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Ask HN: Is using master/slave terminology anti-diversity?
We got a PR in our repo https://github.com/rudderlabs/rudder-server/pull/432 requesting us to change the master/slave terminology to main/subordinate.
I really appreciate the author for bringing this issue up but somehow the main/subordinate doesn't seem right too.
Wondering if people have thought about this. And if yes, what alternative terminology people have been following?
- praveen9920 6y ago`leader/follower` is one option you can consider.
- soumyadeb 6y agoAh, that sounds much better
- detaro 6y agoThis recent discussion lists a bunch of options: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23811866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23811866 - which is best depends on the context
- soumyadeb 6y agoThanks for the pointer. Missed that thread
- brendancol 6y agoIMHO “Slave” is the problematic word here. I think it’s better to avoid the slavery analogy and instead use “worker” or “replica”.
- soumyadeb 6y agomaster/replica sounds perfect to me. That should be fine I guess?
- bigiain 6y ago"master" even on its own os potentially problematic because of the relationship with the word "slave" even if you cage that to "replica". I'd suggest changing both, so you won't possibly be asked to change again later. I went with "Primary/Replica" here, because it's genuinely more logically descriptive of the roles, as well as moving completely away from older "traditional" use of language that might cause offence or hurt.
- gigatexal 6y agoBoth words need to go imo
- byoung2 6y agoI've thought about this since the days of IDE drives. As a black person in America I see it as a reminder of a painful legacy reduced to a catchy mnemonic. Those kinds of things waer in you, just like seeing 5 out of 7 people on US currency being slaveowners.
- jnxx 6y agoI am from Europe and I never thought that for things as IDE drives it has such connotation in the US. I feel sorry how things are. If American society wants to heal from this past, they will need do acknowledge the pain it brought. Heck, in Germany quite a few two-letter abbreviations like "SS" are that taboo that you'll never find them even in numerical source code. ("SS" was the acronym for the Nazi storm troopers.) These letter combinations are utterly burnt and nobody uses them since the WWII was over.
- Gibbon1 6y agoMy expedience is once the language police start driving the conversation everything loses momentum and starts to fall apart. Because when the top of your list of demands are inane superfluous things it makes everything else appear so as well.
- mister_hn 6y agoNo, since in IT it doesn't associate the concept to racists one. Think about master/slave hard drive controllers (the old IDE interface) for instance. And what about the Git "master" branch: what has to do with racists concepts? And what about "master degree"?
- the_resistence 6y agoicecube/snowflake