Dev Matters

Ever wondered why Alice, Bob, Eve, and Mallory keep showing up in cryptography and programming examples? Discover their origins, roles, and why developers can’t stop using these legendary placeholder names.

Ever wondered why programming examples mostly use foo, bar and baz? These words trace back to military slang (FUBAR) and early computing culture. Used as neutral placeholders, they help programmers focus on logic rather than real-world names. This post explores their origins, evolution, and why they remain an inside joke in coding.