4 ms·

Not sure I understand the idea of banning words being taken so far. I always interpreted Git’s usage of ‘master’ to mean the original replica. Like the golden m

Not sure I understand the idea of banning words being taken so far. I always interpreted Git’s usage of ‘master’ to mean the original replica. Like the golden master of a record or CD.

kyawzazaw 6y ago
this has been explained further again and again
pseudalopex 6y ago
Nobody banned anything. They changed a default. Git was developed to replace Bitkeeper. Git's usage of master probably comes from Bitkeeper's usage of master and slave.
- throwaheyy 6y ago
  Ok, that’s maybe a bit different.
- wayneftw 6y ago
  No, the guy who picked the name "master", Petr Baudis, explained why he picked it: > "master" as in e.g. "master recording". https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441 https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    I hadn't seen that. Thanks! He also said "it's not unlikely at all" it was influenced by Bitkeeper[1] and he's "wished many times" he picked main instead[2]. [1] https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272958618124595201 https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272958618124595201 [2] https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1271477451756056577 https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1271477451756056577
throwaway894345 6y ago
Not only this, but the idea that we should focus our efforts on these utter non-problems (no one has ever been harmed or disenfranchised in any way by the use of this term) as opposed to any of the very real problems our society faces (environment, growing inequality, etc) is itself a real problem. And the people who are meant to be the "victims" of these issues almost never take offense or issue (e.g., Japanese opinions on the little girl's geisha-themed party or Chinese opinions on the traditional-Chinese themed prom dress, or African American opinions on defunding the police, or etc). The people who take offense are very often not even members of these "victim groups", but rather people who believe race is the preeminently useful characteristic of any person and that races have agency and collective guilt/accomplishment and so on (i.e., "racism" in a literal, classical sense).
- stnmtn 6y ago
  To me this point never makes much sense, do you really believe that a change as small as a naming convention switch means that we can't focus on real problems? It doesn't make sense and is a non-sequitur argument
  - vlovich123 6y ago
    At a minimum you should be considering organizational change fatigue. It takes expenditure of political capital to enact these changes even if you don’t see it right away. Spending it on this does mean you’re less able to spend it on others. So asking “is this the most important thing to spend that capital on?” doesn’t seem like a bad question. Additionally, if someone perceives you as being wasteful in how you choose to spend that capital they may be even more resistant in the future to changes that are far less cosmetic.
  - kruczek 6y ago
    > a change as small as a naming convention This "small" change had to be split into 29 parts, so that each part stays below 100kB. This means nearly 3MB of changed code. How many hours did developers have to spend to consider what needs to be changed, make the change and then validate it? In my opinion these are hours wasted, that could be better spent on some real problems.

Not sure I understand the idea of banning words being taken so far. I always interpreted Git’s usage of ‘master’ to mean the original replica. Like the golden master of a record or CD.

kyawzazaw 6y ago

this has been explained further again and again

pseudalopex 6y ago

Nobody banned anything. They changed a default. Git was developed to replace Bitkeeper. Git's usage of master probably comes from Bitkeeper's usage of master and slave.

throwaheyy 6y ago
Ok, that’s maybe a bit different.
wayneftw 6y ago
No, the guy who picked the name "master", Petr Baudis, explained why he picked it: > "master" as in e.g. "master recording". https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441 https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  I hadn't seen that. Thanks! He also said "it's not unlikely at all" it was influenced by Bitkeeper[1] and he's "wished many times" he picked main instead[2]. [1] https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272958618124595201 https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272958618124595201 [2] https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1271477451756056577 https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1271477451756056577

throwaway894345 6y ago

Not only this, but the idea that we should focus our efforts on these utter non-problems (no one has ever been harmed or disenfranchised in any way by the use of this term) as opposed to any of the very real problems our society faces (environment, growing inequality, etc) is itself a real problem. And the people who are meant to be the "victims" of these issues almost never take offense or issue (e.g., Japanese opinions on the little girl's geisha-themed party or Chinese opinions on the traditional-Chinese themed prom dress, or African American opinions on defunding the police, or etc). The people who take offense are very often not even members of these "victim groups", but rather people who believe race is the preeminently useful characteristic of any person and that races have agency and collective guilt/accomplishment and so on (i.e., "racism" in a literal, classical sense).

stnmtn 6y ago
To me this point never makes much sense, do you really believe that a change as small as a naming convention switch means that we can't focus on real problems? It doesn't make sense and is a non-sequitur argument
- vlovich123 6y ago
  At a minimum you should be considering organizational change fatigue. It takes expenditure of political capital to enact these changes even if you don’t see it right away. Spending it on this does mean you’re less able to spend it on others. So asking “is this the most important thing to spend that capital on?” doesn’t seem like a bad question. Additionally, if someone perceives you as being wasteful in how you choose to spend that capital they may be even more resistant in the future to changes that are far less cosmetic.
- kruczek 6y ago
  > a change as small as a naming convention This "small" change had to be split into 29 parts, so that each part stays below 100kB. This means nearly 3MB of changed code. How many hours did developers have to spend to consider what needs to be changed, make the change and then validate it? In my opinion these are hours wasted, that could be better spent on some real problems.