TY - JOUR
T1 - Foo, Bar, Baz…
T2 - The Metasyntactic Variable and the Programming Language Hierarchy
AU - Lennon, Brian
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, Springer Nature B.V.
PY - 2021/3
Y1 - 2021/3
N2 - This article argues that the English-language nonsense words “foo,” “bar,” “baz,” and others in a more or less standardized sequence of so-called metasyntactic variables commonly used in computer programming ought to be understood as meta-abstractive, re-representing a linguistically derived code’s abstraction of language and the abstraction of the programming language hierarchy itself, making it legible in a manner that rewards culturally oriented study: for example, of programming as a culture and of cultures of software development or engineering.
AB - This article argues that the English-language nonsense words “foo,” “bar,” “baz,” and others in a more or less standardized sequence of so-called metasyntactic variables commonly used in computer programming ought to be understood as meta-abstractive, re-representing a linguistically derived code’s abstraction of language and the abstraction of the programming language hierarchy itself, making it legible in a manner that rewards culturally oriented study: for example, of programming as a culture and of cultures of software development or engineering.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85077073817&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1007/s13347-019-00387-2
DO - 10.1007/s13347-019-00387-2
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85077073817
SN - 2210-5433
VL - 34
SP - 13
EP - 32
JO - Philosophy and Technology
JF - Philosophy and Technology
IS - 1
ER -