8 ms·

These developers have had to drop whatever projects they were working on to go back to previous code and spend time finding all of this, just to keep their jobs

These developers have had to drop whatever projects they were working on to go back to previous code and spend time finding all of this, just to keep their jobs. Then they have to redeploy new versions everywhere, which also carries a significant cost. Really frustrating.

ryandrake 2y ago
This seems just as ridiculous and frustrating as a few years ago, dropping whatever they're doing to remove "master" and "whitelisting" from the code. Different team, same silliness.
- amarcheschi 2y ago
  Except that replacing "master" with "main" probably didn't affect the lives of people subject to systemic discrimination. This might do
  - lucasyvas 2y ago
    I agree with the parent comment, but believe you have the more correct and important perspective in the current context. They are both probably forms of overcorrection, this too far in the wrong direction where the former could have been too far in the more ideal direction. Pandering is not as bad as discrimination, as you’ve pointed out.
  - pipes 2y ago
    It does not seem fair to me to exclude or include people in financial aid programs based on the colour of their skin. Individual circumstances seems like a much fairer and much less divisive system.
    - amarcheschi 2y ago
      I hope that this was valued in accordance to other values. Eg. A rich black kid in Washington probably wouldn't be eligible to receive this grants, while a poor white kid in Kentucky would. I also hope that "systemic discrimination" would take into account more than just skin color
    - netsharc 2y ago
      https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2686895-equality-equity-justice https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2686895-equality-equity-just... , hopefully this is still visible to the people in oppressed regimes.. This comments section seem to be full of the "Fuck Woke DEI" Maganazis and mentioning "systemic racism" will trigger them, but if you're still reading, look at George Floyd, in an alternate world, he'd be a wealthy person descendant of landowners, but in this reality, his grandparents' land was stolen, he grew up poor (and black) and ended up being yet another black-murdered-by-cop figure: https://dwkcommentaries.com/2020/10/08/a-moving-biography-of-george-floyd/ https://dwkcommentaries.com/2020/10/08/a-moving-biography-of... . But snowflakes get triggered if there's an idea of better treatment for descendants of victims of systemic racism (another snowflake trigger word). To the snowflakes: Hey, why care about all that, your continued violence has won you the ethno-supremacy fascism you wanted, where being white and incompetent doesn't matter, because you'll get that cushy job anyway!
  - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y ago
    No. This is the idiocy that continues to undermine any argument from free speech or forced speech. You cannot just agree with the language you like. You have to be able to live with horrible, horrid language that you detest and then, maybe, we can have some semblance of sense come back. Words don't hurt people. People do. Case in point, it is not words that are deleting those words. It is actions. You are part of the problem. Yes. You.
    - amarcheschi 2y ago
      I'm not sure if I am understanding your message. You are trying to say that I should live without dei messages? If so, I live in a country where I basically lived half of my (pretty short yet, tbh) life without those kind of messages. I was too young to be offended by the lack of messages, I'm now grateful that there is a consideration for different backgrounds. An example might be jobs postings, in computer science the tone used for the post might discourage more women to apply than man. Having a process to ensure this doesn't happen results in more women applying, but more men as well, the increase is just less than woman in % I also not see an issue with changing a word that has a bleak history with one that hasn't, it doesn't remove anything from people
      - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y ago
        << I also not see an issue with changing a word that has a bleak history with one that hasn't, it doesn't remove anything from people I will be very blunt. You are simply wrong. Not just inaccurate, but wrong. Not technically wrong, but wrong. If it removes word, it removes something. And since "something" is far, far removed from 'not anything'. You are factually wrong. As in, you cannot get more wrong than you just did. Fucking QED.
        amarcheschi 2y ago
        It is changed, not removed. This time is removed. Honestly, I don't get your point. Mind your words jesus
- tehjoker 2y ago
  that was really stupid but mostly harmless, this will cause a lot of people to actually suffer
- gregates 2y ago
  No, those are identifiers that appear only in code. It's an IDE or git rename with no impact on the product. In this case, the engineers are changing the functionality of the product, not just changing code identifiers.
  - pc86 2y ago
    So whether you agree with the policy aims or not, wouldn't that mean this is actually productive work while trawling through git histories changing "master" to "main" is just a nonproductive waste of time.
    - miltonlost 2y ago
      "Whether or not you agree with the policy aims, wouldn't this mean that the death camps are actually doing productive work?" You can't ignore the policy aims when determining what is "productive" as productivity is directly to the end result. It's WORSE that this is productive vs non-productive. You're "Tired of nazi comparisons" when... Musk did two Nazi Salutes! He brought the comparison on by doing a Nazi salute! Twice! You're the one who refuses to see a salute for what it is.
      - pc86 2y ago
        [flagged]
        tbossanova 2y ago
        Curious as to how the Nazi salute thing is seen by you? Just a little forgivable misstep?
        miltonlost 2y ago
        Probably looks like a good opportunity for a high five!!!
      - tmnvdb 2y ago
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  1) Were employees ordered to implement PRs to go through all code and auto-remove all mentions of "master" and "whitelist" from public facing code (not just internal identifiers). 2) False equivalency.
  - TeeMassive 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - wwweb 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - pc86 2y ago
        Please don't admonish people with a 1-hour old throwaway account, especially if you're not even going to say what you think "this" is.
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    > Were employees ordered to implement PRs to go through all code and auto-remove all mentions of "master" and "whitelist" from public facing code (not just internal identifiers) Uhm, yes. Yes they were. Here's one example: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/09/renaming-whitelisted-domains-to-allowlisted-domains-in-admin-console.html https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/09/renaming-whi...
    - insane_dreamer 2y ago
      We're talking about gov employees here
      - IshKebab 2y ago
        Ah so the morality of censorship depends on exactly who your employer is. Got it.
- wwweb 2y ago
  Oh sure, this is 100% the same..
- azernik 2y ago
  1. This is removing actual content, not just changing internal naming. "Children/Families affected by systematic discrimination/bias/exclusion" will simply no longer be able to find grants targeted at them. 2. The amount of effort being put into this is much higher than GitHub changing their default for new repos to "main"
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    > The amount of effort being put into this is much higher than GitHub changing their default for new repos to "main" Sorry but that's bullshit. This is just deleting a few words from static content. The whole `main` thing required: * Github (and Gitlab etc.) to make `master` configurable - an entirely new feature. * All tooling that previously could assume a default of `master` now can't have a sensible default. You have to specify every time. * Users to remember which one to use for every repo. This is still causing me pain. Repos I use are about 50:50 split between `main` and `master`. I sure do love having to retype `git switch master` half the time I do it. This is dumb, but it definitely is less effort than the dumb `main` change.
    - Hizonner 2y ago
      Less effort on that repo? Sure. Less effort replicated over the entire US government? No, sorry, don't buy it. ... and the git changes were allowed to happen on a sane schedule. Oh, and most of the people or projects affected by the git change got a choice.
    - EasyMark 2y ago
      It isn't though. This is the beginning of wiping LGBTQ from any federal government concerns, grants, programs, health data, etc. It's been pretty obvious for the past 2 weeks that Trump doesn't care about the law, nor do his acolytes or GOP Congress members who have failed to stand up for the very role of the Congress as a check to Presidential and Judicial power. They passed these laws, the President has to go through them to make changes to them, not do end runs around the law disguised as Musk and his minions
      - 2y ago
- whamlastxmas 2y ago
  Removing racistly coded language isn’t ridiculous. There’s a reason we don’t use words like “negro” anymore, too.
  - pc86 2y ago
    You're completely right. It's a shame that instead of doing that people were worried about terms like "whitelist."
- Cornbilly 2y ago
  Most places only changed that terminology on external viewable materials and the requests for removing terms from the code were just dumped in the backlog for some intern to maybe get to one day. I could go pull my company's JIRA ticket and I guarantee you it hasn't been touched since 2020. These companies were only going to do enough work for a PR win and nothing more.
  - flir 2y ago
    It's Microsoft. If they were serious they would have, say, refused to sell Office licenses to the worst-offending police departments. Instead they renamed master to main. If it was me (it's not, I'm a pasty white guy) I'd find it condescending. But it's also harmless, and shorter to type. It's not a hill I'm going to die on, and the false equivalency smacks of bad faith.
    - Cornbilly 2y ago
      I agree. There is no way people being annoying about some possibly inconsiderate naming conventions is the same as malicious actors going out of their way to delete information. I was just pointing out that the companies that changed terminology due to “wokeness” only did it for a PR. It was never an actual endorsement of progressive politics or whatever these dorks try to sell it as.
      - flir 2y ago
        Sorry if it came off like I wasn't agreeing. Whatever the progressive equivalent of greenwashing is. That.
- mplanchard 2y ago
  In addition to what others have said about the very real effects on the people using these programs, one was mandated by the government, the other was companies being performative. There is a vast difference.
- TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
  One is about a set of words which have no practical effect on function, the other is about an unelected apparatchik with questionable foreign links deliberately destroying the administrative and constitutional integrity of a superpower. It really isn't a both sides situation.
- whatthedangit 2y ago
  Welcome to the era of the Conservative Justice Warrior. They're deploying all of the same annoying and repressive tactics that got progressives booted from power with breakneck speed.
- wodenokoto 2y ago
  So in your world, rm and mv accomplish the same thing?
tehjoker 2y ago
i cant imagine having my boss tell me to do this shit. i would quit
- freitasm 2y ago
  Some people still need to feed themselves and their families. But if there was an option, they definitely should.
- netsharc 2y ago
  Having people with integrity quit is a secondary goal. And with the compliant people remaining, they can do a slippery slope, with the people thinking "Well I've already done X, X+1 isn't that much worse". Slash they'll absorb the Nazi propaganda as "acceptable". Gas chambers when?
  - tehjoker 2y ago
    If the people with integrity quit, they have less overall capacity. An alternative is to get your union to be political and strike over this shit. If you don't resist in some capacity, you are just helping them.
- blibble 2y ago
  imagine being told to spend a week re-doing builds to rename "master" to "main"
  - tehjoker 2y ago
    That was stupid, but not evil.
  - monkeydreams 2y ago
    These are not exactly equal. I'm not saying that I am particularly triggered by such titles (even when they apply to my family history, genealogy, etc) but there are some people who are and accomodating them is not a huge impact. Changing the names back because you were upset that somone changed them in the first place, with the express knowledge that some people may be affected by this, is a dick move. One of these moves is a virtue signal, yes, but it has no real impact once completed. This current move from 'main' to 'master' is designed to both virtue signal and to upset/piss people off/etc.
PakistaniDenzel 2y ago
Everyone had to do the same shit with the master->main thing
nimbius 2y ago
IMO this is only going to be a thing for as long as: 0. it takes the reigning POTUS to realize its causing problems that are impacting wealthy elites (24 hours in the case of tariffs) 1. 4 years. If i were product owner/manager of any of these teams id recommend we fork the codebase for 4 years and call it done. keep the forked version on standby with backports of major content updated in case you wind up with this sort of situation again, but dont start ripping all this stuff out of prod. Or if on a longer timeline, build culture war into the release as a feature flag (culture=1, culture=0, etc..)
- nonchalantsui 2y ago
  Culture war as a feature flag is so good. I’m definitely reusing that.
- kernal 2y ago
  2. 12+ years.
- netsharc 2y ago
  Four years? Oh, honey... Where do I put money on the MAGA-Nazis pulling a Putin on future elections? I suppose Putin isn't the first one to do rigged elections, somehow he's the only one currently in my mind. Sadly Wikipedia doesn't have an article entitled "List of Rigged Elections"...
  - bqmjjx0kac 2y ago
    I really do expect them to try. I am slightly hopeful that this clown show of an administration is too incompetent to pull it off. The judicial branch appears to be bought and paid for, so maybe my optimism is unfounded.
    - pc86 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - 2y ago
kernal 2y ago
The corollary is that they were very motivated to do so.
zeroonetwothree 2y ago
Did you also complain when they made these changes in the first place?

ryandrake 2y ago

This seems just as ridiculous and frustrating as a few years ago, dropping whatever they're doing to remove "master" and "whitelisting" from the code. Different team, same silliness.

amarcheschi 2y ago
Except that replacing "master" with "main" probably didn't affect the lives of people subject to systemic discrimination. This might do
- lucasyvas 2y ago
  I agree with the parent comment, but believe you have the more correct and important perspective in the current context. They are both probably forms of overcorrection, this too far in the wrong direction where the former could have been too far in the more ideal direction. Pandering is not as bad as discrimination, as you’ve pointed out.
- pipes 2y ago
  It does not seem fair to me to exclude or include people in financial aid programs based on the colour of their skin. Individual circumstances seems like a much fairer and much less divisive system.
  - amarcheschi 2y ago
    I hope that this was valued in accordance to other values. Eg. A rich black kid in Washington probably wouldn't be eligible to receive this grants, while a poor white kid in Kentucky would. I also hope that "systemic discrimination" would take into account more than just skin color
  - netsharc 2y ago
    https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2686895-equality-equity-justice https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2686895-equality-equity-just... , hopefully this is still visible to the people in oppressed regimes.. This comments section seem to be full of the "Fuck Woke DEI" Maganazis and mentioning "systemic racism" will trigger them, but if you're still reading, look at George Floyd, in an alternate world, he'd be a wealthy person descendant of landowners, but in this reality, his grandparents' land was stolen, he grew up poor (and black) and ended up being yet another black-murdered-by-cop figure: https://dwkcommentaries.com/2020/10/08/a-moving-biography-of-george-floyd/ https://dwkcommentaries.com/2020/10/08/a-moving-biography-of... . But snowflakes get triggered if there's an idea of better treatment for descendants of victims of systemic racism (another snowflake trigger word). To the snowflakes: Hey, why care about all that, your continued violence has won you the ethno-supremacy fascism you wanted, where being white and incompetent doesn't matter, because you'll get that cushy job anyway!
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y ago
  No. This is the idiocy that continues to undermine any argument from free speech or forced speech. You cannot just agree with the language you like. You have to be able to live with horrible, horrid language that you detest and then, maybe, we can have some semblance of sense come back. Words don't hurt people. People do. Case in point, it is not words that are deleting those words. It is actions. You are part of the problem. Yes. You.
  - amarcheschi 2y ago
    I'm not sure if I am understanding your message. You are trying to say that I should live without dei messages? If so, I live in a country where I basically lived half of my (pretty short yet, tbh) life without those kind of messages. I was too young to be offended by the lack of messages, I'm now grateful that there is a consideration for different backgrounds. An example might be jobs postings, in computer science the tone used for the post might discourage more women to apply than man. Having a process to ensure this doesn't happen results in more women applying, but more men as well, the increase is just less than woman in % I also not see an issue with changing a word that has a bleak history with one that hasn't, it doesn't remove anything from people
    - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y ago
      << I also not see an issue with changing a word that has a bleak history with one that hasn't, it doesn't remove anything from people I will be very blunt. You are simply wrong. Not just inaccurate, but wrong. Not technically wrong, but wrong. If it removes word, it removes something. And since "something" is far, far removed from 'not anything'. You are factually wrong. As in, you cannot get more wrong than you just did. Fucking QED.
      - amarcheschi 2y ago
        It is changed, not removed. This time is removed. Honestly, I don't get your point. Mind your words jesus
tehjoker 2y ago
that was really stupid but mostly harmless, this will cause a lot of people to actually suffer
gregates 2y ago
No, those are identifiers that appear only in code. It's an IDE or git rename with no impact on the product. In this case, the engineers are changing the functionality of the product, not just changing code identifiers.
- pc86 2y ago
  So whether you agree with the policy aims or not, wouldn't that mean this is actually productive work while trawling through git histories changing "master" to "main" is just a nonproductive waste of time.
  - miltonlost 2y ago
    "Whether or not you agree with the policy aims, wouldn't this mean that the death camps are actually doing productive work?" You can't ignore the policy aims when determining what is "productive" as productivity is directly to the end result. It's WORSE that this is productive vs non-productive. You're "Tired of nazi comparisons" when... Musk did two Nazi Salutes! He brought the comparison on by doing a Nazi salute! Twice! You're the one who refuses to see a salute for what it is.
    - pc86 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - tbossanova 2y ago
        Curious as to how the Nazi salute thing is seen by you? Just a little forgivable misstep?
        miltonlost 2y ago
        Probably looks like a good opportunity for a high five!!!
    - tmnvdb 2y ago
insane_dreamer 2y ago
1) Were employees ordered to implement PRs to go through all code and auto-remove all mentions of "master" and "whitelist" from public facing code (not just internal identifiers). 2) False equivalency.
- TeeMassive 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - wwweb 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - pc86 2y ago
      Please don't admonish people with a 1-hour old throwaway account, especially if you're not even going to say what you think "this" is.
- IshKebab 2y ago
  > Were employees ordered to implement PRs to go through all code and auto-remove all mentions of "master" and "whitelist" from public facing code (not just internal identifiers) Uhm, yes. Yes they were. Here's one example: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/09/renaming-whitelisted-domains-to-allowlisted-domains-in-admin-console.html https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/09/renaming-whi...
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    We're talking about gov employees here
    - IshKebab 2y ago
      Ah so the morality of censorship depends on exactly who your employer is. Got it.
wwweb 2y ago
Oh sure, this is 100% the same..
azernik 2y ago
1. This is removing actual content, not just changing internal naming. "Children/Families affected by systematic discrimination/bias/exclusion" will simply no longer be able to find grants targeted at them. 2. The amount of effort being put into this is much higher than GitHub changing their default for new repos to "main"
- IshKebab 2y ago
  > The amount of effort being put into this is much higher than GitHub changing their default for new repos to "main" Sorry but that's bullshit. This is just deleting a few words from static content. The whole `main` thing required: * Github (and Gitlab etc.) to make `master` configurable - an entirely new feature. * All tooling that previously could assume a default of `master` now can't have a sensible default. You have to specify every time. * Users to remember which one to use for every repo. This is still causing me pain. Repos I use are about 50:50 split between `main` and `master`. I sure do love having to retype `git switch master` half the time I do it. This is dumb, but it definitely is less effort than the dumb `main` change.
  - Hizonner 2y ago
    Less effort on that repo? Sure. Less effort replicated over the entire US government? No, sorry, don't buy it. ... and the git changes were allowed to happen on a sane schedule. Oh, and most of the people or projects affected by the git change got a choice.
  - EasyMark 2y ago
    It isn't though. This is the beginning of wiping LGBTQ from any federal government concerns, grants, programs, health data, etc. It's been pretty obvious for the past 2 weeks that Trump doesn't care about the law, nor do his acolytes or GOP Congress members who have failed to stand up for the very role of the Congress as a check to Presidential and Judicial power. They passed these laws, the President has to go through them to make changes to them, not do end runs around the law disguised as Musk and his minions
    - 2y ago
whamlastxmas 2y ago
Removing racistly coded language isn’t ridiculous. There’s a reason we don’t use words like “negro” anymore, too.
- pc86 2y ago
  You're completely right. It's a shame that instead of doing that people were worried about terms like "whitelist."
Cornbilly 2y ago
Most places only changed that terminology on external viewable materials and the requests for removing terms from the code were just dumped in the backlog for some intern to maybe get to one day. I could go pull my company's JIRA ticket and I guarantee you it hasn't been touched since 2020. These companies were only going to do enough work for a PR win and nothing more.
- flir 2y ago
  It's Microsoft. If they were serious they would have, say, refused to sell Office licenses to the worst-offending police departments. Instead they renamed master to main. If it was me (it's not, I'm a pasty white guy) I'd find it condescending. But it's also harmless, and shorter to type. It's not a hill I'm going to die on, and the false equivalency smacks of bad faith.
  - Cornbilly 2y ago
    I agree. There is no way people being annoying about some possibly inconsiderate naming conventions is the same as malicious actors going out of their way to delete information. I was just pointing out that the companies that changed terminology due to “wokeness” only did it for a PR. It was never an actual endorsement of progressive politics or whatever these dorks try to sell it as.
    - flir 2y ago
      Sorry if it came off like I wasn't agreeing. Whatever the progressive equivalent of greenwashing is. That.
mplanchard 2y ago
In addition to what others have said about the very real effects on the people using these programs, one was mandated by the government, the other was companies being performative. There is a vast difference.
TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
One is about a set of words which have no practical effect on function, the other is about an unelected apparatchik with questionable foreign links deliberately destroying the administrative and constitutional integrity of a superpower. It really isn't a both sides situation.
whatthedangit 2y ago
Welcome to the era of the Conservative Justice Warrior. They're deploying all of the same annoying and repressive tactics that got progressives booted from power with breakneck speed.
wodenokoto 2y ago
So in your world, rm and mv accomplish the same thing?

tehjoker 2y ago

i cant imagine having my boss tell me to do this shit. i would quit

freitasm 2y ago
Some people still need to feed themselves and their families. But if there was an option, they definitely should.
netsharc 2y ago
Having people with integrity quit is a secondary goal. And with the compliant people remaining, they can do a slippery slope, with the people thinking "Well I've already done X, X+1 isn't that much worse". Slash they'll absorb the Nazi propaganda as "acceptable". Gas chambers when?
- tehjoker 2y ago
  If the people with integrity quit, they have less overall capacity. An alternative is to get your union to be political and strike over this shit. If you don't resist in some capacity, you are just helping them.
blibble 2y ago
imagine being told to spend a week re-doing builds to rename "master" to "main"
- tehjoker 2y ago
  That was stupid, but not evil.
- monkeydreams 2y ago
  These are not exactly equal. I'm not saying that I am particularly triggered by such titles (even when they apply to my family history, genealogy, etc) but there are some people who are and accomodating them is not a huge impact. Changing the names back because you were upset that somone changed them in the first place, with the express knowledge that some people may be affected by this, is a dick move. One of these moves is a virtue signal, yes, but it has no real impact once completed. This current move from 'main' to 'master' is designed to both virtue signal and to upset/piss people off/etc.

PakistaniDenzel 2y ago

Everyone had to do the same shit with the master->main thing

nimbius 2y ago

IMO this is only going to be a thing for as long as: 0. it takes the reigning POTUS to realize its causing problems that are impacting wealthy elites (24 hours in the case of tariffs) 1. 4 years. If i were product owner/manager of any of these teams id recommend we fork the codebase for 4 years and call it done. keep the forked version on standby with backports of major content updated in case you wind up with this sort of situation again, but dont start ripping all this stuff out of prod. Or if on a longer timeline, build culture war into the release as a feature flag (culture=1, culture=0, etc..)

nonchalantsui 2y ago
Culture war as a feature flag is so good. I’m definitely reusing that.
kernal 2y ago
2. 12+ years.
netsharc 2y ago
Four years? Oh, honey... Where do I put money on the MAGA-Nazis pulling a Putin on future elections? I suppose Putin isn't the first one to do rigged elections, somehow he's the only one currently in my mind. Sadly Wikipedia doesn't have an article entitled "List of Rigged Elections"...
- bqmjjx0kac 2y ago
  I really do expect them to try. I am slightly hopeful that this clown show of an administration is too incompetent to pull it off. The judicial branch appears to be bought and paid for, so maybe my optimism is unfounded.
  - pc86 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - 2y ago

kernal 2y ago

The corollary is that they were very motivated to do so.

zeroonetwothree 2y ago

Did you also complain when they made these changes in the first place?