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I’ll explain my downvote; the tech community has been affected by challenges similar to those discussed in the article. Words that were considered standards fo

I’ll explain my downvote; the tech community has been affected by challenges similar to those discussed in the article. Words that were considered standards for decades are within the last few years no longer acceptable. The changing definitions (or at least acceptability) of words, have, among other things, resulted in expensive refactors of code and documentation, and at times even bugs. As a particular examples, consider Whitelist/Blacklist being changed to Denylist/Allowlist, or Master/Slave to Primary/Secondary.

fastball 4y ago
Don't forget Master -> Main for git.
- leeoniya 4y ago
  i wonder if the recording industry also knee-jerk-renamed "master record" and "mastering", since the meaning is the same in both contexts. or if "masterclass" and "karate master" will have the same fate. :eyeroll: whitelist/blacklist has an unfortunate recent history, but black/white dualism preceeds it by a good margin: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-and-white_dualism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-and-white_dualism
- GuB-42 4y ago
  I actually think the move away from master/slave terminology is a good thing, not because of the association with human slavery, but because the term "master" is a bit too broad. For example, in a database, the master is usually the running copy while the slave is the backup. First, it doesn't match the idea of a master and a slave, normally, the master commands and the slave works, a (human) slave doesn't sit idle and take the role of the master when he is not available. This is a backup, not a slave. In the context of process execution, the parallel with slavery is more clear. The master process controls the slave processes completely while they do the work. Interestingly, these are often called "workers" even though it is the closest thing we have to slaves in computing. In the context of a bus, the master can either simply be the #1 device, while the slave is #2, no real hierarchy here. In other cases the master is the controller and decides which device (sometimes called a slave) talks and which one listens. There is a clear hierarchical relationship but it is a bit different from the master/worker relationship of processes. And now the "master" branch in git, which is actually more like a trunk (SVN term) or default (Mercurial term). Rethinking the "master" term forces people to think of more precise terms, in most cases, "master" is just lazy.
  - iamdamian 4y ago
    Isn’t the “master branch” in git analogous to the “master copy” in other industries? I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a reference to a “slave” branch in git. If that’s the case, should we really be limping it into the current master/slave renaming zeitgeist? If so, then should we not talk of mastery at all, and why? It seems to be a fairly precise and useful term.
    - regularfry 4y ago
      No, the etymology is master/slave. It was inherited from Bitkeeper, which had master repositories and slave repositories.
      - iamdamian 4y ago
        Do you have a source to prove this? I’ve only seen speculation on a few mailing threads. I see no reference to “slave” in git, and the most common interpretation I see of git’s “master” is as “master copy”, a useful mental model. I recognize that the common interpretation is distinct from its etymology, but given the nature of language, it’s probably the more important bit.
- googlryas 4y ago
  Ironically, git itself is a derogatory, ableist word, but I suppose that is too central to let it be rebranded.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
carbadtraingood 4y ago
These changes make sense even outside of any sort of political charge. "Allow list" is frankly a much more descriptive and easy to understand term than "white list". It's a list of things that are allowed. If you were trying to learn the English language, I'd imagine a self describing term is much easier to understand.
- dchftcs 4y ago
  >These changes make sense even outside of any sort of political charge. They only make sense if you disregard any costs associated with the change. In addition to logistical costs, it's culturally costly to make many people change, and even more costly that people who fail to adapt are demonized. Generations of text was written to use blacklist/whitelist, and people who read them would naturally be more comfortable with those usage, and you're asking them to bend over. >If you were trying to learn the English language, I'd imagine a self describing term is much easier to understand. The controversies of blacklist/whitelist are very America-centric and your argument is exemplary of that. Terms like blacklist/white list have already permeated many languages by this time. People who have seen blacklist/whitelist in their own language would have no problem adapting to the English version of it.
  - carbadtraingood 4y ago
    Can you help me understand the costs? Because as far as I can tell it is: 1) "We should consider using Allowlist" "ok, but let's be careful with externally facing APIs, in exactly the same way we change all our externally facing APIs?" "Sure!" 2) "I was editing this file, find/replaced a couple cases of whitelist while I was in there" "LGTM" 3) "Oh, hey, noticed we had nearly finished opportunistically replacing whitelist. Does anyone mind if I just finish up?" "Sure, timebox it?" Like, it's extremely low cost? What costs are you imagining?
    - mariusor 4y ago
      I'd like to add a point that I haven't seen discussed regarding the cost of change. In many languages a lot of computer related terms have no native correspondent, therefore they use the ones borrowed from English. If the English IT community decides en-masse to change those terms, the best result is that these people will have to catch up - with some unknown delay - or that they'll not bother, and there will be a disconnect in the terms. Which one is more likely and what the overall effects will be, I have no idea. But it will be a point of friction.
baremetal 4y ago
thrown_22 4y ago
SilverBirch 4y ago
Yeah I think we can reasonably disagree, that was just my take. I think this article suffers from the same thing a lot of articles suffer from which is a quotable topic in the first 5 paragraphs that doesn't really od justice to the article. The broad question that others argue is definitely worth debate (Some of which might belong here), but this article is more of an ode to the OED, and to the underlying methodology of the OED. If you look at the other main conversation here, it is far more literal than methodological about these topics - literally is X thing Y. Sure, you can have that argument, but (a) it's not a conversation this article really invites and (b) even if it were, it's not a topic we're really eqiuped for. Maybe I'm just pointing out we suffer from a failure to find a more generic news source.

fastball 4y ago

Don't forget Master -> Main for git.

leeoniya 4y ago
i wonder if the recording industry also knee-jerk-renamed "master record" and "mastering", since the meaning is the same in both contexts. or if "masterclass" and "karate master" will have the same fate. :eyeroll: whitelist/blacklist has an unfortunate recent history, but black/white dualism preceeds it by a good margin: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-and-white_dualism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-and-white_dualism
GuB-42 4y ago
I actually think the move away from master/slave terminology is a good thing, not because of the association with human slavery, but because the term "master" is a bit too broad. For example, in a database, the master is usually the running copy while the slave is the backup. First, it doesn't match the idea of a master and a slave, normally, the master commands and the slave works, a (human) slave doesn't sit idle and take the role of the master when he is not available. This is a backup, not a slave. In the context of process execution, the parallel with slavery is more clear. The master process controls the slave processes completely while they do the work. Interestingly, these are often called "workers" even though it is the closest thing we have to slaves in computing. In the context of a bus, the master can either simply be the #1 device, while the slave is #2, no real hierarchy here. In other cases the master is the controller and decides which device (sometimes called a slave) talks and which one listens. There is a clear hierarchical relationship but it is a bit different from the master/worker relationship of processes. And now the "master" branch in git, which is actually more like a trunk (SVN term) or default (Mercurial term). Rethinking the "master" term forces people to think of more precise terms, in most cases, "master" is just lazy.
- iamdamian 4y ago
  Isn’t the “master branch” in git analogous to the “master copy” in other industries? I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a reference to a “slave” branch in git. If that’s the case, should we really be limping it into the current master/slave renaming zeitgeist? If so, then should we not talk of mastery at all, and why? It seems to be a fairly precise and useful term.
  - regularfry 4y ago
    No, the etymology is master/slave. It was inherited from Bitkeeper, which had master repositories and slave repositories.
    - iamdamian 4y ago
      Do you have a source to prove this? I’ve only seen speculation on a few mailing threads. I see no reference to “slave” in git, and the most common interpretation I see of git’s “master” is as “master copy”, a useful mental model. I recognize that the common interpretation is distinct from its etymology, but given the nature of language, it’s probably the more important bit.
googlryas 4y ago
Ironically, git itself is a derogatory, ableist word, but I suppose that is too central to let it be rebranded.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

carbadtraingood 4y ago

These changes make sense even outside of any sort of political charge. "Allow list" is frankly a much more descriptive and easy to understand term than "white list". It's a list of things that are allowed. If you were trying to learn the English language, I'd imagine a self describing term is much easier to understand.

dchftcs 4y ago
>These changes make sense even outside of any sort of political charge. They only make sense if you disregard any costs associated with the change. In addition to logistical costs, it's culturally costly to make many people change, and even more costly that people who fail to adapt are demonized. Generations of text was written to use blacklist/whitelist, and people who read them would naturally be more comfortable with those usage, and you're asking them to bend over. >If you were trying to learn the English language, I'd imagine a self describing term is much easier to understand. The controversies of blacklist/whitelist are very America-centric and your argument is exemplary of that. Terms like blacklist/white list have already permeated many languages by this time. People who have seen blacklist/whitelist in their own language would have no problem adapting to the English version of it.
- carbadtraingood 4y ago
  Can you help me understand the costs? Because as far as I can tell it is: 1) "We should consider using Allowlist" "ok, but let's be careful with externally facing APIs, in exactly the same way we change all our externally facing APIs?" "Sure!" 2) "I was editing this file, find/replaced a couple cases of whitelist while I was in there" "LGTM" 3) "Oh, hey, noticed we had nearly finished opportunistically replacing whitelist. Does anyone mind if I just finish up?" "Sure, timebox it?" Like, it's extremely low cost? What costs are you imagining?
  - mariusor 4y ago
    I'd like to add a point that I haven't seen discussed regarding the cost of change. In many languages a lot of computer related terms have no native correspondent, therefore they use the ones borrowed from English. If the English IT community decides en-masse to change those terms, the best result is that these people will have to catch up - with some unknown delay - or that they'll not bother, and there will be a disconnect in the terms. Which one is more likely and what the overall effects will be, I have no idea. But it will be a point of friction.

baremetal 4y ago

thrown_22 4y ago

SilverBirch 4y ago

Yeah I think we can reasonably disagree, that was just my take. I think this article suffers from the same thing a lot of articles suffer from which is a quotable topic in the first 5 paragraphs that doesn't really od justice to the article. The broad question that others argue is definitely worth debate (Some of which might belong here), but this article is more of an ode to the OED, and to the underlying methodology of the OED. If you look at the other main conversation here, it is far more literal than methodological about these topics - literally is X thing Y. Sure, you can have that argument, but (a) it's not a conversation this article really invites and (b) even if it were, it's not a topic we're really eqiuped for. Maybe I'm just pointing out we suffer from a failure to find a more generic news source.