Software developers: what do you use for placeholders?
The traditional programmer placeholder is foo followed by bar, baz, and qux. Certainly I use them, but there are times I need something more, especially if I need names.
That’s where The Flintstones come in. 🙂
I don’t know why I opted to use Fred, Wilma, Betty, Barney, Dino, Hoppy, Pebbles, and Bam-Bam…. even Mr. Slate, Joe Rockhead, and any other silly names like Uncle Tex, Ann Margrock, and Stoney Curtis. But in 15+ years of professional programming, The Flintstones are my go-to.
I write this because right now I’m trying to fix a bug in some address book functionality, which means I need names, and so Fred, Wilma, and Barney came along. I got to wondering what other developers use. Thought I’d post here and troll for answers (either here or via the Facebook cross-post).
Stuff From Hsoi 
I tend to use fake cavemen names, likely pulled from The Far Side. Grog. Zog. Tim. (-;
This is the Thag-o-mizer, named after the late Thag Simmons.
We use the Bradys. The use cases for our software peripherally involve family relationships, ages, and occasionally pets, so the Bradys present just about every case (including non-blood but possibly authorized third party: Alice). Additionally, just about every viewer can clearly see that it’s example data, and most have at least passing familiarity with the relationship set.
Hey, that’s awesome! Perfect data set.
Yeah, the Brady’s have had some bad times in our whiteboard meetings. Divorces, teen pregnancy, Tiger goes through depression, Marcia has a restraining order against Sam, Bobby is a meth-head….
Awesome. 🙂