[fsckboy]

foo and bar, and foobar, have meanings and utility that is undermined by people giving them new definitions and polluting our public namespace. Instead, call the project "farting in an elevator" because that's what you're doing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metasyntactic_variable

* FOO 3. Used very generally as a sample name for absolutely anything.*

https://www.dourish.com/goodies/jargon.html

A similar injustice, theft of the commonweal, was Microsoft was granted a trademark for "windows", as if that was the generic term for... well, "windows"

[npteljes]

Isn't it similar to how your nickname is fsckboy, cleverly iterating over the well-established fsck utility? Or is that something else, because fsckboy is not a published product in the IT space?

[fsckboy]

fooboy would be perfectly fine: a doghouse is not a dog. and the namespace for humans is much more "lexically bound" so we don't tend to get confused when multiple people are named John, just as we don't get confused with multiple cases of foo used as a metasyntactic variable; in fact, we expect it, unlike foobar2000 which demands exclusivity.

Does the "2000" in foobar2000 qualify it somehow? No. Do you make sure to say Windows NT 3.1 every time you mention it? no, you say only the qualifying part that makes your point: Windows, or NT, or 3.1 because the term is decomposable. fsckboy does not suggest "decompose me" other than etymologically suggesting "this guy uses unix; this guy doesn't use the gui; this guy is a wheel"

Economists use the term "widgets" in their examples. "Let's say a factory makes widgets, and the cost function is given by..." If you as a professor were to say "let's say a factory makes cars..." you would get responses from the class of "that doesn't make sense! cars blah blah blah" it's very convenient to use a variable that does not come freighted with meaning.

then there's the case of Little Bobby Tables...

[npteljes]

Valid point! This makes foobar2000 not good in a way that fsckboy passes.

[helloplanets]

You are aware that foobar2000 is 21 years old, right?

[fsckboy]

you don't realize I railed against it at the time, and before that the "windows" debacle?

[helloplanets]

Wasn't aware of that, thanks for the context.