Yes, foobar is derived from the military fubar. As for its origin in the computer science world, my source is derived from oral history so should pre-date any published reference. One of my professors at Rochester Institute of Technology happended to have the opportunity to work on one of the first computers w/ a filesystem allowing named files. If I remember correctly, the supported filename length was ~6 chars, and being a pioneering user of this machine, things were usually not in the best of condition; hence "foobar" was a good fit for a temp file name. It was also humorous and kind of catchy, so it spread like a disease to pervade the culture, no doubt giving rise to such other references as the VAX (Failed UniBus Address Register) and that other IBM PC Addressing note...
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Yes, foobar is derived from the military fubar. As for its origin in the computer science world, my source is derived from oral history so should pre-date any published reference. One of my professors at Rochester Institute of Technology happended to have the opportunity to work on one of the first computers w/ a filesystem allowing named files. If I remember correctly, the supported filename length was ~6 chars, and being a pioneering user of this machine, things were usually not in the best of condition; hence "foobar" was a good fit for a temp file name. It was also humorous and kind of catchy, so it spread like a disease to pervade the culture, no doubt giving rise to such other references as the VAX (Failed UniBus Address Register) and that other IBM PC Addressing note...