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This strikes me as a bit silly, because "master"/"slave" are simply words that describe a relationship. One that unfortunately still exists in many parts of the
by rdgthree 6y ago
This strikes me as a bit silly, because "master"/"slave" are simply words that describe a relationship. One that unfortunately still exists in many parts of the world. We're certainly not going to stop using them to describe the original thing. These aren't derogatory terms, they're just terms. Terms that describe bad things, but terms. Surely people can see the difference between this and something like the "Washington Redskins" name, which is (arguably, but imo) an actual derogatory term.
I don't really have any concerns about whitelist/blacklist (I'm aware of the history) because alternatives are more explicit. Allowlist/Denylist seem strange to hear at first, but they're intuitive, so I'm fine with it.
With master/slave, in Djangos case[0], they replaced it with "leader" and "follower", which obviously have different meanings. Master and slave have a very explicit connotation, which is that one controls the other, and the other has to do everything the other says. Leader/follower does not fit the bill to describe that relationship. We're explicitly and objectively losing precision because we've decided that non-derogatory non-outdated accurate terms in the English language make some people uncomfortable.
And again, to really drive this point home, these are just words. They are not derogatory terms. They're used in accordance with their dictionary definition. This is like saying we should stop using "kill" to describe the termination of a program because people have been killed and that makes some people sad when they think about it.
[0]https://github.com/django/django/pull/2692 https://github.com/django/django/pull/2692
- sebazzz 6y agoI always learned that in language context matters. In the current context master has nothing to do with slavery. Perhaps once when bitkeeper had master/slave you could see it different. Apparently these people focus only on the word without any consideration. That said, I do understand it in the master/slave context.
- drorh 6y agoDo you also understand it in the owner/slave context? Want to get rid of 'owner'? What other words are you willing do expunge? Will you be able to say anything at the end?