A programming tutorial author who uses the metasyntactic variable words "foo" "bar" "baz" and related meaningless words when teaching, instead of using real-world names that are easier for beginners to understand and put into context.
Their examples all turn into needlessly incomprehensible messes like "foo = bar + baz", instead of "sum = num1 + num2"
New learners often struggle with this as the examples get more complex, as they have to understand the new concepts being taught, while also carefully scanning over the example code to figure out what does what.
Supporters of this practice typically claim that it helps in teaching beginners to read code more carefully, among other arguments, though opponents of the practice generally consider it unnecessarily frustrating.
Their examples all turn into needlessly incomprehensible messes like "foo = bar + baz", instead of "sum = num1 + num2"
New learners often struggle with this as the examples get more complex, as they have to understand the new concepts being taught, while also carefully scanning over the example code to figure out what does what.
Supporters of this practice typically claim that it helps in teaching beginners to read code more carefully, among other arguments, though opponents of the practice generally consider it unnecessarily frustrating.
I tried learning this new API, but the example code is so hard to read... The writer is a real baztard.
by Lunarex April 3, 2020