19 ms·

GitHub is working on renaming default branch from “master”

169 points by dacohenii 6y ago

lowmemcpu 6y ago
Ok, I have to ask - will one of them be a synonym? I imagine there are millions of hardcoded words out there that will break unless they both map to the same thing.
- dacohenii 6y ago
  I'm not really sure what this would look like in practice. Perhaps this would only apply to new repositories, or maybe it will only be the default default. It has never been mandatory for the default branch to be called "master" -- it's just the default value from git and GitHub. I suppose we will just need to wait and see what happens.
chaosqueue 6y ago
Here comes the newspeak.
- psychometry 6y ago
  There's a reason "slippery slope" is often followed by "fallacy"...
  - partyboat1586 6y ago
    Some slippery slopes are real others are not. Idk why people argue like it can only be one way or the other.
  - ewff23g23g3 6y ago
    Sorry mate, your master decided you don't have a privilege to post a content here and marked it as flagged.
  - LudwigNagasena 6y ago
    Yet no one really believes that it is a fallacy.
j-pb 6y ago
Who broke the build scripts?
- zucker42 6y ago
  I assume this only applies to new repositories.
  - NobodyNada 6y ago
    So... 5 years from now will we have to constantly guess whether old repos are using “master” or “main”?
    - zucker42 6y ago
      Master is already not consistent. For some repos it's the development branch, for some it's the stable branch, for some it's something else, for some it doesn't exist.
    - m0xte 6y ago
      This. It is hard coded all over the place in thousands of things. In fact is it even git any more if the master branch isn't called master? Nope it's an incompatible fork by Microsoft purely by a chance encounter of irony.
      - zucker42 6y ago
        Are you being sarcastic? Where exactly do you depend on knowing the name of the default branch of an unnamed repository, and how do you handle cases where people delete the master branch.
        m0xte 6y ago
        git diff master..branch
        qazpot 6y ago
        > how do you handle cases where people delete the master branch. I don't think anybody would want people who delete the master branch.
silveraxe93 6y ago
This is just so damn pointless. It will cause some "great" controversy, people will be called white supremacists for refusing to stop saying master. Now even if this catches on, then yeah OK I'll start naming my branches as main unless I want to make a political statement, which would just add to confusion when developing. Meanwhile these people will pat each other on the back, yell "yeah! We sure made a difference." while black people keep getting fucked by the system and their lives don't get improved one iota. just... why?
- mansr 6y ago
  > just... why? It's called "virtue signalling," I'm told.
  - shockinglytrue 6y ago
    I prefer Newspeak
- ojhughes 6y ago
  Stop with the wrongthinking, you may be reported to your employer
- mx60s 6y ago
  I love how this is making everyone mad at progressives. Not one progressive asked for this and not one progressive is going to call people white supremacists for using the word "master". Let's call a spade a spade and recognize that this was a big company trying to sound "woke" without doing anything.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > Not one progressive asked for this Is the SJW crowd not progressive? Are they not "real progressives"?
    - crocodiletears 6y ago
      A lot of oughties progressives fail to realize that they won the lions share of the first phase of the culture war going into the early teens. At that point, they stopped being progressive, and instead became the status quo (not necessarily conservative, but relativistically more adjacent to conservatism now). Because they can't see this, they're loath to let go of the label in spite of the fact that they're now 'just' liberals. Left-aligned culture warriors (sjws) are far more deserving of the label 'progressive', and generally the target of teeth gnashing about progressives. This is often taken as a personal, and non-sequiturial affront by those previous recipients of the label.
programmarchy 6y ago
"main" does seem like an objectively better word to use. The definition fits better in almost every use case. May seem like a silly gesture to some, but imagine feeling an emotional trigger every time you had to use a basic tool for your job. That'd piss me off.
- wackro 6y ago
  The key word there being 'imagine'.
- gruez 6y ago
  counterpoint: I'll be pissed off and emotionally triggered, knowing that they bent over backwards just to be "politically correct" or "progressive".
  - tom_ 6y ago
    Then I’m a bit surprised you don’t have more sympathy.
  - Traster 6y ago
    It's a bit of a paradox isn't it, if you really are emotionally triggered by people making a gesture to black developers, doesn't that suggest that developers are really easily emotionally triggered, and therefore making the gesture is actually important and therefore you shouldn't be triggered because it's not bending over backward to be politically correct it's actually tackling something that's a real issue?
    - throwaway1997 6y ago
      What's the issue in this case? What do I put in my CV in place of "Master's degree" in case it triggers someone?
      - Traster 6y ago
        I wouldn't be listing your git commits on your CV in the first place.
ilovetux 6y ago
I kind of get it, there's no real reason the default branch should be named master, but where do we stop? Will everyone with a master's degree have to update their resumes?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- catacombs 6y ago
  It stops when almost every word is offensive to someone in one way, shape, or form, and we are all forced to communicate in binary... excuse me, ones and zeros.
Traster 6y ago
Using the term master doesn't bother me - in my opinion the idea of the master/slave dynamic is much less problematic when you're talking in the context of bits and bytes flicking up and down on some silicon. Having said that, if it bothers people, change it. I do suspect to a certain extent though that people are more interested in changing it because they're worried it might be offensive to other people than actually finding it offensive themselves. The follow up tweet from the original reqeustor is: > 1. “Main” is shorter! Yay brevity! > 2. It’s even easier to remember, tbh > 3. If it makes any of my teammates feel an ounce more comfortable, let’s do it! > 4. If it prevents even a single black person from feeling more isolated in the tech community, feels like a no brainer to me! 1 - Not sure that's an important reason, why not change it to just "M"? 2 - Not for people who are already using git and have lived their entire lives on master (or for those more considerate developers, have lived their entire lives PRing into master) 3 & 4 - This is what I'm talking about, is there anyone who is actually feeling isolated and uncomfortable, or are there just a load of white people who have focused on literally the most unimportant aspect of being a black person in the tech community?
- floatingatoll 6y ago
  As a mysql DBA, this terminology issue made me uncomfortable for most of the past 15 years. I'm uncertain whether I agree that it's relevant in GitHub terms since we don't have upstream/master -> fork/slave, but it's inspired me to think about the term "master" in the mysql, git, and art proofing spaces simultaneously, so I'm glad they're making the change and I look forward to finding out what I think about it after some time has passed.
  - detaro 6y ago
    Databases have been slowly shifting to other terms for a while now. I.e. consensus algorithms typically speak about "leader election", replication systems use "primary"/"replica", ...
- apta 6y ago
  > or are there just a load of white people who have focused on literally the most unimportant aspect of being a black person in the tech community? Seems that way. It's actually offensive to suggest that such a person should be offended in the first place. It's a "we know better than you and you should be offended" attitude.
magnio 6y ago
Seem unnecessary to me, though I do like less keystrokes to type. If the word master makes some black people feel uncomfortable, the issue isn't git. It lies in the society.
throwaway9482 6y ago
The thought police are growing everyday
zucker42 6y ago
I'm a strong supporter of social justice. I don't really object to people putting in work to change language like that if they think it's important. Especially when the work required is minimal. That said, this is slightly ridiculous. Have customers seriously complained about the term "master"? And my impression was that the usage was more similar to "master copy" than "master of the plantation". Honestly, it's frustrating to me that companies are willing to take token actions like this that are almost completely irrelevant in the scheme of things but unwilling to lose profit by, for example, not contracting with ICE. Actions like this feels like veiled advertising, even when, as I'm sure is true in this case, there are genuine motives behind them. It seems like the structure of corporations allows only the genuine intentions that require little sacrifice to be acted upon. It's a stupid subject to have a flame war over, but I don't understand the logic at all.
- perlpimp 6y ago
  It is when corporations have embraced and monetized counterculture. As if they are part of us but if analyzed by psychologists corporation was an individual was denoted a psychopath, that is why motions like this make me cringe and die a little on inside a little.
- snlacks 6y ago
  I don't think it's because people are offended at the use of the word master, in this case. I think, that it's symbolic. By making a point of getting rid of the word master, you're showing that black lives matter.
  - techntoke 6y ago
    What about all other races that are discriminated against or people that are bullied? Do those matter?
    - gyrgtyn 6y ago
      terrible
    - 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
fasteddie31003 6y ago
But what about master-slave DB replication!
- sgt 6y ago
  In PostgreSQL it is master / standby. It still uses the word "master" though so you can rest assured that a purple haired transperson on Twitter is going to be triggered by it sooner or later.
- detaro 6y ago
  Typically replaced with primary-replica terminology.
kickopotomus 6y ago
Honest question: are there people out there who are legitimately uncomfortable/upset about the usage of the terms "master" and "slave" in the context of technology? Or is this more so people trying to be too socially "woke" and assuming something to be offensive when it is not? Master/slave are pretty commonly used terms whenever we talk about things like distributed systems and communication buses. Essentially everywhere that one process, controller, computer, etc. is meant to have authority or control over some other entity or entities, this is often described as a master-slave relationship.
- zucker42 6y ago
  Yes, there are legitimately people who believe the master-slave terminology trivializes American slavery. They are mostly in the U.S. and probably a minority of programmers but they exist. But in this case, there's not even a slave branch.
  - microcolonel 6y ago
    Also America is just one among the 100% of populated parts of the world that had chattel slavery at some point, it's pretty rich that ignorant people from America tricking themselves into being offended by this sort of thing should have any effect on other people's behaviour.
  - kickopotomus 6y ago
    > Yes, there are legitimately people who believe the master-slave terminology trivializes American slavery. I suppose this is something I don't understand. How do terms become trivial when used in separate contexts? They are simply descriptive terms. Furthermore, from an etymological standpoint, the term "master" has been used to signify preeminence since the 13th century. E.g. master's degree, master-key, master copy, etc. This is the meaning that seems more applicable to a version control system.
    - zucker42 6y ago
      I agree with you in this case, since master is used by itself, similarly to master key. But I'll try to provide some insight into the argument specifically regarding master and slave used together. > How do terms become trivial when used in separate contexts? They are simply descriptive terms. This is where I think you are incorrect. Master and slave are not simply descriptive terms. Pretty obviously, they are an analogy, just like, for example, male and female plugs. The point of analogies is that they use existing relationships to describe new relationships, so that understanding the new relationships is easier. So I think the issue for some people is that in master/slave architectures, the master node neither brutally beats the slave nodes nor justifies its power through a theory of racial superiority. Maybe a more accurate analogy would be that one node is the leader and the others are the followers. Maybe we should only use the master/slave in situations which are actually comparable to the historic instances of chattel slavery. Plus, an updated analogy can better serve the purpose of describing relationships. In the context of databases, for example, primary/replica or master/replica are IMO both much better analogies than master/slave. Sure you can argue they are simply descriptive terms. But if that's the case, why did engineers choose existing terms in the first place?
jhallenworld 6y ago
So there is an actual problem that they could work on. Often the branch which most users should clone and use is not the bleeding edge working branch, which often is master. It would be nice if you could set the default branch for cloning for most users somehow. Edit: so it does! You learn something new...
- gruez 6y ago
  AFAIK you can already set default branches for github. Not sure whether that applies when you clone it using git.
- rgoulter 6y ago
  That's the current behaviour of updating the default branch in the settings of the GitHub Repository.
catsdanxe 6y ago
Nobody cares about the black slave auctions going on in Libya RIGHT NOW. But we are going to remove the word master from our software because it offends people whose ancestors were slaves generations ago.
- globular-toast 6y ago
  It doesn't offend them. This is all just white people looking for problems. Make-work.
- EForEndeavour 6y ago
  Correction: because we think it could offend people whose ancestors were slaves generations ago.
- KayL 6y ago
  It's unfair to the word "Master". Imagine that `Master` will be on the unpopular list everywhere now..
- arvigeus 6y ago
  In China they are kicking people out of their homes for being black. But we do bend the knee for them because of money. Selective social justice...
- Rapzid 6y ago
  I find it a bit condescending and tone deaf too.
protomyth 6y ago
What bugs me about crap like this is that it ignores world history, makes these people feel good about doing nothing of consequence, and takes attention away from things that will actually help. If you are going to help, actually do something that improves the lives of people. Maybe, you should really put some effort into beefing up the Computer Science programs in black high schools and colleges? You are Microsoft, and had a damn policy of only hiring people from certain schools for certain job areas. In 90, one of your damn reps told a classroom of students that they were only good for "help desk" positions because of the school they went to. I'm betting some all black colleges were not on the hire list for actual developer jobs. Actually doing something useful is hard, this is just signalling how cool you are.
- floatingatoll 6y ago
  A small symbolic thing is still worth doing, even if it doesn't directly improve the lives of people.
  - protomyth 6y ago
    No, no it isn't. If it doesn't actually help improve lives, its just an indulgence.
    - _never_k 6y ago
      Props to you for committing to your austerity, but we're not all monks in cells.
      - protomyth 6y ago
        Austerity? Monks in cells? Really, none of that makes any sense? Hell, switching your Amazon account to one of those smile accounts will do more good than signalling.
        _never_k 6y ago
        >Austerity? Monks in cells? You're complaining about indulgence! You're saying that this change won't help people as much as something else. This is a fair criticism. Changing some technical term is probably not a optimally utilitarian use of resources. However, while you may be trying to live an optimally utilitarian life, the rest of us aren't. I can only speak for myself of course, but evaluating all my life's actions on only that axis is too strict for me. But, like I said, if you want to do that: props.
partyboat1586 6y ago
Meanwhile slavery still exists in Libya. I don't mind renaming it but it feels like a token action without any real weight.
- thejynxed 6y ago
  Chattel slavery and slave markets have existed in Mauritania since before the first Europeans even set foot in Africa, and to this day they refuse to end the practice and have told the UN directly that they refuse to end the practice every time another UN member raises a fuss about it. So yes, this is a token action meant to appease those that are never truly appeased due to their rapid movement of goalposts.
hprotagonist 6y ago
put more time into rebuilding the communities in which you physically reside than into bikeshedding quick symbolic actions to numb your conscience. donate the cash equivalent to the engineering hours required to make and test this name change to BLM instead, and get something of actual consequence done. Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?
m0xte 6y ago
Newspeak, book burnings next Thursday. Can't have those idioms any more. edit: not to mention 30 years of: if branch in ['master', 'main'] ...
luckylion 6y ago
I've said it before, and I predict it now again: a language that is named after valuable mineral chunks that are often/usually/predominately mined by slave labor in predominately non-white countries is better thinking about a rebrand. Especially when it's basically ground zero for SJW activity in software development.
- dgellow 6y ago
  Do you mean ruby?
- nathanaldensr 6y ago
  We're in a "six degrees of separation" between anything widely used in culture and something that can be deemed "racist." If you look, you will find something, no matter how stretched or tenuous the connection.
crucialfelix 6y ago
I support changing master - slave. But the use of master here is from 5 b: an original from which copies can be made especially : a master recording (such as a magnetic tape) There is no implied slave. It's derived from masterpiece. Something that a master craftsman has created. Master has many definitions and usages. Master of a slave is only one minor usage. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/master https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/master
- bobjohnee 6y ago
  well too bad now masterpiece will also become problematic, get working, change that word too
- crucialfelix 6y ago
  Apparently git did inherit master from bitkeeper which had master and slave (replica) repositories. https://github.com/bitkeeper-scm/bitkeeper/blob/master/doc/HOWTO.ask#L223 https://github.com/bitkeeper-scm/bitkeeper/blob/master/doc/H...
- _never_k 6y ago
  Github inherited it from git, which inherited it from bitkeeper, the DVCS that Linux originally used and the one that inspired git. Bitkeeper used a master/slave architecture that git dropped. https://github.com/bitkeeper-scm/bitkeeper/blob/master/doc/HOWTO.ask#L223 https://github.com/bitkeeper-scm/bitkeeper/blob/master/doc/H...
  - bonzini 6y ago
    Repositories, not branches. It's just hearsay that the name of the master branch is based on bitkeeper.
  - waheoo 6y ago
    The dev that set git to using master says otherwise.. https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441 https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441
creshal 6y ago
If the cultural revolution continues at this pace, they might take a page from the Red Khmer textbook and murder them instead. Let's hope they settle for just making people beg and grovel.
- gyrgtyn 6y ago
  stupid
benmw333 6y ago
Every time I commit I smile because I've just enslaved more bytes of code. I am the MASTER!!!!!
altmind 6y ago
But "master" in git is not about master/slave relationship, its about a "master copy"?
luckylion 6y ago
What about people who lost somebody to a python attack?
- silveraxe93 6y ago
  If my dad died of Tetanus, should I be against memory safety?
  - luckylion 6y ago
    The argument was "if somebody is emotionally triggered by using some term, we should replace that term with something else". I'm not suggesting it's a good point, I'm just pointing out that there's going to be a lot of renaming to do.
    - silveraxe93 6y ago
      You seemed to be making a programming related joke, which I responded with another one. I wasn't really trying to make a point there, just wanted to be (arguably) funny.
- taylodl 6y ago
  Do we have a national problem with pythons attacking a certain segment of our population? No? But you may be right that it's insensitive to those suffering from ophidiophobia.
FriendlyNormie 6y ago
How do people like you avoid snapping and going on a killing spree? You are barely concealing your contempt over this, it’s obvious right down to your punctuation, each forced exclamation mark an attempt to bury your true thoughts. Stop being openly supportive of this cultural imperialism you dumb fucking idiot. As you know but are too much of a pussy to say, black men are 6% of the US population but commit 50% of the murders in the US. Nothing else is necessary to know that the phrase “black lives matter” is bullshit. For every cop that treats a dindu like the violent animal he is and euthanizes him, there are hundreds of white people murdered by blacks. Stats don’t lie. Everyone who isn’t a complete fucking idiot has known this since 2015 when BLM was permanently debunked by the internet being saturated with information on this subject. Anyone stupid enough to fall for BLM again should be executed for their stupidity along with their violent animal pets and you know it. Stop acting like a little bitch.
rgomez 6y ago
Wait for them to discover the "removeChild" DOM method...
- altmind 6y ago
  `Out of memory: Kill process 4447 (python) score 519 or sacrifice child`
- catacombs 6y ago
  Shhhh. Don't let the hardcore evangelic developers hear you.
miguelmota 6y ago
I like the name change. It’s shorter and makes more sense. If the current name affects many people in a negative way then I support the name change.
- thiht 6y ago
  It doesn't. No one is offended by this.
  - miguelmota 6y ago
    Some are offended but not the majority.
globular-toast 6y ago
I think what really bugs me about shit like this is it's just make-work. It's easy, mindless, and completely pointless work that is going to make some people feel like they've actually accomplished something. There are real problems in the world right now. This is not one of them.
dgellow 6y ago
It's an old one, but relevant to the topic: Antirez from Redis wrote a blog article on this topic (demands to change master-slave terminology in Redis sources) roughly 2 years ago, http://antirez.com/news/122 http://antirez.com/news/122.
- m0xte 6y ago
  The first comment is on the mark: http://antirez.com/news/122#comment-4084872912 http://antirez.com/news/122#comment-4084872912
aezakmi 6y ago
Rezo por el día en que la hegemonía cultural liberal anglo llegue a su fin.
TheChaplain 6y ago
So next up is academia renaming "Masters Degree" to something else?
- qazpot 6y ago
  I guess it can be renamed as PlusGradute degree. I think it would Doubleplusgood for everyone.
abc-xyz 6y ago
> 4. If it prevents even a single black person from feeling more isolated in the tech community, feels like a no brainer to me! Does/did slavery only affect black people? It’s really tiresome to see companies and celebrities voice support for equality, freedom, human rights in America while staying quiet (and even telling people to keep politics away from their platform) when it comes to the Hong Kong protests.
qwtel 6y ago
First they came for the bikeshed...
0x3d3d3d 6y ago
These kind of requests are super US-centric without any regards to the rest of the world. I understand these things stem from a place of discomfort with the racial crisis in the US - and I applaud the intentions. However, these requests are not inclusive to: - The foreigner in your team trying to think and communicate in English, while tip-toeing around whatever was deemed offensive this week on Twitter. - The developer in Botswana trying to keep up with this week's terminology changes as dictated by Twitter influencers in the US. I dread the day when someone gets in trouble for saying "Hey guys, I added the URL in the whitelist and pushed it to master"
- stnmtn 6y ago
  I don't think anyone is going to get in trouble for saying that lol The only reason someone would, is if they were repeatedly told "hey can you use this term instead?" but they kept using those intentionally to annoy others.
bigtex 6y ago
Whats next, Master bedroom?
- andai 6y ago
  I have a Main degree.
KayL 6y ago
Everybody knowing that is a replacement for the word "Master". After 50 years, `Main` === `Master`. Will it? `root` is better if you really want to make a change. Or rand() is your friend. Maybe I'm not a native English speaker. After knowing the history of Master/Slave. I still not linking them to the bad side. If they can, rename `Git` also. Acutally I have some complaints from my clients before.
- andai 6y ago
  Your clients complained about the name git? (As an aside, you know Linus named both his projects after himself? :)
  - KayL 6y ago
    Linus named Master branch is Master also. I know it but they don't. :s
- tracker1 6y ago
  I was thinking `trunk` but `root` might be even better.
bobjohnee 6y ago
Only a deeply racist mind could think of slavery when seeing the word master used in a computer programming environment.
takinola 6y ago
As a black person, speaking just for myself, I really do not get the issue around semantics like this. The word "Master" is not synonymous with any race and so does not make me (or anyone I know) uncomfortable. The concept of masters (and slaves) exist and are useful metaphors for naming similar phenomenon. I would much rather focus on issues that make people truly less comfortable in technology, like hiring or sponsoring practices in organizations. If there truly are (black) people offended by this nomenclature, I would not oppose changing it but I honestly don't know any.
- catacombs 6y ago
  Agreed. It's just white people trying to feel good about themselves. I know many POCs and black people who have bigger concerns -- not getting killed by police, equal pay, etc. -- than the name of a damn git branch.
  - cczizou 6y ago
    This, I agree with. However, I still see a value in relinquishing problematic language early and often.
    - catacombs 6y ago
      "master" isn't problematic, though.
      - meenie 6y ago
        If it's not problematic, then why would GitHub put in the time to make this change? In your worldview, it might not be problematic, but for others it is.
        pezo1919 6y ago
        Because they are paid to support agenda. It is so obvious can't even get how many devs can't see. Banning words is the real threat to everyones freedom, not just blacks Shame on every supporter: good intention, maximum naivety, horrible execution.
user_agent 6y ago
This makes me sad. The only thing I can do in a case like that is to ABANDON every tool (having a replacement) whenever the company / group behind it starts to drift from the core idea toward strange waters having nothing to do with the objectives of that group... I urge you to do the same. Consider that personal integrity (calling a scam a scam is a matter of honor) is a crucial factor in being in a good relationship with oneself. Let's not accept immaturity as a new norm. Let's slowly and methodically make unfit ideas die, like evolution does. Peace. PS: I never thought that I 'll live thru that kind of crap from tech industry on a large scale. PS2: Think what would happen if evolution would be so easy on its creatures, leaving partially-sound ideas as blueprints for the humanity to deal with. You eat an apple, and you crash your teeth on an unexpected brick of gold inside of it. What? Although gold is precious, a bar of gold found that way is a misery. And it makes the existence of that kind of apple just... Inelegant. Wise nature doesn't do that, and you shouldn't too. Some things are the way they are because it's the most optimal way for them to be. The passage of time is an excellent tutor of what might be considered as a proven solution. The master branch concept has been working for a long time. I have it in my muscle memory by now. And NOW some kind of enlightened, progressive geniuses are going to tinker with how the feedback loops between my mind and the universe have been set up? No way bozos. Get back to school. Take some lessons on philosophy, and maybe even oh history, so you can understand that a wise man isn't going to speak until it's needed. Not even to mention that he isn't going to progressively cry on anyone's shoulder that he doesn't like a this or that definition. I'm a master of my own self, therefore I'm a racist. Said no one to anyone ;) One thing is sure - I'm not going to be a slave to the puppets of the neo-marxist war on language.
coronadisaster 6y ago
If that is the only thing that they can do to be part of the movement that is fine but it is a bit ridiculous.
apta 6y ago
Why is there a lot of presence of these virtue-signaling SJW types in tech?
- thejynxed 6y ago
  Bougie malcontents LARPing as revolutionaries and moving from industry to industry like a swarm of locusts has been going on since at least the '90s, it's just now their ability to be noticed is greater due to advances in communications platforms.
- mydongle 6y ago
  Lot of people who can't code but really want to get in on the fancy tech job money. They do nothing of value except go around policing people with CoCs and this type of nonsense. In the USSR, they would've been communist officers who send you to the gulag for wrongthink. They want status and power without doing any actual work.
  - IAmEveryone 6y ago
    And just three hours before this half-assed parody of an alt-right post, you were asking for free money over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23470722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23470722?
    - mydongle 6y ago
      It's always worth a try. I need money to keep a roof on my head. I'm not policing anyone or asking for status and power lmao.
taylodl 6y ago
If we want we could remove "master" from everyday usage: master branch/copy - that's your main or primary master degree - is now an expert degree martial arts master - congratulations, you're a guru! master bedroom - is now your main, great or grand bedroom (in fact it used to be called the main bedroom not that long ago) skill mastery - you quashed it! Should we make these changes? I don't know, I'm a white guy. What I do know is it's time to put an end to systemic racism. If making these seemingly small changes are enough to change people's worldview in a meaningful way then I think we should explore it. There's potentially a lot to gain for such seemingly trivial and small changes in word usage.
- doubleunplussed 6y ago
  Guru would be cultural appropriation
ojhughes 6y ago
Personally I think this is a mistake. As we all know, English words have context, the meaning is adaptive depending on the situation. "master" branch has precedent, we have trained our brains to think about "rebasing onto master". This small change will be disruptive, forcing us to unlearn existing, common phrases. Whitelist & blacklist I support discontinuing, however master is a homonym so doesn't have the same obvious connotations.
al_chemist 6y ago
While we're at it, isn't the `git` word offensive? I mean, based on https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/git https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/git git means foolish or worthless person! It's not acceptable to call any person worthless! Please change this name.
sniperliu 6y ago
It's a self censoring in western. It's anti-intellect. It happened and is happening in China. The result is a small group shuts up everyone. They could tag everything they don't like and stop using it, e.g. winnie. Please don't let it happen.
- azinman2 6y ago
  It's being sensitive to how words can undermine entire classes of people. Growing up kids used to say "that's so gay" all the time in school. Did they literally mean a shoe was homosexual? No, but they're using a sexuality in a bad or derogatory sense. And that sucks and is wrong, and being gay, it was offensive and destructive to hear. Luckily people eventually shifted away from it with some awareness. This isn't the same thing as a government censoring opposition or 'insults' to the dear leader.
  - sniperliu 6y ago
    self censoring is even worse. What is happing in west now seems to me that some people don't allow others to talk with tags like racism etc, they punish others with losing job, internet bulling etc. That's really scary!! In long run, you lost the freedom!
    - sniperliu 6y ago
      Rephrase it a bit. Don't use moral or ethics to replace law. Otherwise you are using thought police to replace police.
pcstl 6y ago
I really don't care what the default name for a branch is. I don't care if people want to change it. Hell, if GitHub starts defaulting to "main" instead of "master" I probably won't even care enough to change it from "main" to anything else in any new repos. What I care about is that this will inevitably lead to companies and individuals that, for any reason (due to having the name "master" hardcoded in a lot of scripts, for instance), do not make this change in their repositories being labeled as being pro-racism. We all know how this goes. This insanity just grows every single day. The purity policing grows ever more intense. It's making my world view bleaker by the minute.
noxer 6y ago
Can I call that Githubs silly master plan? Anyway, Fossils main branch is called "trunk" which actually makes more sense than "master" especially because Fossil also has leafs.
penguin_booze 6y ago
The terms "master" and "slave" are part of standard vocabulary for those who work around hardware. I wonder what would become of them.
dvtkrlbs 6y ago
Reminds me of the santa hat stuff in vscode.
ArtDev 6y ago
Master/Slave labeling IS weird. When I first saw it in reference to drive configurations, I recall thinking how maybe there was a better way to label them. But as others pointed out here, "Master" branch is not using that source for the term. Changing it in this context is actively harmful to BLM and race equality. So, ignore this and don't be a pussy. (Historically pussy == cat by the way. So I am bringing this phrase back for the same reasons that my Master branch and Blacklist/Whitelist are historically clean terms.)
chmaynard 6y ago
A StackOverflow thread describes some ways to do this when creating a new git repo. Here's an alias that seems to work: # https://stackoverflow.com/q/42871542/2040410 new = !git init && git checkout -b main && git commit --allow-empty -m \"new\" It's possible this alias will leave "master" defined but in a detached state (not pointing to a commit). I haven't checked this.
based2 6y ago
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/jenkinsci-dev/CLR55wMZwZ8 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/jenkinsci-dev/CLR55w... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12736061 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12736061
mike503 6y ago
“Waiting for protests at universities to change the Masters degree to Main degree.” Cracked me up. I’ve never considered “master” branch anything odd, saying “master copy” makes sense. What about music? “Remastering” something... or the terminology around mastering a skill? Things are a bit out of control. As people say if you look at that term and the first thought is race related that’s on you. I could see a desire to remove the word “slave” from any replication business. Since the “s” word is directly loaded. But the “m” word has many other definitions outside of that.
eqvinox 6y ago
Making these words disappear is a disservice to fighting racism (and other culturally ingrained inequality.) To address systemic racism, we need to change people's preconceptions and prejudices. These are things that are picked up and learned from other people in one's environment. Removing these words makes them even more intangible than they already are. Creating prejudice is easy to communicate. Removing it, on the other hand, is an "absence" of something, which is much harder to get across linguistically, semantically and emotionally.
nycmattw 6y ago
Is Mastercard going to be renamed Maincard now?
- doubleunplussed 6y ago
  MainChef. Main of Science. Headmain. Main Wayne. Main of Puppets.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hypewatch 6y ago
All the time and money that will go into this would be much better spent donating to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or another organization fighting to solve the real problems.
MidnightRaver 6y ago
Have the owners of the alternatives commented on this yet? What to use now? Atlassian? Gitlab?
- waheoo 6y ago
  https://sr.ht https://sr.ht
qqj 6y ago
companies like github should remain apolitical. this is pure nonesense, merely a show of force by otherwise impotent and misguided liberals. take your outrage somewhere else.
arvigeus 6y ago
Why no one is addressing the biggest problem about programming: separating bits to 0s and 1s. Not only that, but also 0s have no value unless they are led by 1. This is outrageous!
lildata 6y ago
This sounds like an April fool or an Onion article... Maybe they could take this opportunity to do something useful & provide a dark mode...
mercury_craze 6y ago
If it helps normalise the removal of problematic terminology in tech then this feels like a positive thing. Software development has a troubling history of being an overwhelmingly straight, white, male space, ridding ourselves of terminology that causes friction to new developers who don't fit the standard model has got to be a good thing. I'm certain that most people would see renaming master to main as fairly benign. However. if a company like Github can be open to making a change like this, even if it is purely symbolic, it sends a message that changes to the status quo are possible. I've also seen some comments complain about the technical difficulty of this change. If this forces developers to put some effort into updating tools that are hardcoded to refer to the primary branch as master then it's good from a purely technical perspective. Especially to help those of us following trunk-based development who already refer it as the trunk.
- humanrebar 6y ago
  > Software development has a troubling history of being an overwhelmingly straight, white, male space... Software engineering is incredibly diverse. There are many East Asians, South Asians, Middle Easterners, and people from underprivileged backgrounds from former Soviet block countries. It also has a relatively high percentage of just unique folks. Software engineering also has a diversity problem with respect to female, Latino, and black engineers in particular. I'm just pointing out that "overwhelmingly white" is quite inaccurate.
  - mercury_craze 6y ago
    Fair point, overwhelmingly white was poorly chosen - should have left it as problem with diversity.
  - Rapzid 6y ago
    I here Brazil's tech scene was able to attract a lot of latinos. Maybe a template we could apply elsewhere.
- waheoo 6y ago
  Wasnt the first software engineer a woman?
ekns 6y ago
One of the other submissions relating to this became flagged for some reason: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23526311 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23526311 I don't often comment on things, but this seems like a slippery slope and a process that I'd like to counteract in some way, so input/comments are welcome. Original comment copied below: I'd prefer it if things didn't change, including the master/slave terminology (the 'master' branch doesn't even have a 'slave' in git...) Have the words themselves become bad to use? It seems that this is a USA centric view anyway with its history (and even then it seems ridiculous--why can't these things be compartmentalised as technical terms?) Slavery certainly still exists in the world, and has existed in most places at some point. Should we rename 'slavery' to something else too while we're at it? Or forget it exists and existed? Certainly certain terms become antiquated over time, like the vocabulary used in Emacs (yank/buffer/etc vs cut/window/tab/...), but master/slave doesn't seem to be there yet. I wonder if there's some way to counteract this newspeak stuff? I think it's harmful that these things happen for such frivolous reasons. Does one just have to be as loud as the minority that drives these things, to counteract it?
akb960 6y ago
Just wondering. Unless git changes its default branch name to something else, isn't Github's approach futile? When you "git init", git creates the master branch locally. And then when you push, I sincerely hope GitHub wouldn't somehow rename that branch to something else...
welder 6y ago
Meh, just PLEASE don't call it "main". That's too generic. I like "trunk".
- sbc100 6y ago
  Agreed
valand 6y ago
It's sad to hear this instead of people taking action against actual slavery. This is onomatophobia, fear of hearing names. Github is catering to people trying to ignore the problem (slavery) that still exists because of inaction instead of clearing the name "master" from the bad connotation. Logically, it's difficult to battle problems (like slavery) by forgetting it or ignoring that it exists in the first place. The change is counter-productive for both social and technical contributions.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
anton000 6y ago
Why not this first? Microsoft's shareholders, during last Dec's meeting, rejected Arjuna Capital's proposal that a report be compiled on the gender pay gap across Microsoft, specifically to include "the percentage global median pay gap between male and female employees across race and ethnicity, including base, bonus and equity compensation." https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-12-04-microsoft-shareholders-reject-call-for-gender-pay-gap-report https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-12-04-microsoft-...

169 points by dacohenii 6y ago

Ok, I have to ask - will one of them be a synonym? I imagine there are millions of hardcoded words out there that will break unless they both map to the same thing.

dacohenii 6y ago
I'm not really sure what this would look like in practice. Perhaps this would only apply to new repositories, or maybe it will only be the default default. It has never been mandatory for the default branch to be called "master" -- it's just the default value from git and GitHub. I suppose we will just need to wait and see what happens.

chaosqueue 6y ago

Here comes the newspeak.

psychometry 6y ago
There's a reason "slippery slope" is often followed by "fallacy"...
- partyboat1586 6y ago
  Some slippery slopes are real others are not. Idk why people argue like it can only be one way or the other.
- ewff23g23g3 6y ago
  Sorry mate, your master decided you don't have a privilege to post a content here and marked it as flagged.
- LudwigNagasena 6y ago
  Yet no one really believes that it is a fallacy.

j-pb 6y ago

Who broke the build scripts?

zucker42 6y ago
I assume this only applies to new repositories.
- NobodyNada 6y ago
  So... 5 years from now will we have to constantly guess whether old repos are using “master” or “main”?
  - zucker42 6y ago
    Master is already not consistent. For some repos it's the development branch, for some it's the stable branch, for some it's something else, for some it doesn't exist.
  - m0xte 6y ago
    This. It is hard coded all over the place in thousands of things. In fact is it even git any more if the master branch isn't called master? Nope it's an incompatible fork by Microsoft purely by a chance encounter of irony.
    - zucker42 6y ago
      Are you being sarcastic? Where exactly do you depend on knowing the name of the default branch of an unnamed repository, and how do you handle cases where people delete the master branch.
      - m0xte 6y ago
        git diff master..branch
      - qazpot 6y ago
        > how do you handle cases where people delete the master branch. I don't think anybody would want people who delete the master branch.

silveraxe93 6y ago

This is just so damn pointless. It will cause some "great" controversy, people will be called white supremacists for refusing to stop saying master. Now even if this catches on, then yeah OK I'll start naming my branches as main unless I want to make a political statement, which would just add to confusion when developing. Meanwhile these people will pat each other on the back, yell "yeah! We sure made a difference." while black people keep getting fucked by the system and their lives don't get improved one iota. just... why?

mansr 6y ago
> just... why? It's called "virtue signalling," I'm told.
- shockinglytrue 6y ago
  I prefer Newspeak
ojhughes 6y ago
Stop with the wrongthinking, you may be reported to your employer
mx60s 6y ago
I love how this is making everyone mad at progressives. Not one progressive asked for this and not one progressive is going to call people white supremacists for using the word "master". Let's call a spade a spade and recognize that this was a big company trying to sound "woke" without doing anything.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Not one progressive asked for this Is the SJW crowd not progressive? Are they not "real progressives"?
  - crocodiletears 6y ago
    A lot of oughties progressives fail to realize that they won the lions share of the first phase of the culture war going into the early teens. At that point, they stopped being progressive, and instead became the status quo (not necessarily conservative, but relativistically more adjacent to conservatism now). Because they can't see this, they're loath to let go of the label in spite of the fact that they're now 'just' liberals. Left-aligned culture warriors (sjws) are far more deserving of the label 'progressive', and generally the target of teeth gnashing about progressives. This is often taken as a personal, and non-sequiturial affront by those previous recipients of the label.

programmarchy 6y ago

"main" does seem like an objectively better word to use. The definition fits better in almost every use case. May seem like a silly gesture to some, but imagine feeling an emotional trigger every time you had to use a basic tool for your job. That'd piss me off.

wackro 6y ago
The key word there being 'imagine'.
gruez 6y ago
counterpoint: I'll be pissed off and emotionally triggered, knowing that they bent over backwards just to be "politically correct" or "progressive".
- tom_ 6y ago
  Then I’m a bit surprised you don’t have more sympathy.
- Traster 6y ago
  It's a bit of a paradox isn't it, if you really are emotionally triggered by people making a gesture to black developers, doesn't that suggest that developers are really easily emotionally triggered, and therefore making the gesture is actually important and therefore you shouldn't be triggered because it's not bending over backward to be politically correct it's actually tackling something that's a real issue?
  - throwaway1997 6y ago
    What's the issue in this case? What do I put in my CV in place of "Master's degree" in case it triggers someone?
    - Traster 6y ago
      I wouldn't be listing your git commits on your CV in the first place.

ilovetux 6y ago

I kind of get it, there's no real reason the default branch should be named master, but where do we stop? Will everyone with a master's degree have to update their resumes?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
catacombs 6y ago
It stops when almost every word is offensive to someone in one way, shape, or form, and we are all forced to communicate in binary... excuse me, ones and zeros.

Traster 6y ago

Using the term master doesn't bother me - in my opinion the idea of the master/slave dynamic is much less problematic when you're talking in the context of bits and bytes flicking up and down on some silicon. Having said that, if it bothers people, change it. I do suspect to a certain extent though that people are more interested in changing it because they're worried it might be offensive to other people than actually finding it offensive themselves. The follow up tweet from the original reqeustor is: > 1. “Main” is shorter! Yay brevity! > 2. It’s even easier to remember, tbh > 3. If it makes any of my teammates feel an ounce more comfortable, let’s do it! > 4. If it prevents even a single black person from feeling more isolated in the tech community, feels like a no brainer to me! 1 - Not sure that's an important reason, why not change it to just "M"? 2 - Not for people who are already using git and have lived their entire lives on master (or for those more considerate developers, have lived their entire lives PRing into master) 3 & 4 - This is what I'm talking about, is there anyone who is actually feeling isolated and uncomfortable, or are there just a load of white people who have focused on literally the most unimportant aspect of being a black person in the tech community?

floatingatoll 6y ago
As a mysql DBA, this terminology issue made me uncomfortable for most of the past 15 years. I'm uncertain whether I agree that it's relevant in GitHub terms since we don't have upstream/master -> fork/slave, but it's inspired me to think about the term "master" in the mysql, git, and art proofing spaces simultaneously, so I'm glad they're making the change and I look forward to finding out what I think about it after some time has passed.
- detaro 6y ago
  Databases have been slowly shifting to other terms for a while now. I.e. consensus algorithms typically speak about "leader election", replication systems use "primary"/"replica", ...
apta 6y ago
> or are there just a load of white people who have focused on literally the most unimportant aspect of being a black person in the tech community? Seems that way. It's actually offensive to suggest that such a person should be offended in the first place. It's a "we know better than you and you should be offended" attitude.

magnio 6y ago

Seem unnecessary to me, though I do like less keystrokes to type. If the word master makes some black people feel uncomfortable, the issue isn't git. It lies in the society.

throwaway9482 6y ago

The thought police are growing everyday

zucker42 6y ago

I'm a strong supporter of social justice. I don't really object to people putting in work to change language like that if they think it's important. Especially when the work required is minimal. That said, this is slightly ridiculous. Have customers seriously complained about the term "master"? And my impression was that the usage was more similar to "master copy" than "master of the plantation". Honestly, it's frustrating to me that companies are willing to take token actions like this that are almost completely irrelevant in the scheme of things but unwilling to lose profit by, for example, not contracting with ICE. Actions like this feels like veiled advertising, even when, as I'm sure is true in this case, there are genuine motives behind them. It seems like the structure of corporations allows only the genuine intentions that require little sacrifice to be acted upon. It's a stupid subject to have a flame war over, but I don't understand the logic at all.

perlpimp 6y ago
It is when corporations have embraced and monetized counterculture. As if they are part of us but if analyzed by psychologists corporation was an individual was denoted a psychopath, that is why motions like this make me cringe and die a little on inside a little.
snlacks 6y ago
I don't think it's because people are offended at the use of the word master, in this case. I think, that it's symbolic. By making a point of getting rid of the word master, you're showing that black lives matter.
- techntoke 6y ago
  What about all other races that are discriminated against or people that are bullied? Do those matter?
  - gyrgtyn 6y ago
    terrible
  - 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

fasteddie31003 6y ago

But what about master-slave DB replication!

sgt 6y ago
In PostgreSQL it is master / standby. It still uses the word "master" though so you can rest assured that a purple haired transperson on Twitter is going to be triggered by it sooner or later.
detaro 6y ago
Typically replaced with primary-replica terminology.

kickopotomus 6y ago

Honest question: are there people out there who are legitimately uncomfortable/upset about the usage of the terms "master" and "slave" in the context of technology? Or is this more so people trying to be too socially "woke" and assuming something to be offensive when it is not? Master/slave are pretty commonly used terms whenever we talk about things like distributed systems and communication buses. Essentially everywhere that one process, controller, computer, etc. is meant to have authority or control over some other entity or entities, this is often described as a master-slave relationship.

zucker42 6y ago
Yes, there are legitimately people who believe the master-slave terminology trivializes American slavery. They are mostly in the U.S. and probably a minority of programmers but they exist. But in this case, there's not even a slave branch.
- microcolonel 6y ago
  Also America is just one among the 100% of populated parts of the world that had chattel slavery at some point, it's pretty rich that ignorant people from America tricking themselves into being offended by this sort of thing should have any effect on other people's behaviour.
- kickopotomus 6y ago
  > Yes, there are legitimately people who believe the master-slave terminology trivializes American slavery. I suppose this is something I don't understand. How do terms become trivial when used in separate contexts? They are simply descriptive terms. Furthermore, from an etymological standpoint, the term "master" has been used to signify preeminence since the 13th century. E.g. master's degree, master-key, master copy, etc. This is the meaning that seems more applicable to a version control system.
  - zucker42 6y ago
    I agree with you in this case, since master is used by itself, similarly to master key. But I'll try to provide some insight into the argument specifically regarding master and slave used together. > How do terms become trivial when used in separate contexts? They are simply descriptive terms. This is where I think you are incorrect. Master and slave are not simply descriptive terms. Pretty obviously, they are an analogy, just like, for example, male and female plugs. The point of analogies is that they use existing relationships to describe new relationships, so that understanding the new relationships is easier. So I think the issue for some people is that in master/slave architectures, the master node neither brutally beats the slave nodes nor justifies its power through a theory of racial superiority. Maybe a more accurate analogy would be that one node is the leader and the others are the followers. Maybe we should only use the master/slave in situations which are actually comparable to the historic instances of chattel slavery. Plus, an updated analogy can better serve the purpose of describing relationships. In the context of databases, for example, primary/replica or master/replica are IMO both much better analogies than master/slave. Sure you can argue they are simply descriptive terms. But if that's the case, why did engineers choose existing terms in the first place?

jhallenworld 6y ago

So there is an actual problem that they could work on. Often the branch which most users should clone and use is not the bleeding edge working branch, which often is master. It would be nice if you could set the default branch for cloning for most users somehow. Edit: so it does! You learn something new...

gruez 6y ago
AFAIK you can already set default branches for github. Not sure whether that applies when you clone it using git.
rgoulter 6y ago
That's the current behaviour of updating the default branch in the settings of the GitHub Repository.

catsdanxe 6y ago

Nobody cares about the black slave auctions going on in Libya RIGHT NOW. But we are going to remove the word master from our software because it offends people whose ancestors were slaves generations ago.

globular-toast 6y ago
It doesn't offend them. This is all just white people looking for problems. Make-work.
EForEndeavour 6y ago
Correction: because we think it could offend people whose ancestors were slaves generations ago.
KayL 6y ago
It's unfair to the word "Master". Imagine that `Master` will be on the unpopular list everywhere now..
arvigeus 6y ago
In China they are kicking people out of their homes for being black. But we do bend the knee for them because of money. Selective social justice...
Rapzid 6y ago
I find it a bit condescending and tone deaf too.

protomyth 6y ago

What bugs me about crap like this is that it ignores world history, makes these people feel good about doing nothing of consequence, and takes attention away from things that will actually help. If you are going to help, actually do something that improves the lives of people. Maybe, you should really put some effort into beefing up the Computer Science programs in black high schools and colleges? You are Microsoft, and had a damn policy of only hiring people from certain schools for certain job areas. In 90, one of your damn reps told a classroom of students that they were only good for "help desk" positions because of the school they went to. I'm betting some all black colleges were not on the hire list for actual developer jobs. Actually doing something useful is hard, this is just signalling how cool you are.

floatingatoll 6y ago
A small symbolic thing is still worth doing, even if it doesn't directly improve the lives of people.
- protomyth 6y ago
  No, no it isn't. If it doesn't actually help improve lives, its just an indulgence.
  - _never_k 6y ago
    Props to you for committing to your austerity, but we're not all monks in cells.
    - protomyth 6y ago
      Austerity? Monks in cells? Really, none of that makes any sense? Hell, switching your Amazon account to one of those smile accounts will do more good than signalling.
      - _never_k 6y ago
        >Austerity? Monks in cells? You're complaining about indulgence! You're saying that this change won't help people as much as something else. This is a fair criticism. Changing some technical term is probably not a optimally utilitarian use of resources. However, while you may be trying to live an optimally utilitarian life, the rest of us aren't. I can only speak for myself of course, but evaluating all my life's actions on only that axis is too strict for me. But, like I said, if you want to do that: props.

partyboat1586 6y ago

Meanwhile slavery still exists in Libya. I don't mind renaming it but it feels like a token action without any real weight.

thejynxed 6y ago
Chattel slavery and slave markets have existed in Mauritania since before the first Europeans even set foot in Africa, and to this day they refuse to end the practice and have told the UN directly that they refuse to end the practice every time another UN member raises a fuss about it. So yes, this is a token action meant to appease those that are never truly appeased due to their rapid movement of goalposts.

hprotagonist 6y ago

put more time into rebuilding the communities in which you physically reside than into bikeshedding quick symbolic actions to numb your conscience. donate the cash equivalent to the engineering hours required to make and test this name change to BLM instead, and get something of actual consequence done. Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?

m0xte 6y ago

Newspeak, book burnings next Thursday. Can't have those idioms any more. edit: not to mention 30 years of: if branch in ['master', 'main'] ...

luckylion 6y ago

I've said it before, and I predict it now again: a language that is named after valuable mineral chunks that are often/usually/predominately mined by slave labor in predominately non-white countries is better thinking about a rebrand. Especially when it's basically ground zero for SJW activity in software development.

dgellow 6y ago
Do you mean ruby?
nathanaldensr 6y ago
We're in a "six degrees of separation" between anything widely used in culture and something that can be deemed "racist." If you look, you will find something, no matter how stretched or tenuous the connection.

crucialfelix 6y ago

I support changing master - slave. But the use of master here is from 5 b: an original from which copies can be made especially : a master recording (such as a magnetic tape) There is no implied slave. It's derived from masterpiece. Something that a master craftsman has created. Master has many definitions and usages. Master of a slave is only one minor usage. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/master https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/master

bobjohnee 6y ago
well too bad now masterpiece will also become problematic, get working, change that word too
crucialfelix 6y ago
Apparently git did inherit master from bitkeeper which had master and slave (replica) repositories. https://github.com/bitkeeper-scm/bitkeeper/blob/master/doc/HOWTO.ask#L223 https://github.com/bitkeeper-scm/bitkeeper/blob/master/doc/H...
_never_k 6y ago
Github inherited it from git, which inherited it from bitkeeper, the DVCS that Linux originally used and the one that inspired git. Bitkeeper used a master/slave architecture that git dropped. https://github.com/bitkeeper-scm/bitkeeper/blob/master/doc/HOWTO.ask#L223 https://github.com/bitkeeper-scm/bitkeeper/blob/master/doc/H...
- bonzini 6y ago
  Repositories, not branches. It's just hearsay that the name of the master branch is based on bitkeeper.
- waheoo 6y ago
  The dev that set git to using master says otherwise.. https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441 https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441

creshal 6y ago

If the cultural revolution continues at this pace, they might take a page from the Red Khmer textbook and murder them instead. Let's hope they settle for just making people beg and grovel.

gyrgtyn 6y ago
stupid

benmw333 6y ago

Every time I commit I smile because I've just enslaved more bytes of code. I am the MASTER!!!!!

altmind 6y ago

But "master" in git is not about master/slave relationship, its about a "master copy"?

luckylion 6y ago

What about people who lost somebody to a python attack?

silveraxe93 6y ago
If my dad died of Tetanus, should I be against memory safety?
- luckylion 6y ago
  The argument was "if somebody is emotionally triggered by using some term, we should replace that term with something else". I'm not suggesting it's a good point, I'm just pointing out that there's going to be a lot of renaming to do.
  - silveraxe93 6y ago
    You seemed to be making a programming related joke, which I responded with another one. I wasn't really trying to make a point there, just wanted to be (arguably) funny.
taylodl 6y ago
Do we have a national problem with pythons attacking a certain segment of our population? No? But you may be right that it's insensitive to those suffering from ophidiophobia.

FriendlyNormie 6y ago

How do people like you avoid snapping and going on a killing spree? You are barely concealing your contempt over this, it’s obvious right down to your punctuation, each forced exclamation mark an attempt to bury your true thoughts. Stop being openly supportive of this cultural imperialism you dumb fucking idiot. As you know but are too much of a pussy to say, black men are 6% of the US population but commit 50% of the murders in the US. Nothing else is necessary to know that the phrase “black lives matter” is bullshit. For every cop that treats a dindu like the violent animal he is and euthanizes him, there are hundreds of white people murdered by blacks. Stats don’t lie. Everyone who isn’t a complete fucking idiot has known this since 2015 when BLM was permanently debunked by the internet being saturated with information on this subject. Anyone stupid enough to fall for BLM again should be executed for their stupidity along with their violent animal pets and you know it. Stop acting like a little bitch.

rgomez 6y ago

Wait for them to discover the "removeChild" DOM method...

altmind 6y ago
`Out of memory: Kill process 4447 (python) score 519 or sacrifice child`
catacombs 6y ago
Shhhh. Don't let the hardcore evangelic developers hear you.

miguelmota 6y ago

I like the name change. It’s shorter and makes more sense. If the current name affects many people in a negative way then I support the name change.

thiht 6y ago
It doesn't. No one is offended by this.
- miguelmota 6y ago
  Some are offended but not the majority.

globular-toast 6y ago

I think what really bugs me about shit like this is it's just make-work. It's easy, mindless, and completely pointless work that is going to make some people feel like they've actually accomplished something. There are real problems in the world right now. This is not one of them.

dgellow 6y ago

It's an old one, but relevant to the topic: Antirez from Redis wrote a blog article on this topic (demands to change master-slave terminology in Redis sources) roughly 2 years ago, http://antirez.com/news/122 http://antirez.com/news/122.

m0xte 6y ago
The first comment is on the mark: http://antirez.com/news/122#comment-4084872912 http://antirez.com/news/122#comment-4084872912

aezakmi 6y ago

Rezo por el día en que la hegemonía cultural liberal anglo llegue a su fin.

TheChaplain 6y ago

So next up is academia renaming "Masters Degree" to something else?

qazpot 6y ago
I guess it can be renamed as PlusGradute degree. I think it would Doubleplusgood for everyone.

abc-xyz 6y ago

> 4. If it prevents even a single black person from feeling more isolated in the tech community, feels like a no brainer to me! Does/did slavery only affect black people? It’s really tiresome to see companies and celebrities voice support for equality, freedom, human rights in America while staying quiet (and even telling people to keep politics away from their platform) when it comes to the Hong Kong protests.

qwtel 6y ago

First they came for the bikeshed...

0x3d3d3d 6y ago

These kind of requests are super US-centric without any regards to the rest of the world. I understand these things stem from a place of discomfort with the racial crisis in the US - and I applaud the intentions. However, these requests are not inclusive to: - The foreigner in your team trying to think and communicate in English, while tip-toeing around whatever was deemed offensive this week on Twitter. - The developer in Botswana trying to keep up with this week's terminology changes as dictated by Twitter influencers in the US. I dread the day when someone gets in trouble for saying "Hey guys, I added the URL in the whitelist and pushed it to master"

stnmtn 6y ago
I don't think anyone is going to get in trouble for saying that lol The only reason someone would, is if they were repeatedly told "hey can you use this term instead?" but they kept using those intentionally to annoy others.

bigtex 6y ago

Whats next, Master bedroom?

andai 6y ago
I have a Main degree.

KayL 6y ago

Everybody knowing that is a replacement for the word "Master". After 50 years, `Main` === `Master`. Will it? `root` is better if you really want to make a change. Or rand() is your friend. Maybe I'm not a native English speaker. After knowing the history of Master/Slave. I still not linking them to the bad side. If they can, rename `Git` also. Acutally I have some complaints from my clients before.

andai 6y ago
Your clients complained about the name git? (As an aside, you know Linus named both his projects after himself? :)
- KayL 6y ago
  Linus named Master branch is Master also. I know it but they don't. :s
tracker1 6y ago
I was thinking `trunk` but `root` might be even better.

bobjohnee 6y ago

Only a deeply racist mind could think of slavery when seeing the word master used in a computer programming environment.

takinola 6y ago

As a black person, speaking just for myself, I really do not get the issue around semantics like this. The word "Master" is not synonymous with any race and so does not make me (or anyone I know) uncomfortable. The concept of masters (and slaves) exist and are useful metaphors for naming similar phenomenon. I would much rather focus on issues that make people truly less comfortable in technology, like hiring or sponsoring practices in organizations. If there truly are (black) people offended by this nomenclature, I would not oppose changing it but I honestly don't know any.

catacombs 6y ago
Agreed. It's just white people trying to feel good about themselves. I know many POCs and black people who have bigger concerns -- not getting killed by police, equal pay, etc. -- than the name of a damn git branch.
- cczizou 6y ago
  This, I agree with. However, I still see a value in relinquishing problematic language early and often.
  - catacombs 6y ago
    "master" isn't problematic, though.
    - meenie 6y ago
      If it's not problematic, then why would GitHub put in the time to make this change? In your worldview, it might not be problematic, but for others it is.
      - pezo1919 6y ago
        Because they are paid to support agenda. It is so obvious can't even get how many devs can't see. Banning words is the real threat to everyones freedom, not just blacks Shame on every supporter: good intention, maximum naivety, horrible execution.

user_agent 6y ago

This makes me sad. The only thing I can do in a case like that is to ABANDON every tool (having a replacement) whenever the company / group behind it starts to drift from the core idea toward strange waters having nothing to do with the objectives of that group... I urge you to do the same. Consider that personal integrity (calling a scam a scam is a matter of honor) is a crucial factor in being in a good relationship with oneself. Let's not accept immaturity as a new norm. Let's slowly and methodically make unfit ideas die, like evolution does. Peace. PS: I never thought that I 'll live thru that kind of crap from tech industry on a large scale. PS2: Think what would happen if evolution would be so easy on its creatures, leaving partially-sound ideas as blueprints for the humanity to deal with. You eat an apple, and you crash your teeth on an unexpected brick of gold inside of it. What? Although gold is precious, a bar of gold found that way is a misery. And it makes the existence of that kind of apple just... Inelegant. Wise nature doesn't do that, and you shouldn't too. Some things are the way they are because it's the most optimal way for them to be. The passage of time is an excellent tutor of what might be considered as a proven solution. The master branch concept has been working for a long time. I have it in my muscle memory by now. And NOW some kind of enlightened, progressive geniuses are going to tinker with how the feedback loops between my mind and the universe have been set up? No way bozos. Get back to school. Take some lessons on philosophy, and maybe even oh history, so you can understand that a wise man isn't going to speak until it's needed. Not even to mention that he isn't going to progressively cry on anyone's shoulder that he doesn't like a this or that definition. I'm a master of my own self, therefore I'm a racist. Said no one to anyone ;) One thing is sure - I'm not going to be a slave to the puppets of the neo-marxist war on language.

coronadisaster 6y ago

If that is the only thing that they can do to be part of the movement that is fine but it is a bit ridiculous.

apta 6y ago

Why is there a lot of presence of these virtue-signaling SJW types in tech?

thejynxed 6y ago
Bougie malcontents LARPing as revolutionaries and moving from industry to industry like a swarm of locusts has been going on since at least the '90s, it's just now their ability to be noticed is greater due to advances in communications platforms.
mydongle 6y ago
Lot of people who can't code but really want to get in on the fancy tech job money. They do nothing of value except go around policing people with CoCs and this type of nonsense. In the USSR, they would've been communist officers who send you to the gulag for wrongthink. They want status and power without doing any actual work.
- IAmEveryone 6y ago
  And just three hours before this half-assed parody of an alt-right post, you were asking for free money over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23470722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23470722?
  - mydongle 6y ago
    It's always worth a try. I need money to keep a roof on my head. I'm not policing anyone or asking for status and power lmao.

taylodl 6y ago

If we want we could remove "master" from everyday usage: master branch/copy - that's your main or primary master degree - is now an expert degree martial arts master - congratulations, you're a guru! master bedroom - is now your main, great or grand bedroom (in fact it used to be called the main bedroom not that long ago) skill mastery - you quashed it! Should we make these changes? I don't know, I'm a white guy. What I do know is it's time to put an end to systemic racism. If making these seemingly small changes are enough to change people's worldview in a meaningful way then I think we should explore it. There's potentially a lot to gain for such seemingly trivial and small changes in word usage.

doubleunplussed 6y ago
Guru would be cultural appropriation

ojhughes 6y ago

Personally I think this is a mistake. As we all know, English words have context, the meaning is adaptive depending on the situation. "master" branch has precedent, we have trained our brains to think about "rebasing onto master". This small change will be disruptive, forcing us to unlearn existing, common phrases. Whitelist & blacklist I support discontinuing, however master is a homonym so doesn't have the same obvious connotations.

al_chemist 6y ago

While we're at it, isn't the `git` word offensive? I mean, based on https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/git https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/git git means foolish or worthless person! It's not acceptable to call any person worthless! Please change this name.

sniperliu 6y ago

It's a self censoring in western. It's anti-intellect. It happened and is happening in China. The result is a small group shuts up everyone. They could tag everything they don't like and stop using it, e.g. winnie. Please don't let it happen.

azinman2 6y ago
It's being sensitive to how words can undermine entire classes of people. Growing up kids used to say "that's so gay" all the time in school. Did they literally mean a shoe was homosexual? No, but they're using a sexuality in a bad or derogatory sense. And that sucks and is wrong, and being gay, it was offensive and destructive to hear. Luckily people eventually shifted away from it with some awareness. This isn't the same thing as a government censoring opposition or 'insults' to the dear leader.
- sniperliu 6y ago
  self censoring is even worse. What is happing in west now seems to me that some people don't allow others to talk with tags like racism etc, they punish others with losing job, internet bulling etc. That's really scary!! In long run, you lost the freedom!
  - sniperliu 6y ago
    Rephrase it a bit. Don't use moral or ethics to replace law. Otherwise you are using thought police to replace police.

pcstl 6y ago

I really don't care what the default name for a branch is. I don't care if people want to change it. Hell, if GitHub starts defaulting to "main" instead of "master" I probably won't even care enough to change it from "main" to anything else in any new repos. What I care about is that this will inevitably lead to companies and individuals that, for any reason (due to having the name "master" hardcoded in a lot of scripts, for instance), do not make this change in their repositories being labeled as being pro-racism. We all know how this goes. This insanity just grows every single day. The purity policing grows ever more intense. It's making my world view bleaker by the minute.

noxer 6y ago

Can I call that Githubs silly master plan? Anyway, Fossils main branch is called "trunk" which actually makes more sense than "master" especially because Fossil also has leafs.

penguin_booze 6y ago

The terms "master" and "slave" are part of standard vocabulary for those who work around hardware. I wonder what would become of them.

dvtkrlbs 6y ago

Reminds me of the santa hat stuff in vscode.

ArtDev 6y ago

Master/Slave labeling IS weird. When I first saw it in reference to drive configurations, I recall thinking how maybe there was a better way to label them. But as others pointed out here, "Master" branch is not using that source for the term. Changing it in this context is actively harmful to BLM and race equality. So, ignore this and don't be a pussy. (Historically pussy == cat by the way. So I am bringing this phrase back for the same reasons that my Master branch and Blacklist/Whitelist are historically clean terms.)

chmaynard 6y ago

A StackOverflow thread describes some ways to do this when creating a new git repo. Here's an alias that seems to work: # https://stackoverflow.com/q/42871542/2040410 new = !git init && git checkout -b main && git commit --allow-empty -m \"new\" It's possible this alias will leave "master" defined but in a detached state (not pointing to a commit). I haven't checked this.

based2 6y ago

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/jenkinsci-dev/CLR55wMZwZ8 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/jenkinsci-dev/CLR55w... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12736061 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12736061

mike503 6y ago

“Waiting for protests at universities to change the Masters degree to Main degree.” Cracked me up. I’ve never considered “master” branch anything odd, saying “master copy” makes sense. What about music? “Remastering” something... or the terminology around mastering a skill? Things are a bit out of control. As people say if you look at that term and the first thought is race related that’s on you. I could see a desire to remove the word “slave” from any replication business. Since the “s” word is directly loaded. But the “m” word has many other definitions outside of that.

eqvinox 6y ago

Making these words disappear is a disservice to fighting racism (and other culturally ingrained inequality.) To address systemic racism, we need to change people's preconceptions and prejudices. These are things that are picked up and learned from other people in one's environment. Removing these words makes them even more intangible than they already are. Creating prejudice is easy to communicate. Removing it, on the other hand, is an "absence" of something, which is much harder to get across linguistically, semantically and emotionally.

nycmattw 6y ago

Is Mastercard going to be renamed Maincard now?

doubleunplussed 6y ago
MainChef. Main of Science. Headmain. Main Wayne. Main of Puppets.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

hypewatch 6y ago

All the time and money that will go into this would be much better spent donating to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or another organization fighting to solve the real problems.

MidnightRaver 6y ago

Have the owners of the alternatives commented on this yet? What to use now? Atlassian? Gitlab?

waheoo 6y ago
https://sr.ht https://sr.ht

qqj 6y ago

companies like github should remain apolitical. this is pure nonesense, merely a show of force by otherwise impotent and misguided liberals. take your outrage somewhere else.

arvigeus 6y ago

Why no one is addressing the biggest problem about programming: separating bits to 0s and 1s. Not only that, but also 0s have no value unless they are led by 1. This is outrageous!

lildata 6y ago

This sounds like an April fool or an Onion article... Maybe they could take this opportunity to do something useful & provide a dark mode...

mercury_craze 6y ago

If it helps normalise the removal of problematic terminology in tech then this feels like a positive thing. Software development has a troubling history of being an overwhelmingly straight, white, male space, ridding ourselves of terminology that causes friction to new developers who don't fit the standard model has got to be a good thing. I'm certain that most people would see renaming master to main as fairly benign. However. if a company like Github can be open to making a change like this, even if it is purely symbolic, it sends a message that changes to the status quo are possible. I've also seen some comments complain about the technical difficulty of this change. If this forces developers to put some effort into updating tools that are hardcoded to refer to the primary branch as master then it's good from a purely technical perspective. Especially to help those of us following trunk-based development who already refer it as the trunk.

humanrebar 6y ago
> Software development has a troubling history of being an overwhelmingly straight, white, male space... Software engineering is incredibly diverse. There are many East Asians, South Asians, Middle Easterners, and people from underprivileged backgrounds from former Soviet block countries. It also has a relatively high percentage of just unique folks. Software engineering also has a diversity problem with respect to female, Latino, and black engineers in particular. I'm just pointing out that "overwhelmingly white" is quite inaccurate.
- mercury_craze 6y ago
  Fair point, overwhelmingly white was poorly chosen - should have left it as problem with diversity.
- Rapzid 6y ago
  I here Brazil's tech scene was able to attract a lot of latinos. Maybe a template we could apply elsewhere.
waheoo 6y ago
Wasnt the first software engineer a woman?

ekns 6y ago

One of the other submissions relating to this became flagged for some reason: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23526311 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23526311 I don't often comment on things, but this seems like a slippery slope and a process that I'd like to counteract in some way, so input/comments are welcome. Original comment copied below: I'd prefer it if things didn't change, including the master/slave terminology (the 'master' branch doesn't even have a 'slave' in git...) Have the words themselves become bad to use? It seems that this is a USA centric view anyway with its history (and even then it seems ridiculous--why can't these things be compartmentalised as technical terms?) Slavery certainly still exists in the world, and has existed in most places at some point. Should we rename 'slavery' to something else too while we're at it? Or forget it exists and existed? Certainly certain terms become antiquated over time, like the vocabulary used in Emacs (yank/buffer/etc vs cut/window/tab/...), but master/slave doesn't seem to be there yet. I wonder if there's some way to counteract this newspeak stuff? I think it's harmful that these things happen for such frivolous reasons. Does one just have to be as loud as the minority that drives these things, to counteract it?

akb960 6y ago

Just wondering. Unless git changes its default branch name to something else, isn't Github's approach futile? When you "git init", git creates the master branch locally. And then when you push, I sincerely hope GitHub wouldn't somehow rename that branch to something else...

welder 6y ago

Meh, just PLEASE don't call it "main". That's too generic. I like "trunk".

sbc100 6y ago
Agreed

valand 6y ago

It's sad to hear this instead of people taking action against actual slavery. This is onomatophobia, fear of hearing names. Github is catering to people trying to ignore the problem (slavery) that still exists because of inaction instead of clearing the name "master" from the bad connotation. Logically, it's difficult to battle problems (like slavery) by forgetting it or ignoring that it exists in the first place. The change is counter-productive for both social and technical contributions.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

anton000 6y ago

Why not this first? Microsoft's shareholders, during last Dec's meeting, rejected Arjuna Capital's proposal that a report be compiled on the gender pay gap across Microsoft, specifically to include "the percentage global median pay gap between male and female employees across race and ethnicity, including base, bonus and equity compensation." https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-12-04-microsoft-shareholders-reject-call-for-gender-pay-gap-report https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-12-04-microsoft-...