Ask HN: Why “hello world” and “foo:bar”?

Pretty sure the "Hello, World" got its start from the first program used in "The C Programming Language" by Kernighan and Ritchie, back in 1978. I've always presumed the foo and bar come from FUBAR[0] which seems to have originated in WWII army lingo.

[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/FUBAR

In that sense, foobar, or fubar literally means "terrible"?

Yes, if it's fucked up beyond all recognition, it's bad.

Not sure about "Hello World!" besides being a cute phrase for new programs to say.

Foo Bar I would assume is from F.U.B.A.R., or F%&#ed Up Beyond All Repair. If so, then maybe 2 simple variables is all you can safely tweak? No clue, really.

https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3092.txt

This is a gem :).

Clearly explains = " ... FUBAR (`Fucked Up Beyond All Repair'), later modified to foobar".

I thought "Hello World" was the first example in the K&R C manual?

https://riptutorial.com/c/example/3675/original--hello--worl...

The first example from the most popular programming book in the world?