in reply to What's your favourite non-word?

I played Infocom games long ago, and although I knew about 'foo', 'bar', 'baz', etc., they never felt right to me, as if somehow I was desecrating their memory. (Yeah, I know, I have issues.)

Anyway, I tend to end up using whatever comes to mind. 'blarg' (or 'blargh') has been a favorite lately, mostly because I've been reading 3 finger salute in my spare time, and my standard "I need two values here" words are 'monkey' and 'noodle'.

Preferably, when it's a type of data, say names, I always try to come up with the funniest-sounding thing, say "Hubert P. Hamsterlicker, Sr." or "Bertram German Wallaby". Needing dates, nonsensical values such as "99/74/-5" both fill space and provide values that can aid in data validation. Needing regular English text, I string together nonsensical but vaguely disturbing concepts, much like the word salad of a psychotic: "The English deputy authorized another vicious piranha, but undersea stock values were going down."

Sure, it takes a little time, but it's mildly entertaining.

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You are what you think.

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Re: What's your favourite non-word?
by Anonymous Monk on May 28, 2002 at 20:25 UTC
    Oh, I'm a helpless 'blah' addict. Not just in my code either! Oh sure, there's always the need for stuff like this...

    blah( $blah, \%blah );

    ...but I use it during testing and such as well. Don't try to convince me you've never pulled a './blah.pl > blah' before ;)! I can't help resorting to animals at times also, $monkey is a long-time favorite of mine.

    The Fallen Monkey