3 ms·

Kill Your Masters

3 points by zzkt 6y ago

zzkt 6y ago
"An effort to rename racist language in computer terminology"
mytailorisrich 6y ago
This is not racist language. Repeating this claim as a fact does not help, quite the opposite. It just makes it sound like an extreme position and agenda.
abhisuri97 6y ago
Honestly, I'm not sure why "master" became the name in the first place. To a beginner, it seems unintuitive (at least when I first learned git, I would not have thought "master" actually described what master was). I hope something common like "main" is adopted.
- ralls_ebfe 6y ago
  I can understand the stance of "master" being unintuitive. The racism part i do not understand. It seems very narrow minded, to bind words which have roots tracing back thousands of years to one special meaning in recent history.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  'Master' comes from 'master copy', which is an established term in industry (not just software). This is the master branch, the reference, the branch from which other branches are created. It is quite clear for professionals with industry knowledge and experience. It has nothing to do with race.
- zzkt 6y ago
  There's a much longer discussion on the git mailing list[0] which covers the concerns and complications. [0] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CAOAHyQwyXC1Z3v7BZAC+Bq6JBaM7FvBenA-1fcqeDV==apdWDg@mail.gmail.com/ https://lore.kernel.org/git/CAOAHyQwyXC1Z3v7BZAC+Bq6JBaM7FvB...
INGELRII 6y ago
(Not native English speaker, non-American here) Master seems a perfect word to describe anything that is controlling or has authority over the other thing. Things can be a person, organization, device. Slave seems like a perfect word to describe any concept related to objects that lack autonomy, are controlled or owned by something else. Master/slave is very common idiom. I understand the issue of racist language, but words are context dependent. Surely racism can't spread trough language associations? These are not racist language: “I’m slave of my passions”, “I’m master of my destiny”, “I have master degree.”, “He is master of his house.”, “Yes master“ (Star Wars), “Master Sergeant“. But then using the word in github is somehow racist even tough it is misnomer. Master is not controlling anything, it's main or primary.
hootbootscoot 6y ago
This seems like a good thread to hijack for a second and complain about the default Ubuntu screencapture utility writing "scrot" into every file name, which is embarrassing to send to people and requires manual editing.
- zzkt 6y ago
  just compress it as a .zip or send as a .egg package

3 points by zzkt 6y ago

zzkt 6y ago

"An effort to rename racist language in computer terminology"

This is not racist language. Repeating this claim as a fact does not help, quite the opposite. It just makes it sound like an extreme position and agenda.

abhisuri97 6y ago

Honestly, I'm not sure why "master" became the name in the first place. To a beginner, it seems unintuitive (at least when I first learned git, I would not have thought "master" actually described what master was). I hope something common like "main" is adopted.

ralls_ebfe 6y ago
I can understand the stance of "master" being unintuitive. The racism part i do not understand. It seems very narrow minded, to bind words which have roots tracing back thousands of years to one special meaning in recent history.
mytailorisrich 6y ago
'Master' comes from 'master copy', which is an established term in industry (not just software). This is the master branch, the reference, the branch from which other branches are created. It is quite clear for professionals with industry knowledge and experience. It has nothing to do with race.
zzkt 6y ago
There's a much longer discussion on the git mailing list[0] which covers the concerns and complications. [0] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CAOAHyQwyXC1Z3v7BZAC+Bq6JBaM7FvBenA-1fcqeDV==apdWDg@mail.gmail.com/ https://lore.kernel.org/git/CAOAHyQwyXC1Z3v7BZAC+Bq6JBaM7FvB...

INGELRII 6y ago

(Not native English speaker, non-American here) Master seems a perfect word to describe anything that is controlling or has authority over the other thing. Things can be a person, organization, device. Slave seems like a perfect word to describe any concept related to objects that lack autonomy, are controlled or owned by something else. Master/slave is very common idiom. I understand the issue of racist language, but words are context dependent. Surely racism can't spread trough language associations? These are not racist language: “I’m slave of my passions”, “I’m master of my destiny”, “I have master degree.”, “He is master of his house.”, “Yes master“ (Star Wars), “Master Sergeant“. But then using the word in github is somehow racist even tough it is misnomer. Master is not controlling anything, it's main or primary.

hootbootscoot 6y ago

This seems like a good thread to hijack for a second and complain about the default Ubuntu screencapture utility writing "scrot" into every file name, which is embarrassing to send to people and requires manual editing.

zzkt 6y ago
just compress it as a .zip or send as a .egg package