6 ms·

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

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
  - snlacks 6y ago
    This forum should be above intellectually disingenuous comments such as this. This isn't Facebook, I'm not going to meme back at you. If you don't understand BLM at this point, that is a decision you've made and you will live with the moral and other implications. Edit: likewise, it's perfectly reasonable to think the GitHub/git trend is silly or ineffective. But keep in mind that "virtue signalling" goes both ways. When you speak out against what you see as silly, ineffective but is ultimately well meaning, you're virtue signaling that "all lives matter."
    - techntoke 6y ago
      So you're saying that Muslim people or Native Americans have not been targeted and discriminated against, and rather than have a movement that encourages justice and equality for all we should just focus on one race to unite us all? If I put a sign in my front yard that said White Lives Matter, would that not be considered racist?
      - tzs 6y ago
        I saw someone make an excellent point, when someone else was asking why we have a black history month in the United States but not a white history month. He said that we don't have a white history month because every month is white history month in the United States.
        techntoke 6y ago
        Why don't we have a Native American history month, or Hispanic? Is it because those races are just like white people, never have to face discrimination? Never have anyone judge them because of how they look?
        krapp 6y ago
        Native American Heritage Month is November, Latinx Heritage Month is from September 15 to October 15.
  - dang 6y ago
    Please don't bring up tired tropes like that one here. It's never going to change, so we're only going to get a tedious flamewar out of it, which indeed you've been perpetuating downthread—which, please don't. It's not as if we lack for new things to discuss and argue about. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- benmw333 6y ago
  Every word to me is violence and so is silence. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't and you're just damned so damnit just kill yourself.
- PlasticTank 6y ago
  They are hardly related. Will you be removing my master's degree next?
  - phkahler 6y ago
    Oh that's the same thing. That indicates mastery over the material you studied. Knowledge has become subservient to you.
    - stnmtn 6y ago
      What about the master copy of a recording? That's what git's master is anyways.
      - phkahler 6y ago
        I completely agree. My prior comment was a joke.
  - ojhughes 6y ago
    Depeche Mode - Master and Servant is next
- phkahler 6y ago
  >> By making a point of getting rid of the word master, you're showing that black lives matter. Utter Bullshit. You're pandering to a bunch of left wing nutjobs thinking they are doing something important. Why is that person on Twitter "super excited" to be doing this? Probably some form of virtue signaling. If anything it makes light of black lives. The other time I saw a similar complaint was with a SPI bus where there is at least a "slave" node to go with the "master". And at least the person who complained was black that time. Master has more than one meaning and someone feeling like they're changing the world by replacing an accurate and socially benign use of it needs therapy! Yes, I'm projecting but I'm Triggered! I need my safe space!
  - ojhughes 6y ago
    This sort of opinion is wrongthink. Very dangerous, best to keep your mouth shut and comply
  - dang 6y ago
    Please keep denunciatory flamewar rhetoric off this site. If you have a substantive point, you should have no trouble expressing it within the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- pariahHN 6y ago
  Are we going to get rid of every word that a plantation owner ever used to insult the slaves? For words that specifically have no purpose other than conveying hate, I can understand stamping them out. But master has quite a few other meanings, most of which I would think existed before institutionalized slavery of black people existed. Seems a bit unproductive to target it. They had supervisors - should we stop using the word supervisor? What about boss? Or plantation? Could not the entire BDSM culture be considered in the same way, with its themes of bondage and servitude? Somehow I doubt that every time a sub asks a dom to crack a whip over their head they are celebrating slavery. How close does a word have to be to an issue relative to its other usages in order to be considered a symbol of that issue above all else?
  - tekromancr 6y ago
    I don't think "Let's reframe problematic work language in terms of kink-culture" is the slam-dunk rhetorical move you think it is.
    - pariahHN 6y ago
      It wasn't intended to be. It's an actual question - where does the cutoff point lie for something standing on its own vs it being considered a problematic and irredeemable symbol of an atrocity and how do we define it? How do we differentiate between when someone is an asshole or not? I came across an example of this the other day after seeing the word used in a historical text for a class [0,1]. I was fairly certain it did not mean what it sounded like it meant so I looked into it. While the word does not have a definition associated with slavery (that I know of) and is thus arguably further away from the issue than the word master, its phonetics are enough for its usage to result in condemnation. Lives can be ruined, either from an accusation over a misunderstanding or a failure to recognize actual harmful intent. Vagueness creates friction. To solve a problem there needs be a thorough and precise understanding, and when it involves multiple people there also needs to be a sufficiently common definition. [0]: http://www.americanyawp.com/reader/16-capital-and-labor/william-graham-sumner-on-social-darwnism-ca-1880s/ http://www.americanyawp.com/reader/16-capital-and-labor/will... [1]: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Controversies_about_the_word_niggardly https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Controversies_about_the_word_nig...
msla 6y ago
> That said, this is slightly ridiculous. Which makes it actively harmful: Anything you do which is even somewhat ridiculous can be seized upon by your political enemies and turned into ammunition against you. They can claim your whole movement is about the ridiculous thing, and use it to derail discussions: "Yes, yes, that point is good, but did you know they renamed something in a piece of software just because it vaguely reminded someone of slavery? Time to talk about that now!"
- superkuh 6y ago
  Remember that we're talking about Microsoft here. We don't need to give them the benefit of the doubt. They've already shown by the actions over and over and over what kind of corporation they are.
  - waon 6y ago
    They’re surely notorious for their past business practices like EEE, but I don’t recall them actively trying to stir up racial conflict.
Foxboron 6y ago
>And my impression was that the usage was more similar to "master copy" than "master of the plantation". Evidently, this is a relic from bitkeeper which uses the "master/slave" terminology. https://github.com/bitkeeper-scm/bitkeeper/blob/master/doc/HOWTO.ask#L223 https://github.com/bitkeeper-scm/bitkeeper/blob/master/doc/H... https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2019-May/msg00066.html https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2019-May/...
- zucker42 6y ago
  I was somewhat aware of Bitkeeper, but crucially, 1. There are no slave branches. 2. "My impression" was my impression as someone new to git. I'm extrapolating other people, but I think it's fair to say that many (most?) people won't make the connection to chattel slavery. 3. Git is not directly modelled off Bitkeeper. But like I said, I don't object to people changing the name, but more to people thinking changing the name is important.
- waheoo 6y ago
  No this is not a relic from bitkeeper. Why dont you ask the dev responsible instead of some random on a mailing list stringing assumptions to fit a narrative. https://mobile.twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441 https://mobile.twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441
aespinoza 6y ago
I am right there with you. The whole idea of "master" is not really based on the idea of slavery focused master. Master represents the final version of a component or software which ends up in production. It is the same meaning as an audio master (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastering_(audio) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastering_(audio)) If the word master is considered evil, then what would happen to a Master Degree ? or Dojo Master ? Words have different meanings in different context, let's focus on changing language that changes the way you think.
- crocodiletears 6y ago
  Looking forward to the 'mega-debtor' degree tier.
  - salawat 6y ago
    How dare you. People in debt should not be discriminated against you insensitive clod! Platinum degree is a far more neutral term! Wait... No, my PC adviser has just informed me it is unethical to discriminate on the inherent values of precious metal... Are you... Excuse me, I did not mean to discriminate as to suggest there is a tier of metals of a higher desirability or intrinsic value than any of the other metals. All metals should be valued for what they are, and our language with regard to degrees should reflect that. Therefore, the formerly oppressive Master's degree shall henceforth be known as the Bachelor's+1 and some research degree... Wait... No, I'm sorry. I've just been informed that due to the Bachelor's degreebeing based on a 12th century term, Knight bachelor, which implied a knight too poor or lowly to gather men...er... People! People under their own banner banner... We'll have to go with the Second Degree and Third Degree's respectively... Oh God, burn victims now? Gods above, wait, monotheists? I mean God... Wait... Then the polytheists, deists, and atheists.... Uhhhhh... The Orwellian linguistic engineering rabbit hole is a deep and terrifying place it behooves no one to muck with. One can keep the line of those insulted going all day. I however, have work to get back to doing.
    - RhysU 6y ago
      This joke ends with "comrade".
_never_k 6y ago
The terminology of master/slave architecture is a direct reference to the working relationships between people on an antebellum plantation. Names should help you understand what things do, and those names do. We also have node that elect leaders, nodes that get fenced, nodes with parents and children, etc... The terminology of our software architecture, and of our software in general, mirrors that of the real world relationships that they model, reference, or are inspired by. That's a good thing. It helps us understand these systems. It's also true that if this terminology references something we don't like in the real world, we're free to change it. After all, master/slave architecture isn't a perfect modeling of a plantation, it's substantially abstract from that. There are many other relationships in the real world which could be used to describe this architecture. Terminology is effective when it's stable, so we should be conservative about changing it, but that doesn't mean we should never change it.
- sourdoughness 6y ago
  Master in git doesn’t (as far as I understand) refer to master/slave architecture though. It’s a “master” as in as in the version from which copies are derived.
  - waheoo 6y ago
    Your understanding is correct. https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441 https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441
waon 6y ago
I feel the same way, and it’s depressing that people have to risk their reputation over this. If this was about people waving confederate flags or holding Nazi banners, we should do our best to keep those people out because these are symbols of ill intent used to send a clear message of hate towards minorities. But I have never seen people use the noun “master” as a symbol to spread hate. Moreover, I don’t think many people have even thought of slavery when referring to “master” in CS context before it was brought up in this manner. But all this aside, this would’ve been a no-brainer if renaming the default branch didn’t have other real-world consequences. If it has a possible chance of making people happy, we should by all means do so. However, the proposed change is inevitably going to break many scripts out there that manipulate git repositories and forces additional work for countless people all over the industry. At this point, I think it’s reasonable to rethink whether this is actually going to improve the lives of anyone at all before proceeding.
- azinman2 6y ago
  "Moreover, I don’t think many people have even thought of slavery when referring to “master” in CS context before it was brought up in this manner." That's probably true, and it's probably people who didn't have grandparents that were slaves. It's closer in mind to some more than others. And if we want to have CS be more open to the black community, then being sensitive to how words can turn people off is important.
  - waon 6y ago
    Banning the use of a common noun is distractive and inflammatory while doing nothing at all to address the real issues. What are we going to do when the whole software industry is done wasting countless man-hours of work renaming git branches? Ban the use of the word "order" because that too might remind someone of slavery? This is just an endless rabbit hole that leads us nowhere. Why not we just address racial inequality directly?
  - pezo1919 6y ago
    Lol.
Justsignedup 6y ago
I agree with you. The thing is that GitHub has EXPLICITLY stated that they will not break their operations with ICE. So they are doing "good press" work rather than doing actual support of BLM.
IAmEveryone 6y ago
"I'm a strong supporter of social justice! M.L.K. was always my hero. I even got into college with a great essay on what a beloved leader of the civil rights movement he was! As I said: strong supported. But, come to think of it, if you tried to come up with the tiniest, most insignificant, free-as-in-beer-no-tax-increase, I-would't-even-notice-if-it-just-happen, quantum measure of any actual effort, grace, gesture, incon-slightest-venience? No that's where I draw a line. I'm all gung-ho for righting 400 years of injustice. But for some reason I'm suddenly really invited in jargon. You seem to invest a lot of emotions into these terms, which I find silly. I, on the other hand, am entirely objective and have in no way attached and cultural significance to these terms. But I might have to ro a search-and-replace. And that's why I'm opposing this with far more effort than that search-and-replace would ever take, Of course, if your objections had actual merit, I would behave differently. But I've thought long and hard how it would feel to be black and see these words being used. And please be informed that I have felt absolutely not threatened, belittled, or exploited in my little thought experiment. Not at all. And if I (and all my white male friends) can't feel bad about these terms, than nobody can. Because we define reality, and even subjectivity. For everyone. Go BLM!
akerro 6y ago
>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". We have solved poverty, work ethics problems in IT, we have great working culture, great salaries, we put demands and employers just throw money and resources at us. We run out of real problems to solve, so as humans - problem solving and pattern matching machines - we found another problem to solve.
juanuys 6y ago
Exactly. Is MC Hammer going to change his name too? I don't think so. EDIT: in case anyone's confused: MC = Master of Ceremonies

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
- snlacks 6y ago
  This forum should be above intellectually disingenuous comments such as this. This isn't Facebook, I'm not going to meme back at you. If you don't understand BLM at this point, that is a decision you've made and you will live with the moral and other implications. Edit: likewise, it's perfectly reasonable to think the GitHub/git trend is silly or ineffective. But keep in mind that "virtue signalling" goes both ways. When you speak out against what you see as silly, ineffective but is ultimately well meaning, you're virtue signaling that "all lives matter."
  - techntoke 6y ago
    So you're saying that Muslim people or Native Americans have not been targeted and discriminated against, and rather than have a movement that encourages justice and equality for all we should just focus on one race to unite us all? If I put a sign in my front yard that said White Lives Matter, would that not be considered racist?
    - tzs 6y ago
      I saw someone make an excellent point, when someone else was asking why we have a black history month in the United States but not a white history month. He said that we don't have a white history month because every month is white history month in the United States.
      - techntoke 6y ago
        Why don't we have a Native American history month, or Hispanic? Is it because those races are just like white people, never have to face discrimination? Never have anyone judge them because of how they look?
        krapp 6y ago
        Native American Heritage Month is November, Latinx Heritage Month is from September 15 to October 15.
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't bring up tired tropes like that one here. It's never going to change, so we're only going to get a tedious flamewar out of it, which indeed you've been perpetuating downthread—which, please don't. It's not as if we lack for new things to discuss and argue about. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
benmw333 6y ago
Every word to me is violence and so is silence. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't and you're just damned so damnit just kill yourself.
PlasticTank 6y ago
They are hardly related. Will you be removing my master's degree next?
- phkahler 6y ago
  Oh that's the same thing. That indicates mastery over the material you studied. Knowledge has become subservient to you.
  - stnmtn 6y ago
    What about the master copy of a recording? That's what git's master is anyways.
    - phkahler 6y ago
      I completely agree. My prior comment was a joke.
- ojhughes 6y ago
  Depeche Mode - Master and Servant is next
phkahler 6y ago
>> By making a point of getting rid of the word master, you're showing that black lives matter. Utter Bullshit. You're pandering to a bunch of left wing nutjobs thinking they are doing something important. Why is that person on Twitter "super excited" to be doing this? Probably some form of virtue signaling. If anything it makes light of black lives. The other time I saw a similar complaint was with a SPI bus where there is at least a "slave" node to go with the "master". And at least the person who complained was black that time. Master has more than one meaning and someone feeling like they're changing the world by replacing an accurate and socially benign use of it needs therapy! Yes, I'm projecting but I'm Triggered! I need my safe space!
- ojhughes 6y ago
  This sort of opinion is wrongthink. Very dangerous, best to keep your mouth shut and comply
- dang 6y ago
  Please keep denunciatory flamewar rhetoric off this site. If you have a substantive point, you should have no trouble expressing it within the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
pariahHN 6y ago
Are we going to get rid of every word that a plantation owner ever used to insult the slaves? For words that specifically have no purpose other than conveying hate, I can understand stamping them out. But master has quite a few other meanings, most of which I would think existed before institutionalized slavery of black people existed. Seems a bit unproductive to target it. They had supervisors - should we stop using the word supervisor? What about boss? Or plantation? Could not the entire BDSM culture be considered in the same way, with its themes of bondage and servitude? Somehow I doubt that every time a sub asks a dom to crack a whip over their head they are celebrating slavery. How close does a word have to be to an issue relative to its other usages in order to be considered a symbol of that issue above all else?
- tekromancr 6y ago
  I don't think "Let's reframe problematic work language in terms of kink-culture" is the slam-dunk rhetorical move you think it is.
  - pariahHN 6y ago
    It wasn't intended to be. It's an actual question - where does the cutoff point lie for something standing on its own vs it being considered a problematic and irredeemable symbol of an atrocity and how do we define it? How do we differentiate between when someone is an asshole or not? I came across an example of this the other day after seeing the word used in a historical text for a class [0,1]. I was fairly certain it did not mean what it sounded like it meant so I looked into it. While the word does not have a definition associated with slavery (that I know of) and is thus arguably further away from the issue than the word master, its phonetics are enough for its usage to result in condemnation. Lives can be ruined, either from an accusation over a misunderstanding or a failure to recognize actual harmful intent. Vagueness creates friction. To solve a problem there needs be a thorough and precise understanding, and when it involves multiple people there also needs to be a sufficiently common definition. [0]: http://www.americanyawp.com/reader/16-capital-and-labor/william-graham-sumner-on-social-darwnism-ca-1880s/ http://www.americanyawp.com/reader/16-capital-and-labor/will... [1]: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Controversies_about_the_word_niggardly https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Controversies_about_the_word_nig...

msla 6y ago

> That said, this is slightly ridiculous. Which makes it actively harmful: Anything you do which is even somewhat ridiculous can be seized upon by your political enemies and turned into ammunition against you. They can claim your whole movement is about the ridiculous thing, and use it to derail discussions: "Yes, yes, that point is good, but did you know they renamed something in a piece of software just because it vaguely reminded someone of slavery? Time to talk about that now!"

superkuh 6y ago
Remember that we're talking about Microsoft here. We don't need to give them the benefit of the doubt. They've already shown by the actions over and over and over what kind of corporation they are.
- waon 6y ago
  They’re surely notorious for their past business practices like EEE, but I don’t recall them actively trying to stir up racial conflict.

Foxboron 6y ago

>And my impression was that the usage was more similar to "master copy" than "master of the plantation". Evidently, this is a relic from bitkeeper which uses the "master/slave" terminology. https://github.com/bitkeeper-scm/bitkeeper/blob/master/doc/HOWTO.ask#L223 https://github.com/bitkeeper-scm/bitkeeper/blob/master/doc/H... https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2019-May/msg00066.html https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2019-May/...

zucker42 6y ago
I was somewhat aware of Bitkeeper, but crucially, 1. There are no slave branches. 2. "My impression" was my impression as someone new to git. I'm extrapolating other people, but I think it's fair to say that many (most?) people won't make the connection to chattel slavery. 3. Git is not directly modelled off Bitkeeper. But like I said, I don't object to people changing the name, but more to people thinking changing the name is important.
waheoo 6y ago
No this is not a relic from bitkeeper. Why dont you ask the dev responsible instead of some random on a mailing list stringing assumptions to fit a narrative. https://mobile.twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441 https://mobile.twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441

aespinoza 6y ago

I am right there with you. The whole idea of "master" is not really based on the idea of slavery focused master. Master represents the final version of a component or software which ends up in production. It is the same meaning as an audio master (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastering_(audio) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastering_(audio)) If the word master is considered evil, then what would happen to a Master Degree ? or Dojo Master ? Words have different meanings in different context, let's focus on changing language that changes the way you think.

crocodiletears 6y ago
Looking forward to the 'mega-debtor' degree tier.
- salawat 6y ago
  How dare you. People in debt should not be discriminated against you insensitive clod! Platinum degree is a far more neutral term! Wait... No, my PC adviser has just informed me it is unethical to discriminate on the inherent values of precious metal... Are you... Excuse me, I did not mean to discriminate as to suggest there is a tier of metals of a higher desirability or intrinsic value than any of the other metals. All metals should be valued for what they are, and our language with regard to degrees should reflect that. Therefore, the formerly oppressive Master's degree shall henceforth be known as the Bachelor's+1 and some research degree... Wait... No, I'm sorry. I've just been informed that due to the Bachelor's degreebeing based on a 12th century term, Knight bachelor, which implied a knight too poor or lowly to gather men...er... People! People under their own banner banner... We'll have to go with the Second Degree and Third Degree's respectively... Oh God, burn victims now? Gods above, wait, monotheists? I mean God... Wait... Then the polytheists, deists, and atheists.... Uhhhhh... The Orwellian linguistic engineering rabbit hole is a deep and terrifying place it behooves no one to muck with. One can keep the line of those insulted going all day. I however, have work to get back to doing.
  - RhysU 6y ago
    This joke ends with "comrade".

_never_k 6y ago

The terminology of master/slave architecture is a direct reference to the working relationships between people on an antebellum plantation. Names should help you understand what things do, and those names do. We also have node that elect leaders, nodes that get fenced, nodes with parents and children, etc... The terminology of our software architecture, and of our software in general, mirrors that of the real world relationships that they model, reference, or are inspired by. That's a good thing. It helps us understand these systems. It's also true that if this terminology references something we don't like in the real world, we're free to change it. After all, master/slave architecture isn't a perfect modeling of a plantation, it's substantially abstract from that. There are many other relationships in the real world which could be used to describe this architecture. Terminology is effective when it's stable, so we should be conservative about changing it, but that doesn't mean we should never change it.

sourdoughness 6y ago
Master in git doesn’t (as far as I understand) refer to master/slave architecture though. It’s a “master” as in as in the version from which copies are derived.
- waheoo 6y ago
  Your understanding is correct. https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441 https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441

waon 6y ago

I feel the same way, and it’s depressing that people have to risk their reputation over this. If this was about people waving confederate flags or holding Nazi banners, we should do our best to keep those people out because these are symbols of ill intent used to send a clear message of hate towards minorities. But I have never seen people use the noun “master” as a symbol to spread hate. Moreover, I don’t think many people have even thought of slavery when referring to “master” in CS context before it was brought up in this manner. But all this aside, this would’ve been a no-brainer if renaming the default branch didn’t have other real-world consequences. If it has a possible chance of making people happy, we should by all means do so. However, the proposed change is inevitably going to break many scripts out there that manipulate git repositories and forces additional work for countless people all over the industry. At this point, I think it’s reasonable to rethink whether this is actually going to improve the lives of anyone at all before proceeding.

azinman2 6y ago
"Moreover, I don’t think many people have even thought of slavery when referring to “master” in CS context before it was brought up in this manner." That's probably true, and it's probably people who didn't have grandparents that were slaves. It's closer in mind to some more than others. And if we want to have CS be more open to the black community, then being sensitive to how words can turn people off is important.
- waon 6y ago
  Banning the use of a common noun is distractive and inflammatory while doing nothing at all to address the real issues. What are we going to do when the whole software industry is done wasting countless man-hours of work renaming git branches? Ban the use of the word "order" because that too might remind someone of slavery? This is just an endless rabbit hole that leads us nowhere. Why not we just address racial inequality directly?
- pezo1919 6y ago
  Lol.

Justsignedup 6y ago

I agree with you. The thing is that GitHub has EXPLICITLY stated that they will not break their operations with ICE. So they are doing "good press" work rather than doing actual support of BLM.

IAmEveryone 6y ago

"I'm a strong supporter of social justice! M.L.K. was always my hero. I even got into college with a great essay on what a beloved leader of the civil rights movement he was! As I said: strong supported. But, come to think of it, if you tried to come up with the tiniest, most insignificant, free-as-in-beer-no-tax-increase, I-would't-even-notice-if-it-just-happen, quantum measure of any actual effort, grace, gesture, incon-slightest-venience? No that's where I draw a line. I'm all gung-ho for righting 400 years of injustice. But for some reason I'm suddenly really invited in jargon. You seem to invest a lot of emotions into these terms, which I find silly. I, on the other hand, am entirely objective and have in no way attached and cultural significance to these terms. But I might have to ro a search-and-replace. And that's why I'm opposing this with far more effort than that search-and-replace would ever take, Of course, if your objections had actual merit, I would behave differently. But I've thought long and hard how it would feel to be black and see these words being used. And please be informed that I have felt absolutely not threatened, belittled, or exploited in my little thought experiment. Not at all. And if I (and all my white male friends) can't feel bad about these terms, than nobody can. Because we define reality, and even subjectivity. For everyone. Go BLM!

akerro 6y ago

>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". We have solved poverty, work ethics problems in IT, we have great working culture, great salaries, we put demands and employers just throw money and resources at us. We run out of real problems to solve, so as humans - problem solving and pattern matching machines - we found another problem to solve.

juanuys 6y ago

Exactly. Is MC Hammer going to change his name too? I don't think so. EDIT: in case anyone's confused: MC = Master of Ceremonies