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The "proper name" for the series: foo, bar, etc
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| usenet@DavidFilmer.com 2006-07-27, 6:59 pm |
| Nathan Torkington (whose name should be familiar to those who own a
copy of The Perl Cookbook) was MC for the OSCON keynote addresses
yesterday morning. In one of his comments (as an aside, really), he
mentioned the familiar "throwaway" variable series foo, bar, etc, but
he identified this series by a name that I was not familiar with (and
he suggested there was a "proper" order for the series - I usually see
"baz" as the third term, but Nate said something else).
I can't remember the term he used (and I'm not even sure I heard it
correctly). Does someone know the name of this series? I'm curious...
--
David Filmer (http://DavidFilmer.com)
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| Xicheng Jia 2006-07-27, 6:59 pm |
| usenet@DavidFilmer.com wrote:
> Nathan Torkington (whose name should be familiar to those who own a
> copy of The Perl Cookbook) was MC for the OSCON keynote addresses
> yesterday morning. In one of his comments (as an aside, really), he
> mentioned the familiar "throwaway" variable series foo, bar, etc, but
> he identified this series by a name that I was not familiar with (and
> he suggested there was a "proper" order for the series - I usually see
> "baz" as the third term, but Nate said something else).
>
> I can't remember the term he used (and I'm not even sure I heard it
> correctly). Does someone know the name of this series? I'm curious...
check this out:
http://www.answers.com/topic/metasyntactic-variable
Xicheng
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| Michele Dondi 2006-07-27, 6:59 pm |
| On 27 Jul 2006 11:49:56 -0700, usenet@DavidFilmer.com wrote:
>yesterday morning. In one of his comments (as an aside, really), he
>mentioned the familiar "throwaway" variable series foo, bar, etc, but
>he identified this series by a name that I was not familiar with (and
A good starting point would be the jargon file. See:
http://catb.org/jargon/html/F/foo.html
Michele
--
{$_=pack'B8'x25,unpack'A8'x32,$a^=sub{po
p^pop}->(map substr
(($a||=join'',map--$|x$_,(unpack'w',unpack'u','G^<R<Y]*YB='
..'KYU;*EVH[.FHF2W+#"\Z*5TI/ER<Z`S(G.DZZ9OX0Z')=~/./g)x2,$_,
256),7,249);s/[^\w,]/ /g;$ \=/^J/?$/:"\r";print,redo}#JAPH,
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| usenet@DavidFilmer.com 2006-07-27, 6:59 pm |
| Xicheng Jia wrote:
> check this out:
>
> http://www.answers.com/topic/metasyntactic-variable
Yes, that is it, thanks (and thanks also, Michele). The term that
Nathan used was, indeed, "metasyntactic variable." Apparently (if I
understood correctly) our good Mr. Torkington also subscribes to the
MIT variation of the series which drops "baz" (making the third term
"quux" which I don't think I've ever seen before).
--
David Filmer (http://DavidFilmer.com)
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| Ben Morrow 2006-07-27, 6:59 pm |
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Quoth usenet@DavidFilmer.com:
> Nathan Torkington (whose name should be familiar to those who own a
> copy of The Perl Cookbook) was MC for the OSCON keynote addresses
> yesterday morning. In one of his comments (as an aside, really), he
> mentioned the familiar "throwaway" variable series foo, bar, etc, but
> he identified this series by a name that I was not familiar with (and
> he suggested there was a "proper" order for the series - I usually see
> "baz" as the third term, but Nate said something else).
>
> I can't remember the term he used (and I'm not even sure I heard it
> correctly). Does someone know the name of this series? I'm curious...
They're generally called 'metasyntactic variables': see
http://catb.org/jargon/html/F/foo.html .
Ben
--
Giles: It's very common for Indian spirits to change to animal form.
Buffy: [...] and, 'Native American'. G: Sorry? B: We don't say 'Indian'.
G: Oh, right, yes; always behind on the terms... yes, still trying not to refer
to you lot as 'bloody colonials'. [Buffy, 'Pangs'] benmorrow@tiscali.co.uk
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| anno4000@radom.zrz.tu-berlin.de 2006-07-28, 3:58 am |
| <usenet@DavidFilmer.com> wrote in comp.lang.perl.misc:
[foo, bar, baz]
> I can't remember the term he used (and I'm not even sure I heard it
> correctly). Does someone know the name of this series? I'm curious...
Ask Gaspode -- the mongrel of Discworld fame. It's one of favorite
words.
Anno
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| morrison 2006-07-28, 6:59 pm |
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usenet@DavidFilmer.com wrote:
> I can't remember the term he used (and I'm not even sure I heard it
> correctly). Does someone know the name of this series? I'm curious...
http://search.cpan.org/dist/Acme-MetaSyntactic :-)
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