in reply to The origin of the word "obfu"

obfu is certainly the shortened obfuscate:

1536, from L. obfuscatus, pp. of obfuscare "to darken," from ob "over" + fuscare "to make dark," from fuscus "dark."

UPDATE: After some digging, I may have found the first ever internet related use of the term obfu; used in a post by
John W. Cobb on Feb 20 1992, at 11:18 am.
John's signature includes the line, -Olympic Medalist in Obfu-skating (in sci.physics.)
John may now reside at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Perhaps an ORNL Monk can find him for comment?

Later references are made in alt.sources - Nov 12 1993, 11:01 pm by Ury Segal.


SciDude
The first dog barks... all other dogs bark at the first dog.

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Re^2: The origin of the word "obfu"
by eyepopslikeamosquito (Archbishop) on Jan 16, 2005 at 04:52 UTC

    Thanks a lot! I like that 1993 question from Ury Segal:

    Where can I find an ftp which holds the Obfu. C context (sic) (the programs you can't read)?
    Close, but no cigar because he uses "Obfu." (note the trailing ".") and it's not used as a noun.

    I well remember after my first post here I got a couple of chatterbox messages saying "nice obfu" or "I liked your obfu". I remember thinking "what is this obfu business"? :)

    In summary, I think the PM-meaning of obfu is more specific than simply an abbreviation of "obfuscated". Its canonical use, as in "that was a nice obfu!", is as a noun to describe an artistic composition of obfuscated code.

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