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GitHub wil change default branch name from 'master' to 'main'
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tomxor 6y agoGit init defaults to master, i don't care what it's called but why are they diverging from git defaults? This will just add yet another inconsistency to confuse newbies as they transition from using github directly to plain git cli... The more cynical side of me would think that may even be intentional.
- gear54rus 6y agoPray that git doesn't fall victim to the same disease. That might cause an avalanche of stupidity like this one among VCS web GUIs.
- axegon_ 6y agoEven existing projects??? No, that's not going to break tons of stuff and tooling built and running on production around "master" /s
- Jonnax 6y agoHas someone said that's what they're doing? Have you seen more information about this change? Because the link here is just saying "that's a good idea and we're working on it" in response to someone asking about changing the default branch name. Like default sounds like new project creation time.
- axegon_ 6y agoThat's what I'm asking. I mean there are probably tons and tons of custom built tools, ci/cd's around the current default "master" branch. It would be awesome to wake up and see a ton of alarms and all builds and deployments failing, wouldn't it.
- Jonnax 6y agoIn that case. It's very likely to be done to existing projects. Creating a different branch requires commiting to the repo, at least from what I understand. And and branch name is just a text field.
- Jonnax 6y agomaster isn't a special branch right? Like I know some projects set their default branch as develop. Also the set upstream command, that let's you have a local branch name different from remote, right?
- firloop 6y agoDupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23500093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23500093
- k__ 6y agoAwesome. Let's do this industry wide and never talk about it again.
- holler 6y agobetter yet, why don't we just strike the word "master" from the English language, that way no mortal will make the mistake ever again?
- based2 6y agohttps://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/jenkinsci-dev/CLR55wMZwZ8 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/jenkinsci-dev/CLR55w...
- sjansen 6y agoYou seem to be suggesting that would be a mistake. But if we're not willing to prevent thought crime, who will? With a little work, we can ensure that future generations don't even know what a "double plus meanie" was. In fact, maybe we can even forget that the bad times happened.
- k__ 6y agoI think, context is the point here. It's like with content that is needlessly sexualized. We should keep stuff like that to the context it belongs.
- bonzini 6y agoIf you read "master branch" and think of slavery, you have reading comprehension issues that won't be fixed by renaming the branch. (I know bitkeeper used master/slave terminology for repositories; that is completely irrelevant to git).
- adjkant 6y agoGiven how even distributed systems used to use master/slave frequently, and some still do, and that people don't say "master branch" and typically just say "master", I think it would be surprising for someone to avoid that association if they are educated in computer sincere using those terms (which again many places do). Also, it's not reading comprehension, it's subconscious level associations that people basically can't avoid.
- loceng 6y agoIf it's triggering underlying emotional trauma, then there's still unhealed/unprocessed trauma; rightfully so, though "actions speak louder than words" seems oddly fitting here.
- adjkant 6y agoTwo things: 1. Where did I say anything about emotional trauma? 2. Even if that was the case (for most it is not as far as I can tell), I am surprised to hear an argument for "ah yes, let's not decrease emotional trauma if we can for low/no cost".
- loceng 6y agoWhat are you referring to then regarding "subconscious level associations that people basically can't avoid"? A subconscious association, if using reason, critical thinking, would separate master-slave in the context of programming vs. human slavery. If they are reacting to it, rather than responding, it's emotional - not reasonable based in logic; you probably can't tell because it's subtle, subconscious and not blatant - you have to understand it through behaviour patterns and mechanisms. How about decreasing the emotional trauma by actually helping people heal, so they can be calm and not have to fear police brutality or a police state etc, to implement accountability and integrity in our systems? And in another reply I made I suggested that coddling people makes them and us weaker as a society, and allows worse consequences to grow. Arguably doing "low/no cost" things is lazy and procrastinatory, especially when it's relating to something unreasonable or incorrect like associating master-slave in programming to master-slave in human slavery; yes, an unreasonable request not given into by a child being unreasonable will likely lead to a tantrum. Not responding would be bad and further traumatizing, responding with thought and an actual plan would be deep and powerful, giving into people's unreasonable requests or for-profit company opportunism to look good doing something shallow because people are misinterpreting language is something else. In another comment I made: "Coddling will only lead to greater problems later, though yes, it certainly is a gesture showing respect — because of the improper associating, trigger it is causing an unreasonable mob. Coddling people makes them and society weaker, it doesn't strengthen them - it turns their anger into something other than critical thinking. Large for-profit corporations who are happy to jump to an easy decision like this seem to be more opportunists than leaders to make a statement like you said in response." - that statement I was referring to is: 'If you read "master branch" and think of slavery, you have reading comprehension issues that won't be fixed by renaming the branch.'
- VWWHFSfQ 6y agoI feel like this will break a very significant amount of tooling
- akerro 6y agoNow that consider all tools need to support new non-offensive terminology and old racist terminology used in existing projects
- VWWHFSfQ 6y agoI'm saying that every tool/service that integrates with Github will now have to know whether the "default" branch is called master or main. Bugs will be caused by that and a lot of services will break.
- herbstein 6y agoThey already had to know that. Plenty of repos use `develop` as their primary branch name.
- exogen 6y agoThen that tooling was broken to begin with.
- VWWHFSfQ 6y agoNewsflash: most software makes assumptions that it shouldn't. Doesn't mean it's acceptable for something like Github to break it just because "well, you shouldn't have done that".
- there_the_and 6y agoYes. Software evolves as the environment evolves. Software that can't evolve gets replaced.
- sebazzz 6y ago
- verroq 6y agoThis is getting really stupid now. Who are these people? At the risk of invoking the slippery slope, they will never be satisfied. Will the silent majority bend over to these extremists on Twitter?
- cczizou 6y agoWhat if we already went down a slippery slope by permitting racist language to permeate culture and making things right requires an equally slippery slope? Could this be the reality we live in now? I would contend, however, that those who are trying to combat racism and it’s markings in our culture are in more of an uphill climb.
- verroq 6y agoYou’re right, we should remove the words from the language such that not even “racist” concepts can be expressed. An act of daring of such thought itself should be a crime. In fact we should call this new language: newspeak.
- cczizou 6y agoThis story is about a business (Github) deciding to change language in their product that could carry racist connotations. It’s not about criminalizing racist language.
- verroq 6y agoExcept this usage doesn’t and has never had racist connotations. If one wilfully chooses to misinterpret the meaning of words then that is on them. Much the same way RMS did not defend Epstein. Truth is often the first casualty.
- baggy_trough 6y ago"Silent majority" is an offensive term to the dumb.
- Papirola 6y agoremember factorybot ?
- hastes 6y agoPure lunacy, hope this turns out to be a joke.
- yunruse 6y agoI saw a great point mentioned elsewhere on Twitter that an even better methodology is to use "prod" and "dev", as it makes the intent that little bit clearer.
- akerro 6y agoBut we already follow git-flow and have master, prod, staging and dev branches
- umanwizard 6y agoPlenty of projects on github don’t even have the concept of “prod” and “dev”.
- loceng 6y agoIs this related to master-slave? Master-slave in programming has nothing to do with humans, the contexts are separate. What's it say about society if people are unable to differentiate, separate the language in two contexts?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- vulcan01 6y agoSo now I have to replace all the "master"s in my aliases to "main"... except I have to switch back when I work on an older repository. Yay.
- adjkant 6y agoPerhaps a better broader link than a single tweet without context: https://www.cnet.com/news/master-and-slave-tech-terms-face-scrutiny-amid-anti-racism-efforts/ https://www.cnet.com/news/master-and-slave-tech-terms-face-s...
- m0zg 6y agoNot enough. Master branch should be deleted outright. Then go in and pattern match the word "slave" in people's code and delete that as well (including all prior revisions). Only then will systemic racism be fully abolished. /s At the speed this is going, I'm beginning to worry about my master's degree, male/female connectors, and color coding in electrical code.
- jjuhl 6y agoWhen will all this political correctness and social justice warrior nonsense stop? Just because a word can be used in a way that causes offense, doesn't mean that it's always used that way. Also, people need to relax a bit and not hunt down things that could potentially offend so aggressively. Take it easy, if something offensive was intended you'll probably know from the surrounding context - stop shooting down individual words.
- cczizou 6y agoIt’s always nonsense if you don’t give a fuck.
- thu2111 6y agoIt won't stop until companies start refusing to hire leftist activists, or take investment from them, and fire the ones that do sneak through the hiring process. A lot of this bullying evaporates when there's some risk involved in doing it, but that doesn't happen because companies are filled with people that have no strong moral foundation to their lives. So they aren't really sure if they're good people and easily pushed around by anyone who comes along and says with conviction and clarity, "you are a good person if you do X and a terrible bad evil person if you don't".
- beager 6y agoI have no problem with folks doing this but it feels like hollow, performative grandstanding that allows tech folk to feel like they’re helping without doing anything that will make them truly uncomfortable. How many companies will do this but continue to let talent pipeline issues languish, or neglect unconscious biases create an uneven playing field for employees?
- filoeleven 6y agoI’d like to see the Venn diagram of (people who are complaining about renaming ‘master’ to ‘main’) and (people who complain about misspelling ‘lose’ as ‘loose’, “it’s” as “its”, etc). I don’t have a fully-formed idea of what I’m getting at yet, but I suspect that the overlap is high, and it seems inconsistent. Like for “master”, especially when coupled with “slave”, the expectation is that the context of its usage in computing makes it clear that this has nothing to do with humans claiming to own other humans. But use “loose” where “lose” is the right word, and you’re gonna get a snide or “helpful” response about the misspelling, even though the context makes it perfectly clear what the intended meaning was in the vast majority of cases.
- andrenth 6y agoI’d like to see a Venn diagram of (people claiming the word master can offend someone) and (people actually offended by the word master). I suspect the overlap is nonexistent.
- slap 6y agoMasterdegrees and master bedrooms are next on the list. The virtue signalling can't stop right now.
- purplezooey 6y agoHere comes the right wing comment avalanche
- cczizou 6y agoSeriously. All the straw men in all the comments.
- PureParadigm 6y ago"Master," in many contexts, need not be associated with slavery. You can be a (grand)master at chess without having any slaves. You can have a master's degree without having any slaves. In the case of git, I don't think there is a clear connection to slavery either (the non-master branches are typically referred to as feature or development branches). So unless chess grandmasters and master's degrees are going to also change names, I don't see why git needs to.
- aayala 6y agoPeople need to fix the real problems, words are just words, please analyze the intentions and context.
- beirut_bootleg 6y agoThe term "main" is a trigger to non-lead developers.
- smegmasamurai 6y ago'main' doesn't seem like a good solution if this is really what they're going to do. it might just be me but a 'master' branch in some repos might not be equal to what you could consider a 'main' branch.
- johnlbevan2 6y agoI'd say "blacklist" and "whitelist" are more offensive / have a stronger argument of colour being used to discriminate (albeit not directly related to races) / would be better to have "deny list" and "allow list". "Race condition" is just as offensive as "Master Branch" - neither are relating to prejudice / historic injustice; but use different meanings of these potentially loaded words. That said, nothing against switching to non-loaded terms; especially if the effort to do so is less than the effort to debate it. But we mustn't accuse people of being racist just because they're using terminology that some are offended by when those using the terminology are simply using terminology they've learnt, and could have no reasonable expectation to have considered that it may be deemed offsensive.