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Imagine if instead of master/slave the terms were master and "n-word". Would there be a reasonable argument to change it at that point? If you say "yes" then

Imagine if instead of master/slave the terms were master and "n-word". Would there be a reasonable argument to change it at that point? If you say "yes" then you agree there is a line somewhere. If that's the case then we should discuss where the line should be and why it should be there instead of saying "stop [worrying] about being politically correct". If you say "no" then your argument is that no words are too offensive to use or we shouldn't care if people are offended by any term at all. Which is an argument that you're free to have but if that's what's happening then make that argument and advocate for why it would be ok to use the n-word as a terminology as well. I think that in these discussions it's easy to get sidetracked because people are actually arguing different points without realizing it. You're talking about the same scenario but you're arguing from different premises which means there's no hope of coming to a shared understanding because you're not actually talking about what you disagree on.

da_big_ghey 6y ago
Master/slave has a technical meaning beyond the sense of one person enslaving another. "Nigger" has no use case outside of making horrible and offensive remarks, aside from historical writing (e.g. To Kill a Mockingbird) or making a point about racism, cases in which it is accepted.
- mason55 6y ago
  So, two things (and I realize you aren't the person I originally replied to). 1. Your argument here is implicitly agreeing with my point number one. There are terms that would be considered too offensive and so the conversation is about where the line falls. We can't just say "let's not ever talk about whether a term is offensive" because there are some that we really wouldn't want to use, and so we should be talking about what terms are too offensive and why. 2. This is the conversation what what's too offensive and why. "Master/slave" only has technical meaning because we've been using it that way for awhile. But master/slave was originally picked because of its meaning in the historical context of slavery. The terminology itself has no inherent technical meaning. So, to me at least, that is not a great argument for why we shouldn't change it now. But at least this part of the discussion is two people talking about the same premise and not arguing past each other.
  - da_big_ghey 6y ago
    My point is that master/slave actually conveys a relationship between two things. It was picked for technical use because of that. Naming something "nigger", even in a technical would do what, offend some other piece of code? If somebody chose an offensive name arbitrarily (like, say, "git"), I would understand the impulse. Though the former is fraught with specific and awful connotations towards a very specific group (American blacks) whereas the latter is simply a general derogatory term (which is tacky, but not unbearably so).
    - aaomidi 6y ago
      To me master and slave is soemthing that shouldn't convey a relationship. Slavery exists with the shitiness of our culture. That's not something that should be used to convey a relationship between things. Abuse shouldn't be part of our technical language.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - allarm 6y ago
        Maybe it’s you who should stop being abused by random words? Change yourself, leave me my technical language I’ve been using for decades, please. Also a fun part of it is that in my (non-english speaking) country the terms master/slave are being used in their technical meaning only (as loan words). Why do we need to change our technical language and adjust to the concept of guilt that is completely foreign to us? I find this offensive.
    - whynaut 6y ago
      > My point is that master/slave actually conveys a relationship between two things. yes, it implies a negative one though. What about manager/worker? mentor/mentee? commander / responder? I could go on and on. So we do reach a point where one has to wonder what the point of clinging to master/slave is.
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  I agree it isn't the same as a racial slur but master and slave mean completely different things in different systems. Usually if not always there are more descriptive terms like primary and replica.
- touristtam 6y ago
  There have been cases in other western language where the word nigger (or its local variation) was used to describe an actual object or an activity. Since then it has often been scrubbed out. Was it the right thing to do? Was it wrong? The point is the word has been used and abused over the years, but the connotation one could infer from its use still exist. Banning the use of the word doesn't address the root of the behaviour, only its symptoms.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Master/slave has a technical meaning beyond the sense of one person enslaving another It's not “beyond”, it's literally the use of human slavery as a metaphor for relations between technical components.
spoopyskelly 6y ago
There was no master/slave in Git so your strawman doesn't apply.
s_dev 6y ago
>Imagine if instead of master/slave the terms were master and "n-word". This is absurd. Hypotheticals are important thinking tools but please don't set the parameters of a discussion to be absurd. No quality content/insight can emerge. n-word is inherently racist unlike master which has acceptable uses.
spuz 6y ago
master/slave is an analogy that is used in technology which has an obvious origin and personally has always made me slightly uncomfortable since I first heard about it with reference hard disk priorities. Similarly the terms male and female make me slightly uncomfortable with respect to cables and sockets. However, master in the context of git has no connection to the concept of master and slave. They are two different words with different meanings. So to answer your question yeah I think there is a line and it is somewhere near to that drawn by master/slave but nowhere near that drawn by master as in the concept of "original".
- tachyonbeam 6y ago
  The thing here is that master has meanings that exist outside of the context of master/slave. Yes, slavery is wrong, and hopefully everyone agrees, but there are no slaves in GitHub. There are no slaves when it comes to master records. Erasing the word master from our language isn't about healing, it's more akin to forgetting or denying the past, and everything that could remotely be construed as having a connection with things we shall not speak of. As for male and female connectors... It seems like an apt analogy, no? And uh, when it comes to male and female connectors, they are both equal, they both play a part, neither is better than the other.
- mordae 6y ago
  Except it was not about HDD priorities. > To allow for two drives on the same cable, IDE uses a special configuration called master and slave. This configuration allows one drive's controller to tell the other drive when it can transfer data to or from the computer. What happens is the slave drive makes a request to the master drive, which checks to see if it is currently communicating with the computer. If the master drive is idle, it tells the slave drive to go ahead. If the master drive is communicating with the computer, it tells the slave drive to wait and then informs it when it can go ahead. This pattern of truth flowing from one agent to another is called the master/slave pattern. It is the simplest coordination pattern there is, which is why it was used to control people doing menial tasks. We agreed it's not a good idea and no longer deprave people of agency (as much), but it still remains the most simple coordination pattern.

da_big_ghey 6y ago

Master/slave has a technical meaning beyond the sense of one person enslaving another. "Nigger" has no use case outside of making horrible and offensive remarks, aside from historical writing (e.g. To Kill a Mockingbird) or making a point about racism, cases in which it is accepted.

mason55 6y ago
So, two things (and I realize you aren't the person I originally replied to). 1. Your argument here is implicitly agreeing with my point number one. There are terms that would be considered too offensive and so the conversation is about where the line falls. We can't just say "let's not ever talk about whether a term is offensive" because there are some that we really wouldn't want to use, and so we should be talking about what terms are too offensive and why. 2. This is the conversation what what's too offensive and why. "Master/slave" only has technical meaning because we've been using it that way for awhile. But master/slave was originally picked because of its meaning in the historical context of slavery. The terminology itself has no inherent technical meaning. So, to me at least, that is not a great argument for why we shouldn't change it now. But at least this part of the discussion is two people talking about the same premise and not arguing past each other.
- da_big_ghey 6y ago
  My point is that master/slave actually conveys a relationship between two things. It was picked for technical use because of that. Naming something "nigger", even in a technical would do what, offend some other piece of code? If somebody chose an offensive name arbitrarily (like, say, "git"), I would understand the impulse. Though the former is fraught with specific and awful connotations towards a very specific group (American blacks) whereas the latter is simply a general derogatory term (which is tacky, but not unbearably so).
  - aaomidi 6y ago
    To me master and slave is soemthing that shouldn't convey a relationship. Slavery exists with the shitiness of our culture. That's not something that should be used to convey a relationship between things. Abuse shouldn't be part of our technical language.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - allarm 6y ago
      Maybe it’s you who should stop being abused by random words? Change yourself, leave me my technical language I’ve been using for decades, please. Also a fun part of it is that in my (non-english speaking) country the terms master/slave are being used in their technical meaning only (as loan words). Why do we need to change our technical language and adjust to the concept of guilt that is completely foreign to us? I find this offensive.
  - whynaut 6y ago
    > My point is that master/slave actually conveys a relationship between two things. yes, it implies a negative one though. What about manager/worker? mentor/mentee? commander / responder? I could go on and on. So we do reach a point where one has to wonder what the point of clinging to master/slave is.
pseudalopex 6y ago
I agree it isn't the same as a racial slur but master and slave mean completely different things in different systems. Usually if not always there are more descriptive terms like primary and replica.
touristtam 6y ago
There have been cases in other western language where the word nigger (or its local variation) was used to describe an actual object or an activity. Since then it has often been scrubbed out. Was it the right thing to do? Was it wrong? The point is the word has been used and abused over the years, but the connotation one could infer from its use still exist. Banning the use of the word doesn't address the root of the behaviour, only its symptoms.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Master/slave has a technical meaning beyond the sense of one person enslaving another It's not “beyond”, it's literally the use of human slavery as a metaphor for relations between technical components.

spoopyskelly 6y ago

There was no master/slave in Git so your strawman doesn't apply.

s_dev 6y ago

>Imagine if instead of master/slave the terms were master and "n-word". This is absurd. Hypotheticals are important thinking tools but please don't set the parameters of a discussion to be absurd. No quality content/insight can emerge. n-word is inherently racist unlike master which has acceptable uses.

spuz 6y ago

master/slave is an analogy that is used in technology which has an obvious origin and personally has always made me slightly uncomfortable since I first heard about it with reference hard disk priorities. Similarly the terms male and female make me slightly uncomfortable with respect to cables and sockets. However, master in the context of git has no connection to the concept of master and slave. They are two different words with different meanings. So to answer your question yeah I think there is a line and it is somewhere near to that drawn by master/slave but nowhere near that drawn by master as in the concept of "original".

tachyonbeam 6y ago
The thing here is that master has meanings that exist outside of the context of master/slave. Yes, slavery is wrong, and hopefully everyone agrees, but there are no slaves in GitHub. There are no slaves when it comes to master records. Erasing the word master from our language isn't about healing, it's more akin to forgetting or denying the past, and everything that could remotely be construed as having a connection with things we shall not speak of. As for male and female connectors... It seems like an apt analogy, no? And uh, when it comes to male and female connectors, they are both equal, they both play a part, neither is better than the other.
mordae 6y ago
Except it was not about HDD priorities. > To allow for two drives on the same cable, IDE uses a special configuration called master and slave. This configuration allows one drive's controller to tell the other drive when it can transfer data to or from the computer. What happens is the slave drive makes a request to the master drive, which checks to see if it is currently communicating with the computer. If the master drive is idle, it tells the slave drive to go ahead. If the master drive is communicating with the computer, it tells the slave drive to wait and then informs it when it can go ahead. This pattern of truth flowing from one agent to another is called the master/slave pattern. It is the simplest coordination pattern there is, which is why it was used to control people doing menial tasks. We agreed it's not a good idea and no longer deprave people of agency (as much), but it still remains the most simple coordination pattern.