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Master means too many different things to remove it from English. For example: Master of Arts Degree in African-American Studies Its usage in git is inrelated
by steve_taylor 6y ago
Master means too many different things to remove it from English. For example: Master of Arts Degree in African-American Studies
Its usage in git is inrelated to the master/slave metaphor. There are systems that use that metaphor and they should chane. Git isn’t one of them.
- rodw 6y agoI'll take it one step farther: I'm guessing the original etymology wasn't even master/slave but master/copy. For that matter it's not obvious to me that whilelist/blacklist was racially inspired. I assume it's more like "black mark" -> "blacklist" -> "whitelist". But you're missing the point. You can't rationalize your way out of an emotional response. You can't talk people out of being disturbed or distracted by the terms master/slave. Rational or not, if we know that this metaphor or phrasing makes a sizable group of people uncomfortable, why would we continue to use it in technical writing or source code? It's such a small "accommodation" to ask for.