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DBs used to be master/slave. Should we keep that naming so as not to participate in a slippery slope? It’s a fine line between a slippery slope and progress.

by awb 6y ago

DBs used to be master/slave. Should we keep that naming so as not to participate in a slippery slope? It’s a fine line between a slippery slope and progress. I remember in the 80s and 90s when older generations would complain that they couldn’t gay bash anymore. They thought it was a slippery slope that if they were forced to respect homosexuals, they’d be forced to respect other types of behavior they deemed immoral. Turns out it was just progress. Recently, I noticed that I would refer to adult females as “girls” and adult males as “men”. I want to be careful with that in the future and try to change because I’ve been called out a few times and I can see how it’s disrespectful. And I don’t want to be those adults from the 80s I saw so resistant to change. I guess I try to view it as each year brings new ways of communicating and interacting. It’s OK that I wrote master/slave years ago and it’s OK that I’d never allow that in my code base now. We’re all trying to be better and that means change. I’m glad folks are sounding the alarm because we don’t want to be complacent, but not every new social norm is suppressive either.

etchalon 6y ago
I often think about how every generation I can think of had a fight over what was OK. The younger generation would set down some new standards, and everyone who grew up with the old "normal" thought it was ridiculous that the standard was changing. So, whenever I think some "new standard" is ridiculous, I try to think on that for a moment and err towards not wasting too much time worrying about it. Does using the new term hurt me in anyway? Does it help someone else? Alright, then. I might not get it, and it might feel ridiculous to me in the moment, but I don't want to be the guy yelling about how calling something "gay" isn't homophobic.
- DangitBobby 6y ago
  Maybe it doesn't "hurt" you in a direct way, but forcing people to change their behavior for a power trip is not something you should willingly bend over for. If change is for good, you should be willing to change. If it's for nothing, it's okay to resist.
  - etchalon 6y ago
    I think the idea a change is "for nothing" is subjective, and that the people most likely to say a given a change is "for nothing" are the people who don't benefit from it. Again, I go back to my example. Were LGBT activists "forcing me" to change the way I used the word "gay"? Sort of. Did doing so hurt me? No. Did it benefit them? They say it did. Was it for "nothing"? They say it wasn't. Language changes. I'm not going to waste a lot of energy worrying about it.
    - dane-pgp 6y ago
      Isn't there a risk that, like feeding pigeons, you end up encouraging minority groups to become over-sensitive, because they become addicted to the power of controlling what other people say?
      - etchalon 6y ago
        I'm not really sure how to respond to that. 1. I'm not comfortable with the analogy. 2. Going back to my example, the whole "if we let them do X, where does it stop?" was a big part of 90s discourse regarding LGB rights. So far, the slope hasn't slipped into any of the scenarios people brought up. Language changed a bit. Some people felt more included by society. I suffered no injury beyond letting go of the notion I was entitled to use certain words to mean certain things. I found other ways to convey those things. It turned out fine.
        dane-pgp 6y ago
        I apologise if my analogy made you feel uncomfortable, and I'd be happy to learn a different analogy which expresses the same idea just as clearly. If there isn't an effective alternative analogy, though, then it might appear as if you are using claims of discomfort to limit legitimate criticism of your ideas, which I trust isn't the intention.
        etchalon 6y ago
danenania 6y ago
Personally, I don't see what the issue is with master/slave for databases. Of course it's a terrible and immoral relationship to have between two humans, but that doesn't render the words themselves immoral when used descriptively in a completely different context. By the same logic, shouldn't it be offensive to refer to the "owner" of a house? Or the "torturous" path up the mountain? Can we also not "kill" a process? Or run a "headless" browser? Or talk about a project being a "death march"?
- awb 6y ago
  > Personally, I don't see what the issue is with master/slave for databases. Because there are other words that convey the same programming intent that don’t also personify slavery. I can think of dozens of oppressive human relationships that could also be used to describe a subordinate database architecture, but why? What do we gain by personifying our DBs with terms like “slave”? They’re short words of convenience rather than some malicious intent, I get it, but it’s not hard to name it something just as relevant like “primary/secondary” or “source/replica” and move on to bigger and better things. The other words you mentioned don’t have the same painful historical connotations for a large minority of the population.
  - strken 6y ago
    Killing child processes could certainly have painful historical connotations for anyone who's miscarried, had a forced abortion, or is distressed by the historical existence of those events. I'm sure if it becomes politically advantageous to remove the kill command, a community organiser or developer advocate somewhere will immediately start lobbying for it.
    - awb 6y ago
      Ok, fair point about miscarriages / abortions. > I'm sure if it becomes politically advantageous to remove the kill command, a community organiser or developer advocate somewhere will immediately start lobbying for it. Politically advantageous? I’m not sure why social change is assumed to have ulterior motives. If one of my employees said a violent personification of a programming process was distracting or disturbing to them and made their job harder, why not change it? It’s not like these are technical terms. These are words that relate to human interaction that we’ve embedded into a non-human field. There are tons of words throughout history that were accepted by previous generations that aren’t accepted by subsequent ones and vice versa. Language and social norms are always changing. If you can’t speak the truth freely, that’s a huge problem. If you can’t program with others using your preferred personified analogy for a variable name when another variable name will communicate the intent just as well, that doesn’t strike me as quite the same existential threat to society and public discourse.
DangitBobby 6y ago
It's possible to recognize some changes as warranted and some changes as being misguided or based on entirely false premises. You are capable of examining your thoughts and listening to other people's explainations for determine which is which.

by awb 6y ago

etchalon 6y ago

I often think about how every generation I can think of had a fight over what was OK. The younger generation would set down some new standards, and everyone who grew up with the old "normal" thought it was ridiculous that the standard was changing. So, whenever I think some "new standard" is ridiculous, I try to think on that for a moment and err towards not wasting too much time worrying about it. Does using the new term hurt me in anyway? Does it help someone else? Alright, then. I might not get it, and it might feel ridiculous to me in the moment, but I don't want to be the guy yelling about how calling something "gay" isn't homophobic.

DangitBobby 6y ago
Maybe it doesn't "hurt" you in a direct way, but forcing people to change their behavior for a power trip is not something you should willingly bend over for. If change is for good, you should be willing to change. If it's for nothing, it's okay to resist.
- etchalon 6y ago
  I think the idea a change is "for nothing" is subjective, and that the people most likely to say a given a change is "for nothing" are the people who don't benefit from it. Again, I go back to my example. Were LGBT activists "forcing me" to change the way I used the word "gay"? Sort of. Did doing so hurt me? No. Did it benefit them? They say it did. Was it for "nothing"? They say it wasn't. Language changes. I'm not going to waste a lot of energy worrying about it.
  - dane-pgp 6y ago
    Isn't there a risk that, like feeding pigeons, you end up encouraging minority groups to become over-sensitive, because they become addicted to the power of controlling what other people say?
    - etchalon 6y ago
      I'm not really sure how to respond to that. 1. I'm not comfortable with the analogy. 2. Going back to my example, the whole "if we let them do X, where does it stop?" was a big part of 90s discourse regarding LGB rights. So far, the slope hasn't slipped into any of the scenarios people brought up. Language changed a bit. Some people felt more included by society. I suffered no injury beyond letting go of the notion I was entitled to use certain words to mean certain things. I found other ways to convey those things. It turned out fine.
      - dane-pgp 6y ago
        I apologise if my analogy made you feel uncomfortable, and I'd be happy to learn a different analogy which expresses the same idea just as clearly. If there isn't an effective alternative analogy, though, then it might appear as if you are using claims of discomfort to limit legitimate criticism of your ideas, which I trust isn't the intention.
        etchalon 6y ago

danenania 6y ago

Personally, I don't see what the issue is with master/slave for databases. Of course it's a terrible and immoral relationship to have between two humans, but that doesn't render the words themselves immoral when used descriptively in a completely different context. By the same logic, shouldn't it be offensive to refer to the "owner" of a house? Or the "torturous" path up the mountain? Can we also not "kill" a process? Or run a "headless" browser? Or talk about a project being a "death march"?

awb 6y ago
> Personally, I don't see what the issue is with master/slave for databases. Because there are other words that convey the same programming intent that don’t also personify slavery. I can think of dozens of oppressive human relationships that could also be used to describe a subordinate database architecture, but why? What do we gain by personifying our DBs with terms like “slave”? They’re short words of convenience rather than some malicious intent, I get it, but it’s not hard to name it something just as relevant like “primary/secondary” or “source/replica” and move on to bigger and better things. The other words you mentioned don’t have the same painful historical connotations for a large minority of the population.
- strken 6y ago
  Killing child processes could certainly have painful historical connotations for anyone who's miscarried, had a forced abortion, or is distressed by the historical existence of those events. I'm sure if it becomes politically advantageous to remove the kill command, a community organiser or developer advocate somewhere will immediately start lobbying for it.
  - awb 6y ago
    Ok, fair point about miscarriages / abortions. > I'm sure if it becomes politically advantageous to remove the kill command, a community organiser or developer advocate somewhere will immediately start lobbying for it. Politically advantageous? I’m not sure why social change is assumed to have ulterior motives. If one of my employees said a violent personification of a programming process was distracting or disturbing to them and made their job harder, why not change it? It’s not like these are technical terms. These are words that relate to human interaction that we’ve embedded into a non-human field. There are tons of words throughout history that were accepted by previous generations that aren’t accepted by subsequent ones and vice versa. Language and social norms are always changing. If you can’t speak the truth freely, that’s a huge problem. If you can’t program with others using your preferred personified analogy for a variable name when another variable name will communicate the intent just as well, that doesn’t strike me as quite the same existential threat to society and public discourse.

DangitBobby 6y ago

It's possible to recognize some changes as warranted and some changes as being misguided or based on entirely false premises. You are capable of examining your thoughts and listening to other people's explainations for determine which is which.