foo and bar

so, what do these words mean anyway?
I've found them in here, in another website I go to, in the Allegro Documentation and in a lot of places...

but what the hell do they mean? and where did they come from?

Oskilian

they come from mars and they mean nothing... it's just damn fun to say..... FOOBAR!

(i, frankly, have no idea)

I constantly see Authors use these words in example code problems that I read all the time. I thinks it's because they are probably ex-millitary. A popular acronym used in the millitary(U.S) for a problem is FUBAR = F***ed Up Beyond All Recognition.

//Excuse my Encrypted French on that one.

I could be totally wrong but that's my guess on that.

Have you seen the film Tango & Cash with Kurt Russel & Slyvester Stallone. Thats where I first heard it and it's spelt FUBAR, it means "F***ed Up Beyond All Recognotion".
Maybe FOOBAR has a meaning also I don't know?

I hate it when that happens.
Grrrrrr

Moderatly illuminating from dictionary.com:

FOOBAR n. [very common] Another widely used metasyntactic variable; see foo for etymology. Probably originally propagated through DECsystem manuals by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1960s and early 1970s; confirmed sightings there go back to 1972. Hackers do _not_ generally use this to mean FUBAR in either the slang or jargon sense. See also Fred Foobar. In RFC1639, "FOOBAR" was made an abbreviation for "FTP Operation Over Big Address Records", but this was an obvious backronym.

A little less illuminating, albeit far more detailed (also from dictionary.com):

FOOBAR

Jargon File: Foo

I can tell you this: there's a word in russian that sound the exact same and it has the same meaning as 'yuck' in English.... I tell you, this is all a russian conspiracy (those communists)... trying to get into your heads... beware!

...or it could mean some other junk that happens to reside in my head at the moment... :)

is that true? (I mean the russian word)

Oskilian

Yeah... as much as I like to make things up, this is as true as it gets... ask anyone you know that speaks Russian (j/k :) )... right, I didn't expect you would :D I used to live in a former part of Russia (that would be Crimea...)

Foo, this stuff sucks...

"Foobar" is NOT a word in Russian. "Foo" is an old slang word that can mean 'bad' or 'yuck'. I lived in Russia, and I usually only heard the word 'foo' when an old lady was yelling at a dog, or something along those lines.

Let's see...The first time I heard foo and bar, were in an Assembly Language book, which was trying to teach other number bases. It was really funny, but you know, it works. I learned binary and hex pretty fast.

>>Foobar" is NOT a word in Russian.

I never said it was...

>>"Foo" is an old slang word that can mean 'bad' or 'yuck'. I lived in Russia, and I usually only heard the word 'foo' when an old lady was yelling at a dog, or something along those lines.

I get it, an old russian lady (babusha) :)

I thought it origniated from hacker speak ( i think i remember something baout it in HD)

FOOBAR and RTFM