Programmers prefer Hexadecimal to Binary because the format of hex numbers is more compact than binary numbers because they can represent large binary numbers with fewer digits.
As a result, they are easier to understand and less terrifying to humans than long binary strings of 1s and 0s.
What is Foo and in programming?
Foo is a metasyntactic variable that is commonly used as a placeholder to name variables or code elements.
It can be used as the name of a variable, particularly when a programmer wishes to assign a name but doesn’t know what name to assign. Once the programmer is certain about what he wants to do, he then replaces the temporary named variable.
Generally, it’s used for values that may change based on certain information or conditions to be passed into the program.
How does Foo works in programming?
Foo is used during the creation of sample codes, particularly when the programmer does not want to create an instant name for each variable value.
The placeholders make it easy to focus on the code’s core concept and functional targets.
When defining a template for making a new user command, the syntax command can be written like this: command foo (arg1, arg2)
The Foo here is the name you give to this command, and the arg1 and arg2 will be the information that will be passed with the command.
What is Bar in programming?
Just like Foo, Bar is also a metasyntactic variable used as a placeholder value.
The only difference between Bar and Foo lies in the fact that Bar is an English word while Foo is not.
In English, the word bar has different meanings but Foo is more like a meaningless word.
Several English programmers prefer to use Foo rather than Bar as their placeholder name because it has no coherent meaning.
2 Core Reasons Programmers Use Foo and Bar
Although there are several metasyntactic variables, Foo and Bar are more commonly used by programmers because:
1. They are popular programming placeholders
Foo and Bar are the most popular metasyntactic variables that programmers use as placeholders.
This makes most programmers familiar with them and even newbie programmers get familiarized with them in the early stages of their programming journey.
Using less popular temporal variables might be confusing even to pro programmers.
They are easy to spot on the fly.
Foo and bar are very much easy to spot along code blocks.
This makes it easy to identify and replace while skimming and scanning code blocks with the eyes.
The origin of Foo and Bar
The video below explains the intrinsic origination of both words.
Conclusion
Foo and Bar are well-known terms used by programmers as temporal placeholder variables. They are preferred to other metasyntactic variables because of their popularity and their incomprehensible nature makes them easy to pinpoint.
And that’s all for now.
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