~~For all I care this is the funniest joke I've ever told~~
at least https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22780466/why-cant-my-program-compile-under-windows-7-in-french was actually funny
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2026
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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.
I don’t get it
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.
It doesn’t work (as explained in another comment)
beauxeauxeaux
#define EIGHTY (4 * 20)
#define NINETY (4 * 20 + 10)
Danish: // hold my beer
#define NINETY ((int) (4.5 * 20))
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
Yeah, they’d be better off with fous.
Language jokes by people who evidently know bugger all about the language are extremely cringe
your meauxm
to write the General American pronunciation of "mom" with French orthography would be something like "mam".
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.
Or maybe something like "Foutu en l'air" and "Au-delà de tout irréparable"?
Kansas doggie, titties, indian car, pink skirt are strange metasyntactic variables.
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".
Please explain. It's the first dad joke of programming I've ever seen.
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.
The “oo” in “foo” is written “ou” in French
Thus foo -> fou
“Feauxeaux” would be pronounced “fozo” (‘o’ as in “cold”)
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")
Well feauxck
C'est un crazy rod là
I'm French and most people know that oo is not "o." Fou would have been the proper way to write it.
I’m not French, but I read it as “foh-zoh”.
But how do you pronounce zoo?
Zo or zoho
"Omlette du frommage."
Eaux in French is pronounced like o
So foo -> feauxeaux
French Furries: eauxWeaux :3
French people saying "water":
[Obligatory comment about frog fursuits goes here]
Not really. Every programmer in France knows how to speak English, and foo is foo, not anything else.
wheauxeauxsh
Every programmer in France knows how to speak English
Impressive.
I bet you're fun at parties
Mon octets!
I once made faux and vrai constants in Java and used them everywhere for a laugh.