5 ms·

My controversial opinion is that I think "main" is more descriptive and intuitive than "master."

by 65 2y ago

dijit 2y ago
my controversial opinion is that it never mattered, all that really mattered was that there was a universal word- changing it to anything would cause at least a few hundred hours of development work and a few hundred additional hours of changing documents and tutorials and stuff. For what? Main isn’t better if the issue is racism, because “main” has some really negative connotations in Korea (“main” families having servant families). And, for crying out loud. the tools name is literally a mild british swear word.
- thefourthchime 2y ago
  Good point about the number of dev hours dedicated to this.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
  This. What makes it worse: - Each "bad" term gets replaced by multiple alternative terms, often non-obvious, so good luck figuring out what people mean now. For example, MitM (Man in the Middle) was a well established technical term. Everybody knew what was meant, the term had no acutal gender association in the meaning, but now you instead read "machine-in-the-middle, meddler-in-the-middle, manipulator-in-the-middle, person-in-the-middle (PITM), or adversary-in-the-middle (AITM)". - The "it's more descriptive" excuse was used as a very thin veil of justification even though the actual reason for the change was clear. So not only do you get to deal with the extra hundreds of hours of overhead, but you also have people lie to your face about why you're being forced to do that. - It never ends. First it was "master/slave", then "master" in any context, and once that battle was "won", proponents of such policies started finding new "offensive" words. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack#Notes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack#Notes
  - wiseowise 2y ago
    This is the first time I ever see any of these.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- 65 2y ago
  Fair point, I don't think it should have been changed in the first place. But it's been changed whether we like it or not. If it was "main" in the first place I think that's still a better name than "master."
  - layer8 2y ago
    “Master“ implies that the contents is authoritative somehow, as in “master copy” (meaning 13 in https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/master#Noun https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/master#Noun). “Main” doesn’t have that connotation. When one is willing to discard that connotation, then, if anything, “default” would be a more accurate name, because the fact that it is selected by default in certain situations is really the only technical difference compared to other branches.
    - laughinghan 2y ago
      > "Main" doesn't have that connotation. It has had the connotation of "mainline", a synonym for "trunk", in version control since before Git existed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branching_(version_control) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branching_(version_control) Presumably this was originally due to the connotation of the railroad mainline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_line_(railway) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_line_(railway)
  - dijit 2y ago
    I agree that if it was main before it shouldn’t have been changed. The whole branch naming thing is still only half implemented fwiw. Lots are still master, the default for new branches seems to be main. At my company it is “develop” for git. Other VCS software uses a totally different name, perforce uses main for example. I don’t really care what it was, it could have been “killwhitey” and I still would have been against changing it because of the effort involved in changing every repo on earth and the invalidation of every tutorial in existence.
drdrey 2y ago
and shorter
Klonoar 2y ago
My controversial opinion is that I still use trunk as the branch name.
deleted 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago
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golly_ned 2y ago
"master" makes sense if taken to mean a "master" as in a recording from which other records are made.
bnycum 2y ago
I’ve been working with a large European company and it surprises me that they insist on using “master”. They even make other master named branches on the repos as well.
torginus 2y ago
My uncontroversial opinion is that it's the worst when your company uses both, and you have to juggle a dozen different repos that have it this way or that.

My controversial opinion is that I think "main" is more descriptive and intuitive than "master."

by 65 2y ago

My controversial opinion is that I think "main" is more descriptive and intuitive than "master."

my controversial opinion is that it never mattered, all that really mattered was that there was a universal word- changing it to anything would cause at least a few hundred hours of development work and a few hundred additional hours of changing documents and tutorials and stuff. For what? Main isn’t better if the issue is racism, because “main” has some really negative connotations in Korea (“main” families having servant families). And, for crying out loud. the tools name is literally a mild british swear word.

thefourthchime 2y ago
Good point about the number of dev hours dedicated to this.
tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
This. What makes it worse: - Each "bad" term gets replaced by multiple alternative terms, often non-obvious, so good luck figuring out what people mean now. For example, MitM (Man in the Middle) was a well established technical term. Everybody knew what was meant, the term had no acutal gender association in the meaning, but now you instead read "machine-in-the-middle, meddler-in-the-middle, manipulator-in-the-middle, person-in-the-middle (PITM), or adversary-in-the-middle (AITM)". - The "it's more descriptive" excuse was used as a very thin veil of justification even though the actual reason for the change was clear. So not only do you get to deal with the extra hundreds of hours of overhead, but you also have people lie to your face about why you're being forced to do that. - It never ends. First it was "master/slave", then "master" in any context, and once that battle was "won", proponents of such policies started finding new "offensive" words. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack#Notes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack#Notes
- wiseowise 2y ago
  This is the first time I ever see any of these.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
65 2y ago
Fair point, I don't think it should have been changed in the first place. But it's been changed whether we like it or not. If it was "main" in the first place I think that's still a better name than "master."
- layer8 2y ago
  “Master“ implies that the contents is authoritative somehow, as in “master copy” (meaning 13 in https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/master#Noun https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/master#Noun). “Main” doesn’t have that connotation. When one is willing to discard that connotation, then, if anything, “default” would be a more accurate name, because the fact that it is selected by default in certain situations is really the only technical difference compared to other branches.
  - laughinghan 2y ago
    > "Main" doesn't have that connotation. It has had the connotation of "mainline", a synonym for "trunk", in version control since before Git existed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branching_(version_control) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branching_(version_control) Presumably this was originally due to the connotation of the railroad mainline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_line_(railway) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_line_(railway)
- dijit 2y ago
  I agree that if it was main before it shouldn’t have been changed. The whole branch naming thing is still only half implemented fwiw. Lots are still master, the default for new branches seems to be main. At my company it is “develop” for git. Other VCS software uses a totally different name, perforce uses main for example. I don’t really care what it was, it could have been “killwhitey” and I still would have been against changing it because of the effort involved in changing every repo on earth and the invalidation of every tutorial in existence.

drdrey 2y ago

and shorter

Klonoar 2y ago

My controversial opinion is that I still use trunk as the branch name.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

golly_ned 2y ago

"master" makes sense if taken to mean a "master" as in a recording from which other records are made.

bnycum 2y ago

I’ve been working with a large European company and it surprises me that they insist on using “master”. They even make other master named branches on the repos as well.

torginus 2y ago

My uncontroversial opinion is that it's the worst when your company uses both, and you have to juggle a dozen different repos that have it this way or that.