"
> would purge all personal scratch files and clean up the disk.
Are you suggesting that it was normal to call a second version
of a file the same name except with a 'Z' at the end ? In other
words, if I had two files, 'ARITH.FOR' and 'ARITH.FOZ', would
it be assumed that the second one was a backup of the first ?
That would give us an etymology of 'BAZ', something which we
haven't had until now.
Simon.
--
Simon Slavin -- Computer Contractor. | Urban "phenomena"? WTF are urban
http://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk | "phenomena"? Street lamps? --
Check email address for UBE-guard. | mp...@panix.com (Madeleine Page)
My s/ware deletes unread >3 UBEs/day.| Junk email not welcome at this site.
Richard Drushel
Simon Slavin (slavins.at.hearsay.demon.co.uk@localhost) spake unto the ether:
: Are you suggesting that it was normal to call a second version
: of a file the same name except with a 'Z' at the end ? In other
: words, if I had two files, 'ARITH.FOR' and 'ARITH.FOZ', would
: it be assumed that the second one was a backup of the first ?
: That would give us an etymology of 'BAZ', something which we
: haven't had until now.
<uninformed_speculation>
Maybe the "Z" is a corruption or mutation of "2"? I often use
filenames like "MYFILE.DA2", "MYLIST.LS2", etc., when making changes
to an existing "MYFILE.DAT" or "MYLIST.LST", and I'm not sure if I want
to keep them.
Does 'BAZ" predate BASIC, which might give files like "MYPROG.BAS",
"MYPROG.BA2"? The way people still rag on BASIC, maybe it's some kind of
pejorative.
</uninformed_speculation>
*Rich*
--
Richard F. Drushel, Ph.D. | "Aplysia californica" is your taxonomic
Department of Biology, Slug Division | nomenclature. / A slug, by any other
Case Western Reserve University | name, is still a slug by nature.
Cleveland, Ohio 44106-7080 U.S.A. | -- apologies to Data, "Ode to Spot"
Daniel P. B. Smith
In article <6cfa9j$p...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>,
John Varela <ja...@world.net.att.net> wrote:
>On Tue, 17 Feb 1998 19:12:15, "Charlie Gibbs" <cgi...@sky.bus.com> wrote:
>
>> Although I'm old enough to remember seeing Smokey Stover, I'm not
>> old enough to remember much more about it. I don't remember seeing
>> "potrzebie" there, although it often appeared in Mad magazine.
>
>Perhaps I did confuse them. Either way, what does potrzebie *mean*?
>
> (delete . between world and net to e-mail me)
I don't know... but I do know that the great Donald Knuth once had an
article published in _Mad_ entitled "The Potrzebie System of Weights and
Measures."
Joe Morris
[mailed and posted]
dpbs...@world.std.com (Daniel P. B. Smith) writes:
>Joe Morris <jcmo...@mwunix.mitre.org> wrote:
>>And regardless of its ultimate etymology (which I doubt will ever be
>>resolved to anybody's satisfaction) the use of "FOO" as a programming
>>metasymbol far predates both CICS and PL/I. I recall using it back
>>in the early 1960s,
>Yes. I wasn't a member of the TMRC and don't know what "foo counters"
>you are referring to, but Dick Gruen had a device in his dorm room, the
>usual assemblage of B-battery, resistors, capacitors, and NE-2 neon tubes,
>which he called a "foo counter." This would have been circa 1964 or so.
Ah yes, Richard Gruen (whose business card read "factotum"); the
last time I saw his name was in the credits (?) in the source for
some of the software in TOPS-10. He was the program manager for WTBS
(long before Ted Turner bought the call letters -- at the time it was
the student radio station at MIT ("Technology Broadcasting System"). I
assume that this was in his East Campus room?
>>A couple of years ago I found a new collection of the Smokey Stover
>>strips in a bookstore, so they aren't *completely* lost. And the
>>slapstick comedy was still as funny as I remembered it when I first
>>read them in the Sunday newspaper comics pages.
>PLEASE, PLEASE... exact title? publisher? author/or editor? ISBN number?
I'll see if I can find it.
Joe Morris
Joe Morris
dpbs...@world.std.com (Daniel P. B. Smith) writes:
>I don't know... but I do know that the great Donald Knuth once had an
>article published in _Mad_ entitled "The Potrzebie System of Weights and
>Measures."
...although considering Knuth's exalted position in the computer industry
perhaps the citation should reference the publication as "The Journal of
Applied Insanity." Doesn't "J. App. Insanity" sound more impressive
than "_Mad_ Magazine"? <g>
Joe Morris
Benz
Joe Morris <jcmo...@mwunix.mitre.org> wrote in article
<6cruro$m...@top.mitre.org>...
<snip>
> >>And regardless of its ultimate etymology (which I doubt will ever be
> >>resolved to anybody's satisfaction) the use of "FOO" as a programming
> >>metasymbol far predates both CICS and PL/I. I recall using it back
> >>in the early 1960s,
Scuse me - been away a while - so if this has been said already....
I seem to remember that the term 'foo bar' comes from old WWII military
slang 'fu bar',
which means 'f***** up beyond all recognition'. Etymoligically, it's
related to the term 'snafu', which
means 'situation normal - all f***** up'. In order to avoid offending the
less salty among the civilians in the post-war defense industry, where
computers spent their toddler years, it was modified to 'foo bar', which
hid the 'dirty words' from all but the veterans, from whence it became a
kind of cult joke among engineers.
Allen J. Baum
"Charlie Gibbs" <cgi...@sky.bus.com> wrote:
> >> Although I'm old enough to remember seeing Smokey Stover, I'm not
> >> old enough to remember much more about it. I don't remember seeing
> >> "potrzebie" there, although it often appeared in Mad magazine.
John Varela <ja...@world.net.att.net> wrote:
> >Perhaps I did confuse them. Either way, what does potrzebie *mean*?
dpbs...@world.std.com (Daniel P. B. Smith) wrote:
> I don't know... but I do know that the great Donald Knuth once had an
> article published in _Mad_ entitled "The Potrzebie System of Weights and
> Measures."
>
Yes, this is true - it was his first published paper.
Issue #58 or thereabouts.
--
***********************************************
* Allen J. Baum *
* Digital Semiconductor *
* 181 Lytton Ave. *
* Palo Alto, CA 94306 *
***********************************************
John Atwood
>dpbs...@world.std.com (Daniel P. B. Smith) wrote:
>> I don't know... but I do know that the great Donald Knuth once had an
>> article published in _Mad_ entitled "The Potrzebie System of Weights and
>> Measures."
>>
>Yes, this is true - it was his first published paper.
>Issue #58 or thereabouts.
From the man himself (via his home page):
The potrzebie system of weights and measures. MAD Magazine 33 (June 1957),
36--37. (Illustrated by Wallace Wood.) Reprinted in Like, MAD (New York:
Signet Pocket Books No. S1838, 1960), 139--145. Page 36 reprinted in
Completely MAD by Maria Reidelbach (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1991),
191.
jmfb...@ma.ultranet.com
In article <B1166A79...@hearsay.demon.co.uk>,
slavins.at.hearsay.demon.co.uk@localhost (Simon Slavin) wrote:
>In article <6ck0o0$dvr$1...@decius.ultra.net>,
>jmfb...@ma.ultranet.com wrote:
>
>> [snip]
>> Whenever I wanted to reserve a file for place holding or
>> temporary backup, it was understood that FOO.BAR was a good
>> name for a scratch file. Now, whenever I needed two scratch
>> files, I also used FOO.BAZ. That way a "delete *.bar,*.baz"
>> would purge all personal scratch files and clean up the disk.
>
>of a file the same name except with a 'Z' at the end ? In other
>words, if I had two files, 'ARITH.FOR' and 'ARITH.FOZ', would
>it be assumed that the second one was a backup of the first ?
>That would give us an etymology of 'BAZ', something which we
>haven't had until now.
It was my personal convention _because_ it wasn't any program's
convention. I did a lot of file and data manipulation and
sometimes I needed a fallback if I was playing with a file.
The extension *.BAZ was a "safe" one because nobody else
used it. It was also understood that a "DELETE *.BAZ"
command was OK for anybody who wanted to clean up a directory.
Doesn't anybody use scratch files anymore?
/BAH
Tom Watson
In article <B1166A79...@hearsay.demon.co.uk>,
slavins.at.hearsay.demon.co.uk@localhost (Simon Slavin) wrote:
> In article <6ck0o0$dvr$1...@decius.ultra.net>,
> jmfb...@ma.ultranet.com wrote:
>
> > [snip]
> > Whenever I wanted to reserve a file for place holding or
> > temporary backup, it was understood that FOO.BAR was a good
> > name for a scratch file. Now, whenever I needed two scratch
> > files, I also used FOO.BAZ. That way a "delete *.bar,*.baz"
> > would purge all personal scratch files and clean up the disk.
>
> Are you suggesting that it was normal to call a second version
> of a file the same name except with a 'Z' at the end ? In other
> words, if I had two files, 'ARITH.FOR' and 'ARITH.FOZ', would
> it be assumed that the second one was a backup of the first ?
> That would give us an etymology of 'BAZ', something which we
> haven't had until now.
>
I suspect that the 'bar' got changed to 'baz' because someone wanted to to
collate AFTER 'bar'. They noted that 'z' is the last letter in the
(english) alphabet, and went from there. This would explain extensions
that get corrupted into ones ending in 'z'.
This all sounds logical, given the input, but given the subject matter,
anything might fit. :-)
--
t...@cagent.com (Home: t...@johana.com)
Please forward spam to: anna...@hr.house.gov (my Congressman), I do.
jmfb...@ma.ultranet.com
In article <tsw-250298...@cypher.cagent.com>,
yelling here, I'm spelling accurately.
BAS was an extension reserved for BASIC.
BAT was an extension reserved for MPB (batch processor).
BAU was a vowel; I didn't like vowels--unpronouncable :-).
BAW, BAX, BAY --can't remember why I didn't like these.
BAZ was my convention for use as a second copy and was
easy to pronounce clearly.
/BAH