It sounds way less offensive to those who decry the original terminology’s problematic roots but still keeps its meaning intact.
daddy/kitten
I’ve seen ‘Active / Passive’ used, that seems alright. There’s plenty of alternative terms to use without borrowing terminology from sexual roleplay.
Anyway, the Sub is supposed to be the one that’s actually in control for this kind of thing (otherwise you’d just be in an abusive relationship), so that confuses things when you start trying to applying it elsewhere.
Top and bottom
Power bottoms would like a word with you.
Hopefully more than a word
Current is flowing when probing the shunt. It’s getting a little hot
The issue is acronyms; there’s millions of products, schematics, datasheets, and manuals that refer to them as MISO and MOSI with no further explanation. Any new standard that doesn’t fit runs into the 15-competing-standards problem, and ought to be followed by an “AKA MISO” every time it’s used.
I’ve seen ‘Active / Passive’ used, that seems alright
That’s not always an accurate description though.
Consider a redundant two node database system where the second node holds a mirrored copy of the first node. Typically, one node, let’s call it node1, will accept reads and writes from clients and the other node, let’s say node2, will only accept reads from clients but will also implement all writes it receives from node2. That’s how they stay in sync.
In this scenario node2 is not “passive”. It does perform work: it serves reads to clients, and it performs writes, but only the writes received from node1. You could say that node2 slavishly follows what node1 dictates and that node1 is authorative. Master/slave more accurately describes this than active/passive.
There’s plenty of alternative terms to use without borrowing terminology from sexual roleplay.
Do I have news for you …
No it doesn’t sound bad, words don’t need to be thrown away forever just because they’ve been used to describe unfair treatment. I’m so sick of having to relabel so many things that are so far divorced from the social issues they are used to describe. It’s so pointless and has no impact, the code doesn’t care which is master and which is the slave for they are simply descriptive labels.
Are we supposed to never use the words master or slave ever again?? What’s next?
My dev friends, no matter their race, all say the exact same thing. We still use master over main, come at us I guess.
Removed by mod
Right? I get that langauge evolves and things go in and out of fashion, but this self-censoring for things completely unrelated to the original or derogatory meanings is kind of a pointless exercise to me.
master over main
That one is the most stupid one too, because master in git doesn’t even refer to a master/slave relationship. It refers to a different meaning of the word master, namely “an original from which copies can be made”, as in master recording or master key. See 5b in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. And that’s how it’s used in git: any new branches are derived from master. Main just does not have the same nuance, because it does not imply a relationship between the branches, just that it’s somehow more important than the others.
But of course, the real reason it was changed is because for companies like github it’s easier to give in to the crazies who demand this than to fight them.
Is it not the main working branch? Git is a system of change not just recording change. When you start a new project, do you open a new branch or create a whole new repository? That’s not rhetorical I’m genuinely curious.
Is it not the main working branch
No it is not. On large distributed projects for which git was designed, you typically don’t directly work on main/master but you create a working branch to do your changes, and when they are ready you merge them to main/master.
There are many types of git workflows, but main/master usually contains the code that is deployed to production or the latest stable release and not some work in progress.
When you start a new project, do you open a new branch or create a whole new repository?
You have to define “project” for that.
- Is your project a change to existing code -> new branch, merge to main/master when done
- Is your project something new that stands entirely on its own? -> new repository
unfair treatment.
We’re talking about slavery here.
sick of having to relabel
It’s not that hard…to be accommodating.
divorced from the social issues
from your point of view
the code doesn’t care
You’re right. Call it a controller and agent. I know naming is hard, but we’re smart enough to apply our lexicon.
never use the words master or slave ever again? What’s next??
Ah, the slippery slope fallacy.
We still use master over main
The default for new repositories on GitHub has been main for awhile now. You would have had to put in effort to change it to something else. You’re a stick in the mud.
The default for git repositories is still master. Not to be the “real programmers only use CLI” guy, but I feel like
git initisn’t too hipster.…which you get a multiline message telling you to change your ways (Linus doesn’t break UX)…every time you init…weird.
$ git init hint: Using 'master' as the name for the initial branch. This default branch name hint: is subject to change. To configure the initial branch name to use in all hint: of your new repositories, which will suppress this warning, call: hint: hint: git config --global init.defaultBranch <name> hint: hint: Names commonly chosen instead of 'master' are 'main', 'trunk' and hint: 'development'. The just-created branch can be renamed via this command: hint: hint: git branch -m <name>Gonna be honest, I don’t think I ever read that. I think I usually just do
git statusimmediately after to see if all’s well.
The default has been main for awhile.
This is the case in our current version of git (git version 2.28. 0). As of October 1, 2020, any new repository you create on GitHub.com will use main as the default branch.
March 2021 for gitlab
Still the default in git.
…but recommended to be changed every. single. time. you git init. https://lemmy.world/comment/11895670
can you point where ANYTHING is recommended at all there?
Cause it simply says that you can change the name. But “master” is the default. That doesn’t sound like a “recommendation” at all. But just making people aware since some repositories try to force things like “Main”. Almost like the repo you’re using might be enforcing shit that Git in of itself doesn’t give a shit about.
I use it if it’s already in use, but if I’m starting a new design I try to avoid “Master” and I really try to avoid “Slave”
Until proven otherwise, I assume either ignorance or malicious intentions by those who want to rename these “problematic” terms. It does nothing to improve the actual issues.
The false pretense of having done something, is worse than doing nothing. It’s just noise.
To be clear: I don’t mind the changing of terms. I’m too old to care about trivial stuff like
mainvsmaster. But if the reasoning for such a change is dumb and potentially harmful, you’ve lost my respect.There is stuff that was bad, white/blacklist doesn’t make much sense, when the universal “code” for allow/disallow are green and red. Allow and deny list are much better name.
Master main, is fine by me, doesnt make much sense to call it master, its only the main branch nothing else.
Shit that didnt make sense was stuff like removing community episodes from netflix, because or “blackface” without any consideration of why its there or whether it has value, just blanket ban, it was stupid af.
Until a couple of years ago, we had a brand of cheese called ‘Coon’, here in Australia.
The word isn’t used as a slur over here, and the brand was simply named after the founder about 150 years back.
But it was getting increasingly on the nose as cultural influences from the US and everywhere kept seeping in, and it reached a point where it pretty much needed an excuse or at least an explanation.
So they renamed it; now it’s ‘Cheer’.
And at the time, there was all kinds of pearl-clutching about the malicious / disingenuous / officious / vapidly-offended / white-knighting / attention-seeking / etc / etc ‘woke crowd’ stomping in and making them change everything when it was perfectly good and harmless and stuff.
Six months later, nobody gave a single shit any more. Nobody died as a result or was even mildly inconvenienced, no great cultural traditions were lost, and contrary to several predictionsm newly-empowered wokeocrats have not risen from the shadows to re-gender everyone or whatever. It’s that cheese with the blue white and green label, nobody reads it anyway.
My point is that small token changes cost virtually nothing, and even if they achieve little in and of themselves, the mere fact of people being willing to make them is of benefit. Small courtesies, you know? Returning your shopping cart. Smiling at passing dogs. It models kindness and consideration, and promotes the idea that those things have value.
Which is not to suggest that we must avoid giving offense at all consts; far from it. I’m one of those stereotypicallly abrasive genX types raised on ideals of free speech, punk rock, uncomfortable truths and loudly pointing out the elephant in the room no matter how many toes get stepped on. But when there isn’t some burning issue that needs to be addressed, niceties be damned… then yeah, small courtesies. Give people that extra bit of room even if they don’t strictly needed. It’s nice to be nice.
Look back a handful of decades at all those cultural relics that your grandparents considered harmless and invisible. Asking people to drop them may have attracted ridicule and suspicion at the time, but looking back at some of them… oh dear god, really?
Hell, I remember The Black And White Minstrel Show on TV, and if you don’t remember it yourself, it’s far worse than you’re imagining.
I like the world better without things like that, even the little seemingly-trivial ones, and even if it seems like empy virtue-signalling while you’re cleaning them up.
TheBananaKing is offensive. It is a reference to Banana Republics, you know the system where corporations marginalize an entire populace and make them produce their product for profit. You should really change your username. It’s trivial and nobody will care if you change it.
Obviously I do think this is as absurd as asking a company to change it’s name which was named after the founder, but you went there and presented the argument for it. I can at least understand moving away from master/slave in computing especially in future products and revisions but making someone change their business name which is named after the founder’s is ludicrous.
That being said, the only reason why the company changed the name was because it gave them good PR in the form of free advertising- just imagine all the headlines. Since you have no upside to changing yours, I know you won’t do it. Humanity is full of virtue signaling hypocrites who are just out for themselves.
Great response, thanks for writing this. I live in the US, and your Coon -> Cheer cheese reminds me of Land O’Lakes butter – there was a brouhaha over a decision to remove a Native American woman from the packaging. Same result, it’s still in the butter section of the market.
My point is that small token changes cost virtually nothing
Well-put. I’ve been in the position of complaining about this type of change before, and this is a perfect counterpoint to that mindset. I’ve often said “What do we want? Police to face accountability when they commit crimes! What do we actually get? We’re going to use the term ‘main’ instead of ‘master’ for programming things!”
What we so often forget in that moment of “What, I have to re-learn some terminology? Ugh, friction!” is exactly your point about small courtesies. Something doesn’t have to be a Big Damn Deal to be worthwhile.
Land O’Lakes butter – there was a brouhaha over a decision to remove a Native American woman from the packaging
It’s also more historical accurate. They took the native away from the land. https://c.tenor.com/7ggULOq7LuwAAAAC/tenor.gif
I’ve often said “What do we want? Police to face accountability when they commit crimes! What do we actually get? We’re going to use the term ‘main’ instead of ‘master’ for programming things!”
The other thing is that the big stuff is shored up by all the small stuff.
The reason you can’t get police held accountable for crimes, ferinstance, is because there’s a hundred shitty racist / sexist / classist / etc attitudes locking down the idea that the police are both besieged by and protecting us from an underclass of people who deserve neither compassion, rights or justice. Look at the people leaping on the ‘he was no angel’ bandwagon, for god’s sake.
If you want to topple the big overt heinous idea, you need to wash away the soil its roots are sunk into and that’s banked up round its trunk making it look like an inherent part of the landscape.
A spoonful at a time, if need be. It all helps.
Interesting metaphor. I’ve never really gotten that idea – I’ve never seen the connection demonstrated between the “big stuff” and seemingly innocuous things like ‘main’ vs. ‘master’.
Also, a lot of this feels misplaced. IMO, the root problem is one of attitude where the minorities are viewed as less-human, not deserving of equal treatment or equal rights. Change will happen as those attitudes shift. I haven’t seen a connection demonstrated between those attitudes and…well, pretty much any terminology issue that’s come up in recent memory.
Land O’Lakes butter – there was a brouhaha over a decision to remove a Native American woman from the packaging
Maybe I just have no awareness but I have a hard time seeing how this was offensive. Master-slave, sure; coon, sure; those are directly something negative. However a Native American women is not inherently negative and they are using it as a positive symbol of something. What about this is offensive?
Bottom line, I realize I’m not the one offended nor am I the one marketing it, so it really doesn’t impact me, but I also don’t understand
Yeah, I can’t really explain it. Seems kinda silly, doesn’t it?
We’re using server and agent, but im also a proponent of “captain” and “crew”
I mentally replaced cars with boats recently and it’s been inducing nautical terminology everywhere I speak. Cap’n and Crew sounds great for this usage, it feels honest without the shock of great grandpa’s heavyweight authoritarianism. I usually wind up stepping down to Spongebob or Pirates to filter out seriousness too, as long as the packet arrives and the replicas are jolly.
well, i didn’t know that computer hardware could be consenting and engaged with with the BDSM community at large.
Personally i just like master/slave because it’s really fucking obvious how things are supposed to work. Outside of that there are some more specific terminologies that work better in specific applications. Leader follower is pretty cringe, but mostly gets the point across. Main and sub is already established lingo in the electrical field from what i understand.
“main” is shorter than “master”. “sub” is shorter than “slave”. Why worry about social issues when you can just type less and move on? :)
Because I don’t want to be forced to adapt by others. Let me adapt by myself. Adding an option for change is fine, but changing the default is fucking annoying. Fuck Github for changing
master.Because I don’t want to be forced to adapt by others.
We are all forced all the time to follow social norms. Short of moving to a cabin in the woods, this is inescapable, for better or worse. In this master/main debate it seems like we can make some people happy with minimal cost. In the end it is a tiny irrelevance, when compared to other norms being changed.
Cargo Mommy module for Rust comes to mind for me.
This is the best thing I’ve ever seen
Why does this have but plug support lmao.
you know why
Any time spent on nonsense like this is valuable time lost on real issues.
I understand, but we can also gradually transition to friendlier terms so that our very white very male tech bro culture can include some diversith.
I’m going to try to make new git branches with “main” instead of “master”, now, and just not worry about it where I can’t change it.
Ah yes we must be sure to continue making time for all our meetings and reports everyone!!
No we need to replace all industry standard terminology and acronyms every few years or so to keep datasheets unintelligible. Shop teachers need to be able to call their students stupid for not knowing that “tension” used to mean “voltage” 90 years ago.
It still bugs me that the old drive connections are called PATA now and not IDE.
Like new coke, so then we got coke classic
They always were PATA, IDE was always the wrong term to use, but it was commonly used anyways. SATA drives are also IDE drives. It’s not really a useful term anymore because we don’t use separate daughter boards for hard drives anymore.
It’s a real issue to marginalized groups who would otherwise contribute. Less workers=less money. Less revenue=more layoffs. Seems like a real issue to me.
Is it? Or is it a issue for twitter people? I’ve worked with many poc devs and this nonsense was a non issue.
If it’s referring to something like a mother/daughter circuitboard, I’ll use that. If it’s a host/client connection, I’ll use that. If it’s a primary/backup redundancy situation, I’ll use that. And those are just a few examples. There is rarely a good reason to use master/slave nowadays, since most situations already have better descriptors to begin with.
Can’t we just change “slave” to “servant” and carry on?
You could but he has a point. The last time I used master/slave was for IDE drives which was 15+ years ago, and even then only because I happened upon a really old system using IDE drives.
The only thing I see left is “Master” by itself, like master branch. But that makes me think of like a jujitsu master which sounds really cool lol.
Yeah, that definition of “master” is different than master/slave from what I can tell. Think the master copy of an audio recording. There are plenty of perfectly legit uses of “master,” but there’s no reason to use master/slave in this day and age. It was stupid to start doing so to begin with.
There are plenty of perfectly legit uses of “master,”
Like the Digmaster™.
Especially with how we say releases are “cut” from the master branch, it makes a ton of sense.
If anyone is offended by this CS term - you are a certified soyflake.
Looking at your self-description in your profile, you don’t seem like the type to be a raging MAGA idiot, but saying things like “soyflake” really makes you sounds like one.
Whatever you say. I hate it when people get offended by the most irrelevant things, and the word “soyflake” seems perfect for those kinds of people. My invention btw - it’s a combo of soy and snowflake that just came to me as I was writing the above comment. Also, I don’t really like Trump. But I also don’t like Harris even more. Trump is also friendlier to crypto. Harris leans way too much into Marxist ideas for my taste and also I hate wars and the deep state (which is more related to the left than the right). But don’t get me wrong, I also hate hyper-religious MAGA low-IQ hillbillys. I REALLY, REALLY like Elon tho. And I like how he is fighting the obvious left-wing bias we have in cyberspace. I’m a neurospicy guy with spicy multidimensional beliefs. Hate me, but that’s how I am, at least for the moment. I’m fairly fluid when it comes to my beliefs. I’m for example pretty deep into a conspiracy arc atm, but that might change.
Elon is s Nazi. He’d probably have you euthanized if he could.
We agreed on Primary/Secondary and Primary/Replica already. Sorry.
It only sounds bad to the fringest of the fringe that’s deceivingly loud on twitter. Good luck trying to find even one real person thinking those terms should be changed. This kind of stuff is why people vote for Trump.
There is real, actual, injustice in the world that we need to address. Computer terms are not one of them.
But if I have the power to make a small change at work to both be more accurate and correct a minor injustice, why the heck not?! I can’t fix world hunger, but I can at least start a discussion about changing some internal terminology
But why master and slave would be a problem to begin with. I’m still using it in git. I think people that have problem with it must have serious issues. It’s a US American thing. Makes no sense.
Slavery is a world wide problem.
