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> I just don’t appreciate the idea that we as software engineers can now sit back and believe we’ve made some kind of positive change, coz we haven’t. I might

> I just don’t appreciate the idea that we as software engineers can now sit back and believe we’ve made some kind of positive change, coz we haven’t. I might have missed the GitHub communication there, but thats not at all what I think when thinking about changing the default branch name for new repos to a name thats, in my perception, at least as good as the old one, maybe better. If there is window dressing involved around this change, then thats bs and need to be called out, but I nonetheless think that this change itself is not bad. Like many of these terminology changes discussed and implemented in the past, I actually think `main` is a better term for the (default) main branch. Personally I would opt for a branch name that better fits the projects needs, like 'stable' or 'production' or 'less-broken' or whatever you want. But we are talkin about a default here. > I’m not pissed off because I expected tech companies to do more, no, I didn’t expect them to do anything. I’m pissed off because they pretended to be doing good and wanted me to congratulate them for it. Yes, I agree with this. [edit] only syntax fixes, my markdown is lacking

anatoly 6y ago
'master' is better than 'main' because it successfully conveys the mental picture of the branch from which others are typically cloned. 'main' doesn't carry that connotation. You could of course have branches that evolve in parallel, even without common code if you want. But what people almost always do is have one primary branch from which exact copies are made, given other names, then continue to evolve either more slowly (stable releases) or faster (speculative work). You could call that primary branch "primary" or "main" or "premier" or "trunk" and they all work, but "master" conveys that expectation very successfully, and that's why people tend to like that name.
- maverwa 6y ago
  This may be because english is not my first language, or just "wrong", but for me it does not convey the that information. Good point, how language is perceived is very subjective and personal. I can see how people like the term "master" here more than "main" because it carries more information for them. Thanks!

anatoly 6y ago

'master' is better than 'main' because it successfully conveys the mental picture of the branch from which others are typically cloned. 'main' doesn't carry that connotation. You could of course have branches that evolve in parallel, even without common code if you want. But what people almost always do is have one primary branch from which exact copies are made, given other names, then continue to evolve either more slowly (stable releases) or faster (speculative work). You could call that primary branch "primary" or "main" or "premier" or "trunk" and they all work, but "master" conveys that expectation very successfully, and that's why people tend to like that name.

maverwa 6y ago
This may be because english is not my first language, or just "wrong", but for me it does not convey the that information. Good point, how language is perceived is very subjective and personal. I can see how people like the term "master" here more than "main" because it carries more information for them. Thanks!