this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2026
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Programmer Humor

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~~For all I care this is the funniest joke I've ever told~~

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[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 47 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)
[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

#define NINETY (4 * 20 + 10)

[–] mormegil@programming.dev 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Danish: // hold my beer

#define NINETY ((int) (4.5 * 20))

[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

lemme make an addendum to the Zen of Python

[–] Mubelotix@jlai.lu 43 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I tried so hard to understand as a french and still had to look for the answer. OP's mistake is that it is pronounced fozo, not foo. The x is only silent when at the end of a word

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 13 points 2 months ago

Yeah, they’d be better off with fous.

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 26 points 2 months ago (3 children)

The venerable Jargon File has the French metasyntactic variables (i.e. the equivalents to foo and bar) as toto, titi, tata and tutu.

Or to take this in another direction: foo sounds like French "fou" which means "mad" (as in "insane"), so "coucou" might be an interesting alternative.

[–] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Kansas doggie, titties, indian car, pink skirt are strange metasyntactic variables.

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 3 points 2 months ago

I figure they're more likely related, in spirit and vocalisation if not etymologically, to the French phrase «et patati, et patata», translatable as "blah blah blah" or "yada yada yada".

[–] Venator@lemmy.nz 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Or maybe something like "Foutu en l'air" and "Au-delà de tout irréparable"?

[–] one_old_coder@piefed.social 18 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Please explain. It's the first dad joke of programming I've ever seen.

[–] Ragdoll_X@sh.itjust.works 19 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

The French pronounce the letters "eaux" as just "o", and foo and bar are placeholder names for functions that are often used in programming tutorials.

[–] RustyNova@lemmy.world 44 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Yes, but it's "oh", not "oo" (as in football)

So it's read "foh-oh". If you want to be correct, it's "Fou - barre - base" ("foo - bar - baz")

[–] Ragdoll_X@sh.itjust.works 20 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Well feauxck

[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

C'est un crazy rod là

[–] one_old_coder@piefed.social 21 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I'm French and most people know that oo is not "o." Fou would have been the proper way to write it.

[–] moody@lemmings.world 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

But how do you pronounce zoo?

[–] snooggums@piefed.world 15 points 2 months ago

"Omlette du frommage."

[–] TheYojimbo@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago
[–] sik0fewl@piefed.ca 3 points 2 months ago

I’m not French, but I read it as “foh-zoh”.

[–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 4 points 2 months ago

The “oo” in “foo” is written “ou” in French

Thus foo -> fou

“Feauxeaux” would be pronounced “fozo” (‘o’ as in “cold”)

[–] MajinBlayze@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Eaux in French is pronounced like o

So foo -> feauxeaux

[–] HuntressHimbo@lemmy.zip 20 points 2 months ago (2 children)

French Furries: eauxWeaux :3

[–] Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 2 months ago

French people saying "water":

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago

[Obligatory comment about frog fursuits goes here]

[–] one_old_coder@piefed.social 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Not really. Every programmer in France knows how to speak English, and foo is foo, not anything else.

[–] snooggums@piefed.world 9 points 2 months ago

wheauxeauxsh

[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 6 points 2 months ago

Every programmer in France knows how to speak English

Impressive.

[–] MajinBlayze@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

I bet you're fun at parties

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Language jokes by people who evidently know bugger all about the language are extremely cringe

[–] Ragdoll_X@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] FishFace@piefed.social 8 points 2 months ago

to write the General American pronunciation of "mom" with French orthography would be something like "mam".

[–] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] adb@lemmy.ml 13 points 2 months ago

The best jokes are still in the comments though

Regarding the other errors, it seems your compiler is simply on strike. This can happen occasionally when compiling french code, and should fix itself in a few days.

[–] Tja@programming.dev 7 points 2 months ago

Mon octets!

[–] Flamekebab@piefed.social 6 points 2 months ago

Don't reinvent the wheel, learn the Baguette on Snails framework!

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 4 points 2 months ago

I once made faux and vrai constants in Java and used them everywhere for a laugh.

[–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] Randelung@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

eaux is pronounced o in the world oiseaux, which means birds. foo is a common stand-in name in programming, along with bar. foo has two o's, which are both replaced with the french spelling.

[–] northernlights@lemmy.today 1 points 2 months ago

Except that no, it's not how it's pronounced.

[–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz -3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

It doesn’t work (as explained in another comment)

[–] Randelung@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

beauxeauxeaux

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

of course it doesn't! if my user tags are not lying, you are probably using a hungarian operating system, so you should be using this:

megh fó(n):
    visszatér n+1

megh vendéglő(n):
    visszatér n-1
[–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

if my user tags are not lying, you are probably using a hungarian operating system

Ohhh, you can see that ? Which clients implement that feature ? You learn something new about lemmy everyday xD

Btw “using a hungarian operating system” is false

And

megh fó(n):
    visszatér n+1

megh vendéglő(n):
    visszatér n-1

Isn’t correct either

It should be

függ fú(n):
    visszaküld n+1

függ bár(n):
    visszaküld n-1

LLM translations aren’t very good when it comes to languages spoken by such a few people x)

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ohhh, you can see that ? Which clients implement that feature ? You learn something new about lemmy everyday xD

It's Voyager, but these are not public tags, I just tagged you earlier :)

Isn’t correct either

well it depends. the code in OP was mimicking python, where you begin functions with the shorthand for "definition", not "function"

LLM translations aren’t very good when it comes to languages spoken by such a few people x)

bojler eladó! de ha nem kell, most megfizetsz megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseidért!

[–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It's Voyager, but these are not public tags, I just tagged you earlier :)

Oh, nice !

I didn’t pay attention to the python thing, though the ”fú” still stands

bojler eladó!

Neeeeee, de egy fasz vagyok