Talk:Foo

Deletion

I'm nominating this article to be deleted, as it is already included in wiktionary and no further purpose is served by an encyclopedic article on wikipedia.--Pckilgore 18:38, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I am against deletion, unless The dictionary definition of foo at Wiktionary is significantly upgraded. When I try to explain the concept of "Foo" to a non-programmer, this article has use. The current wiktionary page doesn't adequately define anything. DSParillo 20:13, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I am also against deletion. The concept of foo is a useful one to be able to link to. While the metasyntactic variable article is good, I think foo (being the most-used metasyntactic variable) merits its own page. It's an important part of programmer culture. bensonk 21:30, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

What about "bin"?

It is always left out of the picture, but it is a big part of the pseudo-variable movement. I mean - come on - it is in Assembly Language Step By Step!

Mrcsparker 15:23, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

What about the millitary etymology?

Shouldn't this be mentioned? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Grimboy (talk • contribs) 16:32, 10 February 2007 (UTC).

Am I correct in assuming that foo actually stood for "Function, object oriented" or does it precede OO? Mishlai 07:22, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

That's a backronym, foo's use as a metasyntactic variable precedes OO.

Military etymology added with link to RFC3092. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.193.37.147 (talk) 19:30, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Is this important enough?

Hmmm, does this really deserve its own article? Or should it maybe just be made of Metasyntactic variable? If people think that it should remain... then is it possible to expand on this article? --DFRussia 02:32, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

The metasyntactic variable page is mixed with many instances of "nonsense words", thereby confusing the idea of such a variable. The article is in dire need of a cleanup. kf4yfd (talk) 16:42, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Foo

i use this as a slang to refer to other people similar to dude should that be added here —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.225.112.39 (talk) 22:02, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

ITS A JOKE FOLKS

Foo is used in beginning computer science classes as an alternative to variables X or A. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.161.20.226 (talk) 10:09, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

"FOO" is a joke, yes. It is also not a real word. I have many times talked with persons for whom English is not their native tongue and they are confused by the extensive use of the word "FOO" in RFC's. This article helps to explain. kf4yfd (talk) 16:45, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Depends on what you mean by a "real word". It has syntactic and contextual meaning. It can be rendered via symbolic elements - sounds or graphic code. It has attained widespread use and recognition. I'd say it's a real enough word. Applejuicefool (talk) 20:28, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

The Article's Explanation Could Be Better & Clearer

I really did not understand the article or 'get' the explanation of 'foo', which, of course, is the whole point of the article. I'm not a programmer, however I am curious and reasonably intelligent (which is how the target audience of Wikipedia is described). Maybe those who understand the concept of 'foo' can improve and add to the description, especially with the objective of making it understandable to someone who is not a programmer and who has never heard the term used before. Perhaps some examples of it's use and maybe quotes from a noted individual or text may help to clarify its use. Thank you. AnFu (talk) 00:49, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it could all be replaced with something clear and gobbledegookless like :"foo is a nonsense word used to stand for something else for which there is no name, or the name of which the speaker cannot think of at the moment. In common speech, thing or thimgummy or whatsit perform the same function as foo."

Nuttyskin (talk) 15:29, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Foobar

There appears a seperate article at foobar taht deals with the same topic. I suggest the articles be merged (at Foo - foobar might serve as disambig to Foo and FUBAR). There does not appear significant difference between Foo and foobar (placeholder used in computer programming) to deserve seperate attention.--ZayZayEM (talk) 03:34, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

• I doubt this is a good idea. --Fixman^{Praise me} 23:08, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Of course it's a good idea. Having two nearly-identical articles covering essentially the same topic is a duplication of effort and fragmentation of information. They have been merged. - Jason A. Quest (talk) 13:34, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Image Logo

I know The Logo:

Foo

Type of site	Foobar repository
Owner	Foobar Foundation
Created by	Fobaz community

Woodsy dong peep (talk) 11:46, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Disambiguation

There seems to be disagreement over where this should redirect, so, to avoid argument, I've changed it to a disambiguation page. It's possible that other meanings could be added (sparingly). Dbfirs 23:46, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

@Dbfirs: There is already a disambiguation page for "Foo" at Foo (disambiguation). If this should be a disambiguation page, then that page should be moved here instead. Perhaps the best way to settle this would be with a requested move? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 04:59, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, missed that. Perhaps we should just redirect this page to there? What does anyone else think? Dbfirs 08:41, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

If this page should be a disambiguation page, then moving Foo (disambiguation) here would be better as it preserves the attribution history. Whether a disambiguation page is copyrightable is a bit of a grey area, but it's probably better to credit the authors just in case, and the edit history is the most natural way to do that. If we just redirected the page and copied the contents here, that would be a cut and paste move, and we usually perform a history merge to fix those. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:43, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Actually, hold that thought - I can see I misunderstood. I read that as "redirect that page to here", rather than "redirect this page to there". In that case, what we do is decided by WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, which says that the disambiguation page should be located at the name of the term in question. We only add "(disambiguation)" for terms where there is a primary topic. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:52, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that, when someone types "foo" in the search bar, they are most likely to be looking for Foobar, but at least that article has a link back to the disambiguation page, so they can find what they want. I only got involved because other people had been arguing over the redirect. I've no particular preference. Dbfirs 09:54, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Today (The Smashing Pumpkins song) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 22:00, 19 March 2023 (UTC)