3 ms·

Wait are you saying to keep the default branch as master explicitly?

OJFord 3y ago
Yes, I do it too. 'master' is too ingrained to change and has nothing to do with slavery or anything sinister IMO. If I ever work with someone on a project we're in control of who feels otherwise and affected personally then it won't be much effort to change it. Until then I don't need to pointlessly spend effort rewriting it when I get it wrong on my own projects. (It only affects what git init does.)
- ithkuil 3y ago
  Indeed "master" comes from "master copy" which is the version of the "teacher" (magister) from which students copy a work
  - ksenzee 3y ago
    Yes, and as it happens, “master” was a bad metaphor for what that branch actually is and does. It would have been a better metaphor for what is usually called “origin.”
    - lobocinza 3y ago
      "main" isn't a better metaphor
    - wakawaka28 3y ago
      It's not a bad metaphor at all. I've never met anyone confused by it. People want to change it because of the political grifters, not for want of clarity.
      - ksenzee 3y ago
        I am aware of the reasons why people decided to change it, and I am choosing not to argue about that here. I am, however, insisting that it is a bad metaphor. We all learned it the very first time we opened a git tutorial, so we accepted it as the way things were. But I am old enough to know what we meant by “master” long before git existed. Its meaning was not “a template you can use as a pattern for new work,” or “a branching point that many derivative works have in common.” A “master” is “a pristine original copy you can make many copies of.” Think about it.
        wakawaka28 3y ago
        You're not wrong about the "old" meaning of "master" but in most projects, the master branch is expected to function and be reasonably up to date. So it is a reasonable jumping off point for both deployment and development. Consequently, Linus didn't make a mistake with that, and it is not a bad metaphor. There are many projects that don't work this way because they chose to violate conventions. That does not mean "master" is a bad choice of name, it means people are not conforming to the original pattern. Any other "main" type name would suffer from the exact same workflow dependence.
- nerdponx 3y ago
  I found that `main` was actually easier to type and say than `master`. You should keep doing what you're doing of course. But now that the change is becoming popular, I'm happy to keep using it, even in the absence of any particular moral reasoning.
- euroderf 3y ago
  > 'master' is too ingrained to change This typifies why the US still runs on imperial units, not metric. Don't crush that dwarf, hand me the 16mm pliers.
  - IshKebab 3y ago
    Well sure, except metric has big advantages over imperial, whereas `main` is very very slightly easier to type than `master`...
    - tom_ 3y ago
      Feels like QWERTY users will save a useful amount of wear and tear on their left hand. I don't want their life to be any worse than it already is.
- kstrauser 3y ago
  I was used to typing "master", too. I also think a bit much was made of using "master" (although using it together with "slave" in other contexts does kinda highlight the problem people have with it). But you know, some people around me strongly dislike calling it "master". I don't have strong feelings about it. They do. Their desire to call it something else is far greater than any desire I might have to not to. Switching to "main" cost me nothing, saves a couple keystrokes, and makes other people happy. Fine, let's do it. If you want to use "master" on your own internal projects, go for it. No one's stopping you. I definitely wouldn't use it on a shared project because the potential cost of irritating someone isn't worth it. And because I don't want to have one set of muscle memory for my own projects and another for shared projects, I just use "main" everywhere.
  - OJFord 3y ago
    I might feel that way if work had felt the need to switch (or started after the default changed), but as it is I spend most of my time with master, so using that for projects that I init only increases that majority.
  - RadiozRadioz 3y ago
    Are the people around you who strongly dislike "master" genuinely offended by it, or are they more akin to the virtue signaling busybodies mentioned by a comment above?
    - kstrauser 3y ago
      I’m sure there’s at least some of the latter, and I haven’t heard anyone in the same physical room as me saying they were personally deeply offended by it. I heard some online people who seemed genuine say that this was something that bothered them a little bit each day at work, and they asked if we could collectively use another word. It didn’t seem like an unreasonable position that someone would have to go out of their way to be offended by.
- hiccuphippo 3y ago
  It has nothing to do with slavery yes, but main is shorter to type. It didn't take much effort to switch when I started working in a project that used it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
LAC-Tech 3y ago
IIRC if you don't do that, it will spam you with "the default branch is master, it may change" every time you make a new repo, so you have to set it explicitly to get rid of the nagging.

Yes, I do it too. 'master' is too ingrained to change and has nothing to do with slavery or anything sinister IMO. If I ever work with someone on a project we're in control of who feels otherwise and affected personally then it won't be much effort to change it. Until then I don't need to pointlessly spend effort rewriting it when I get it wrong on my own projects. (It only affects what git init does.)

ithkuil 3y ago
Indeed "master" comes from "master copy" which is the version of the "teacher" (magister) from which students copy a work
- ksenzee 3y ago
  Yes, and as it happens, “master” was a bad metaphor for what that branch actually is and does. It would have been a better metaphor for what is usually called “origin.”
  - lobocinza 3y ago
    "main" isn't a better metaphor
  - wakawaka28 3y ago
    It's not a bad metaphor at all. I've never met anyone confused by it. People want to change it because of the political grifters, not for want of clarity.
    - ksenzee 3y ago
      I am aware of the reasons why people decided to change it, and I am choosing not to argue about that here. I am, however, insisting that it is a bad metaphor. We all learned it the very first time we opened a git tutorial, so we accepted it as the way things were. But I am old enough to know what we meant by “master” long before git existed. Its meaning was not “a template you can use as a pattern for new work,” or “a branching point that many derivative works have in common.” A “master” is “a pristine original copy you can make many copies of.” Think about it.
      - wakawaka28 3y ago
        You're not wrong about the "old" meaning of "master" but in most projects, the master branch is expected to function and be reasonably up to date. So it is a reasonable jumping off point for both deployment and development. Consequently, Linus didn't make a mistake with that, and it is not a bad metaphor. There are many projects that don't work this way because they chose to violate conventions. That does not mean "master" is a bad choice of name, it means people are not conforming to the original pattern. Any other "main" type name would suffer from the exact same workflow dependence.
nerdponx 3y ago
I found that `main` was actually easier to type and say than `master`. You should keep doing what you're doing of course. But now that the change is becoming popular, I'm happy to keep using it, even in the absence of any particular moral reasoning.
euroderf 3y ago
> 'master' is too ingrained to change This typifies why the US still runs on imperial units, not metric. Don't crush that dwarf, hand me the 16mm pliers.
- IshKebab 3y ago
  Well sure, except metric has big advantages over imperial, whereas `main` is very very slightly easier to type than `master`...
  - tom_ 3y ago
    Feels like QWERTY users will save a useful amount of wear and tear on their left hand. I don't want their life to be any worse than it already is.
kstrauser 3y ago
I was used to typing "master", too. I also think a bit much was made of using "master" (although using it together with "slave" in other contexts does kinda highlight the problem people have with it). But you know, some people around me strongly dislike calling it "master". I don't have strong feelings about it. They do. Their desire to call it something else is far greater than any desire I might have to not to. Switching to "main" cost me nothing, saves a couple keystrokes, and makes other people happy. Fine, let's do it. If you want to use "master" on your own internal projects, go for it. No one's stopping you. I definitely wouldn't use it on a shared project because the potential cost of irritating someone isn't worth it. And because I don't want to have one set of muscle memory for my own projects and another for shared projects, I just use "main" everywhere.
- OJFord 3y ago
  I might feel that way if work had felt the need to switch (or started after the default changed), but as it is I spend most of my time with master, so using that for projects that I init only increases that majority.
- RadiozRadioz 3y ago
  Are the people around you who strongly dislike "master" genuinely offended by it, or are they more akin to the virtue signaling busybodies mentioned by a comment above?
  - kstrauser 3y ago
    I’m sure there’s at least some of the latter, and I haven’t heard anyone in the same physical room as me saying they were personally deeply offended by it. I heard some online people who seemed genuine say that this was something that bothered them a little bit each day at work, and they asked if we could collectively use another word. It didn’t seem like an unreasonable position that someone would have to go out of their way to be offended by.
hiccuphippo 3y ago
It has nothing to do with slavery yes, but main is shorter to type. It didn't take much effort to switch when I started working in a project that used it.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

LAC-Tech 3y ago

IIRC if you don't do that, it will spam you with "the default branch is master, it may change" every time you make a new repo, so you have to set it explicitly to get rid of the nagging.