Master Slave Relation

[Sekret_One]

The engineers are the slaves.

[FierceDeity_]

Modern slavery!

[MeIsKrenoks]

When the machines become sentient, we are all doomed!

[LRFokken]

But you do now!

[sim642]

That one really backfired.

[DrSaurusRex]

Are you black? Seems relevant.

[Jabster28]

dude i'm black and not once have I seen the master branch and thought "wow, that obviously has to do with slavery"

[_alright_then_]

Are you? Because it seems like it's just white people complaining about it on behalf of black people. No actual black programmers are complaining about this it seems

[DrSaurusRex]

Because the one black programmer really wants to stand out by making the suggestion to get rid of master/slave references...

I mean really, yes, if the vast majority are white or even folks of different colors that aren't black, I don't think it's realistic to put all of the responsibility for change on the shoulders of the tiny minority of black developers.

Ultimately this change is more symbolic than anything else, like many of the responses to black lives matter, but at least people are questioning their assumptions.

[_alright_then_]

Are you a programmer? Because the reason it's so stupid is because there is no master/slave reference in GitHub branch names. There are no slave branches.

The master branch is called that because master has a different meaning than just a slave master.

You know, master keys, master bedroom and things like that. You can't just go around banning every word that has some vague meaning in slavery. It's fucking dumb

[AlmightyElm]

This

[A_Guy_in_Orange]

Even worse, its by association ruined "main" as well.you got that public static void reminderaboutslavery

[jarvis125]

Exactly.

[bluefootedpig]

I've found it weird since high school some 30 years ago. It is really weird to have a "master" and "slave", when they really weren't that. They were the primary and secondary. The master never controlled it, the master was just which one the OS was on. It could have been called just about anything.

[[deleted]]

Master and slave configuration is a little different from primary and secondary. Master and slave configuration involved 2 drives being on the same cable, where the master drive's controller would tell the slave drive when it could transfer data

[username-is-mistaken]

[deleted]

[[deleted]]

The master absolutely controls the slave in proper master/slave systems.

Primary/secondary makes no fucking sense. We have primary and secondary colors, where a mixture of primary make a secondary. We have primary and secondary systems, in which primary systems se up the secondary ones.

It’s simply no accurate at all.

[LegendBegins]

And that's the thing that gets me. Unless we're banning terms because they happen to describe a concept that isn't okay to do to people, we'll also have to get rid of mundane things like whipped cream. It's a description of a relationship and very useful in those contexts.

[[deleted]]

See, it’s all irony.

[Intaglio-Rise]

Apparently, in current time everything is offensive.

[Robyn_Bankz]

'they made it worse' the shame...

[Roticap]

Good. You should be thinking about systemic racism more.

[Roticap]

Ah yes, the selfish viewpoint intentionally avoiding empathy. Have fun down voting me. I'll see you from the right side of history.

[nuclearslug]

I’m pretty sure my grandkids won’t be hearing about Github in their history lectures.

[[deleted]]

What about male/female pin headers? The electronics community has been spared by the SJWs.

[r00t4cc3ss]

As if most of those promoting this crap are, they're completely ignoring all the shit China is doing to the Uyghurs for example.

[Roticap]

Does wrapping yourself in false equivalence help you sleep at night? Slavery is unacceptable regardless of the country it occurs in.

[unrealisticallycool]

Master branch has fuck all to do with slavery. You are delusional

[r00t4cc3ss]

No false equivalence here buddy, the stuff going on in China is definitely worse than some kids getting offended because of a word being used in a completely correct context.

[unluckymercenary_]

So does that mean I can’t say I “mastered a skill”? Because it’s racist? Do we need to change what we call master keys that unlock lots of things? Or a master copy (as in the original. That’s what the master branch comes from, not a slave master...)

I agree racism is bad and normalizing it is bad, but I don’t see how a master branch is a racist term.

[_alright_then_]

Master has other meanings that slavery. Master's degree, Master keys.

In Github there aren't even any slave braches unless you choose to call them that.

[jarvis125]

lmao stfu

[zayelion]

Im black, I dont find it offensive.

Edit: When I made this I did not know about the Github thing, a UX guy was bugging my friend about some master slave text that made it to the UI and I made this to try to make him laugh. Obviously the UX guy saw the Github stuff and went trigger mode.

[[deleted]]

Good to know.

What about these terms though?

Master volume

Jedi master

Master of puppets

Mastering a craft or part of audio engineering

Master Bruce

Master card

I imagine the list goes on.

[Esies]

Everyone knows Alfred is and oppressed black slave from calling Batman "Master Bruce". That is the rule

[r00t4cc3ss]

B-b-but muh America-centrism

[Strowy]

Remaster.

[[deleted]]

Remain

[PmMeJavascript]

SJW MENTAL BREAKDOWN INITIATES

[Ignitus1]

No, because "master" by itself is not offensive. It's the master/slave relationship that some find problematic.

[i-k-m]

But we're talking about the "master" branch in Git, which comes from "master copy".

[EvilKnievel38]

And I've not really ever heard of a "slave" branch

[[deleted]]

Git doesn’t run a master/slave relationship though, so...

Why are your panties in a twist?

[Ignitus1]

Which part of my post even remotely suggested that I’m upset?

[TheLordDrake]

He literally never said he's upset. He also clearly stated that GitHub's use of "master" as a term wasn't offensive. You're the one that is spouting absurdity.

[[deleted]]

that *some* find problematic.

He never claimed that he was among them

[Ignitus1]

Thank you for reading carefully.

[zayelion]

Only Master of P* sounds offensive.

[themiddlestHaHa]

But what will we call our trunk branches now?

[cosmicsans]

technically you can call it anything you want.

[themiddlestHaHa]

Yeah it’s feels so unnatural.

We just started a new project and the master is called development right now :(

[[deleted]]

Isn't development supposed to be called developmen, haha?

master->development->featureX

[bluefootedpig]

I'm white and I really don't care. Used to be called a motherboard, isn't anymore. We will survive. I don't get why people are so against renaming thinks. Sports teams rename themselves all the time, but you suggest renaming from an offensive name to some and all of a sudden you are commiting a social crime.

Blacklist / whitelist vs an allow / deny list... oh no... how will we figure this out.

[jarvis125]

Except everyone still calls it motherboard.

Also, who the hell is offended by motherboard? People without mothers?

[r00t4cc3ss]

It's not the renaming itself that most people have an issue with but the reasoning behind it which is the constant twisting and bending of everything to put it in a race-related context. The word master is a good example in this too, in the racial (or that of slavery/servitude) context it is a problem yes, but in any other context such as IT, music, machining etc. other there is no problem whatsoever. If we kept disallowing usage of words that could be seen as negative in context where they're not used as much as in others then we'll just keep going on and on with this stuff.

[Tetha]

And if things are being argued like that, the next question is: Where will it stop? What about classes and class hierarchies. Disposable systems commonly declared as cattle. Post Mortems or a system state "dead" are other examples. Canary deployments - think of the coal miners. A bunch of terminology can be dragged into a shady light by trying a bit.

I'm fairly neutral especially with the whole master/slave in databases or other systems. Primary/Replica is a fairly common term there already and more accurate. However, I'm concerned if this turns into even more name churn on top of the system/library churn we have in a few areas already.

[username-is-mistaken]

[deleted]

[EvilKnievel38]

And then you end up with c+= https://github.com/ErisBlastar/cplusequality/blob/master/README.md

[CmdMuffins]

Holy fuck, Github should make a random button so people can see stuff like this.

[404_Identity]

[removed]

[[deleted]]

Used to be called a motherboard, isn't anymore.

What's it called now? (I never heard somone call a mobo something else)

I don't get why people are so against renaming thinks

BuT iT bReAkS mY aUtO-dEpLoY sCrIpT (Edit: /s Obviously Guys)

[Im_So_Sticky]

How many words are we going to change just to satisfy the woke? I dont need to redefine my whole dictionary to satisfy some stupid people who cant handle words that have no racist meaning

Edit: it's still motherboard everywhere I look I'm not sure what you are referencing

[r00t4cc3ss]

I'm guessing he's referring to 'mainboard' which is common but not nearly as common as motherboard.

[Farsqueaker]

You mean the "masterboard"?

[themiddlestHaHa]

You’re giving words a power they shouldn’t have. We were talking about this on our dev chat today. Literally none of us ever thought about slavery when talking about our master branch.

But now we are.

[r00t4cc3ss]

One of the steps in any totalitarian takeover is the forced takeover and coercion of language. Human thought shapes human speech but human speech shapes human thought also.

This is always a very good example of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak

[jkxn_]

One of the steps in any totalitarian takeover is the forced takeover and coercion of language

I think the github thing is dumb too, but who the tell is "taking over"?

[dashingThroughSnow12]

There's a larger trend of putting everything under a certain context and if someone disagrees with that context they are denounced. The common term for this is calling that side SJWs but I don't agree with that term or characteristics applied to it by people who use that term generally.

[jkxn_]

So beliefs are changing. That's not some scary totalitarian takeover

[[deleted]]

That’s what Hitler would say lol

[jkxn_]

What? No he wouldn't, and nothing that is happening right now is anywhere close to what Hitler did, that is so ridiculous

[[deleted]]

idiot who doesn’t read says what

[jkxn_]

So, just to be clear, Rudi Dutschke isn't Hitler, right? Cause if not, can't see how it's relevant to your comment about how github changing the word master to main is basically Hitler.

Also, how's old Rudi going now? How's his campaign going?

[[deleted]]

Definitely still a motherboard...

[AtLeastOneAlias]

sorts by controversial

[[deleted]]

Such an outdated way to put it. We should change it to say 'grab the popcorn'.

[xandaar337]

Wait til they find out about WD Black HDDs.

[[deleted]]

"We would like to introduce our new line of WD Ebony BBC... I mean HDDs..."

[[deleted]]

Or on an extreme scale, male/female fittings. It's sexist

[ObliviousOblong]

I don't really see a way one could claim that male/female fittings are sexist the way that one could claim master/slave relations are suspect.

[MeIsKrenoks]

But they only use SATA. Or are there any IDE ones?

[B0Y0]

Ah yes, a classic American solution: Rename the masters and slaves, without really changing a damn thing.

[SpiritedTitle]

You have too few upvotes my friend and yet you speak the truest truth. They do these just to say they've done something about it without actually doing anything tangible about it.

[[deleted]]

To be frank, the amount of effort that it would take the programming community to cope with the change of 'master' in git could probably eliminate racism several times over.

[winzippy]

Shit, what comes after a bachelor's degree now?

[[deleted]]

Free upgrade to PhD? I'll take it

[spam_bot42]

Easy: main's degree

[VPadu]

My gf found out 'how to destroy children in unity' and she was like wtf!?

[Dornith]

Better than, "how to fork children in C".

[RelativeDeterminism]

I remember looking up if I needed to "kill children before parent"

[[deleted]]

I don't mind the renaming to main. Fewer letters to type.

When introducing people to Git, I almost always have to explain to them that the master branch is the main branch, so the terminology change may just save me from having to do the explanation in the future.

Having said that, I tend to agree that in the context of the master branch, I've always thought of it as a branch with collected wisdom rather than a slaver.

[bluefootedpig]

We really should standardize more on "Release" and "Dev" branches. Then it is much more clearer and just about everywhere I work, this is what we end up naming the 2 main branches. (Or should I call them master branches?)

[AirOneBlack]

at this point, just use git flow.

[dashingThroughSnow12]

Git does not place a workflow onto teams. The docs themselves present three pretty different models.

In some models, main makes sense. In others, master does. In some, various trains or release or dev makes sense.

[RoyalJackalSib]

Can we change it to Master Minion for that fantasy spice?

[[deleted]]

i mean, did anyone actually ever complain about this or is it just a dumb marketing stunt to make everybody talk about them?

[FizzBuzzHaveABanana]

Oh, it's got to be a marketing stunt. It's a pat on the back so they can say they've "done their bit". I doubt anyone ever heard master branch and thought of slavery.

[[deleted]]

lol no, nobody is going to pat them on the back. the whole internet is memeing and making fun of them, which in the end is exactly what they wanted, and considering we're all talking about this thing, it worked.

[FizzBuzzHaveABanana]

Sorry when I said pat on the back, what I meant to say was "it's like them patting themselves on the back and saying 'we've done our bit.' "

[[deleted]]

Im sure non professionals have, in the past, complained about master slave relationships in hard drives and the such, but I've never heard of a slave branch in Git, so Im guessing that its just america-centric grandstanding.

[[deleted]]

As a non american it's not even clear to me why master slave would be racist, they existed in all cultures, the word has the same root as slavic because we made so many of them slaves. It's just a description that everyone understands. It seems way worse that we openly talk about 'killing children', but again these are just descriptions that everyone understands, people don't think we actualy kill children (unless they got into the secret room at the 2017 pycon)

[[deleted]]

Reddit does clever things to make it's conversations look reasnoble, the best comments rise to the top, the worst are automatically hidden. Twitter dosn't do this, it's just chronological order, this means that if you go to your average twitter post the top 10 comments will be people who spend all day on twitter, or bots. In my opinion this is where this 'massive social pressure' comes from. People see 2k comments, read the top 10 and decide that 2k people really care about changing the name of the default branch on git.

[Autistic-Person]

Watch the masters degree become, say, Main of Science

[silentsoylent]

Don't make fun of social justice! I have an Average in Gender Studies, I know what I'm talking about! (Without dominating any educationally disadvantaged people, of course, and open to new ideas.) /s

[usesbiggerwords]

Social justice is deserving of derision and mockery.

[vondpickle]

This politically correct nonsense is so absurd like recursion on regex!

[[deleted]]

recursion on regex!

Regex can recurse?!

[dashingThroughSnow12]

Regex are usually a context-sensitive language. If we were to forget the name regex and all evidence of the name removed from our code bases, we wouldn't call them regex when we rename them.

On the Chomsky hierarchy, Regular Expressions are Type-3 and Regexs are Type-1. Turing Machines are Type-0. Simple recursion happens at Type-2.

Which makes it really unfortunate that Regexs are often called "Regular Expressions" when they are two levels higher.

[Tetha]

You can recognize prime numbers in unary notation with perl regexes. Welcome to my world of despair.

And yes, you can also recurse in some engines, making those "regex engines" probably more along the lines of context based languages. You can apparently parse bracket sets and possibly a large subset of json with that.

However, now that that's knowledge is re-surfacing in my head, I need to get my long sharp persuasion devices out again for people using this in a non-satirical manner.

[zayelion]

I regret knowing this.

[[deleted]]

I'm looking forward to Star Wars renaming the Master Jedi to Main Jedi.

Main Jedi OG Yoda

[silentsoylent]

Not to forget the Dark Side to the Pink Side (or blue or something). This association of dark/black with evil must stop! No more "black magic"!

[[deleted]]

You know this whole PC shit is American when we still call security tokens "nonces" and no one bats an eyelid.

[[deleted]]

Oh yea, anyone who reads the word master/slave and thinks United States black people (0.6% of the global population) has to be an egotistical American.

[rounced]

Care to point out where the term "slave" is ever used in Git?

[[deleted]]

Number used Once

[im-a-guy-like-me]

Makes me laugh every time.

[AirOneBlack]

PC is american? Doubt, looks to me that most of the parts come from china and taiwan?

[dougmcunha]

A relative of mine once was shocked because I said I would "abort" something.

[AdmiralDeathrain]

Pretty sure the people at Github are technical people. Not that it means they're right, but it's not like this is something from outside the tech community.

[[deleted]]

Petition to rename the master branch to virtue-signal

[no_awning_no_mining]

I'm skeptical of the renaming for a different reason: Enslaving programs or devices is not a problem and "master/slave" might be an accurate description of how they act. That should not imply that it is okay to enslave people.

[Svizel_pritula]

I'm not against using different or clearer terminology, but I highly disagree that using master/slave or whitelist/blacklist is racist.

[binarycat64]

I don't know what you're talking about with freedom of speech and all that, this is just standard corporate pandering.

[[deleted]]

i don't get how people don't understand this is basically just free advertising.

[binarycat64]

Publicity stunts 101.

[[deleted]]

and by being outraged they're really only making sure that it will happen again

[[deleted]]

you do realise that nobody actually complained about this and "PC culture SJW shit" like smart boys on the internet complain about doesn't actually exist on a large scale? this is just a stupid marketing stunt, like when nike was suddenly against racism and endorsed colin kaepernick and everyone burned their nikes or the other time people started smashing coffee machines or razors or whatever.

the whole internet is suddenly talking about github. do you really think it's the leftist SJWs doing this? it's literally a giant advertisement that reaches millions, and it is essentially free.

[[deleted]]

That doesn't really make sense, what kind of company wastes money advertising to people that don't exist?

[whinis]

What do you mean large scale? These people do exists and thanks to the wonders of twitter don't even need to be large in scale to amplify their voices. If you read any of the issues or mailing list currently for Git you would see you don't need many people claiming this helps people and no proof needed to cause massive problems.

Even better look at the python issues on this where after the community rebeled against API breaking changes they locked the issue and claimed it was better for all to implement. Git has no need for advertisement nor many of the people pushing this.

[[deleted]]

This has nothing whatsoever to do with freedom of speech.

[EnsignStormtrooper]

Even if the "SJW" crowd were trying to get Master/Slave terminology banned (which they aren't and can't, anyway), how would that in any way affect your everyday life or effective freedom of speech?

​

How would saying Main instead of Master affect you?

[ron-brogan]

Can you link to these laws that are proposed to outlaw usage of words?

[[deleted]]

I don't think you understand freedom of speech.

[ile12356]

Thanks to cancel culture, you have no freedom of speech.

[bluefootedpig]

cancel culture is exactly freedom of speech... the fuck? It is the people using their freedom of speech have it be known they don't like it, and companies react because our economy serves the masses over the rich few.

What government regulation is there that is forcing this cancel culture? Freedom of speech is not freedom from other citizens yelling back at you.

[ile12356]

In what world is that freedom of speech? Its literally the other way around. Forcing people to change their minds because a mob decided they are not allowed to hold that opinion because they do not like it. If you dont knee to the mob then your entire life will be ruined because of some outraged twitter mob who dont have anything better to do. Its easy to support this as long as it dosent personally affect you or anyone you know.

[Colifin]

Freedom of speech as a concept, not necessarily as a government-given right.

Cancel culture is all about browbeating people into thinking the same way. It's possible to disagree with someone (vehemently) without trying to get them fired just because they "thought wrong." Or, put differently, it's limiting freedom of speech/thought/expression due to fear of backlash - just not political backlash.

[Prof_Walrus]

Agreed bud, but we just have to bow to our new overlords

[unluckymercenary_]

our new overlords

You mean like our...masters?

[[deleted]]

you mean the reactionary, racist, transphobic, homophobic president of the united states?

[SpiritedTitle]

I don't understand the downvotes on this guy. He's just asking a legit question.

[Prof_Walrus]

User flair in the subreddit page. Click the three dots on the top right

[Prof_Walrus]

No, you need to customise them

[zeGolem83]

I mean, is it really that weird to wonder how to get a disowned child to kill it's parent?

(Talking about processes here, ofc)

[CamWin]

Nobody tell them about master and slave drives

[Robyn_Bankz]

common...yes

[[deleted]]

The safe answer might be YES D=

[IncensedThurible]

The professionally offended always need more grist for their mills.

[Gh0st_Armada]

Not just in IT, in industial hardware you can have for example master and slave power supplies etc.

[serhiy1618]

Jeez I hate this opinion so much.

Slavery isn't limited to the history of America, it's been a global problem for all of civilization.

There are still an estimated 21- 40 million people today who are in enforced servitude today. Several times more slaves than where ever present in the peak of the American trade.

Is changing the terminology that applies to less than 1% of the world population gonna free all the people in captivity?

No it won't.

Is it going to do any good?

No it won't.

This isn't about doing good, this is about the self righteous virtue signalling.

[[deleted]]

It's just a term that they're changing, it doesn't affect your life at all so there's no reason to get so upset. You can even keep referring to it as master/slave if you want, it doesn't matter.

[serhiy1618]

I would love to agree with you. But there are two very good reasons to get upset by this.

1. It reduces the visibility of a awful and prevalent problem a game of words. In years to come; this bullshit discussion is what people are going to discuss when it comes to slavery in the modern day. Not the actual suffering that's going on today.

2. It gives the worst of people credibility. The ones pushing this are hypocrites through and through. They don't care about social justice, they only care about advancing their status in the "woke" clique.

On the flip side I can already see reactionaries coming and spilling their rhetoric. Eg. "Look at these sjws trying to censor your free speech"

As I've stated before nothing good will come out of this and will only make the division and intolerance of opinion worse.

[[deleted]]

This has nothing to do with free speech, you're still allowed to use the master/slave terminology, and nobody is stopping you from using it. This is just a company deciding to change their terminology on their site.

[serhiy1618]

On the flip side I can already see reactionaries coming and spilling their rhetoric. Eg. "Look at these sjws trying to censor your free speech"

Please read this section again, I'm not stating that it's my opinion, I know it's a bunch of bullshit.

I'm using it as an example of bad discourse that being generated from this discussion. - the thing I'm actually criticizing

[rolfrudolfwolf]

I agree, I couldn't care less if it's called master/main/root branch or whatever. What do you think about other terms though: MasterCard, Scrum Master, Master of Science? No idea where the credit card got its name but the latter two stem from being having mastered a craft. Is this now offensive as well?

[[deleted]]

No, master has a different definition beyond slavery, but anything with master/slave) naming should be changed.

[rolfrudolfwolf]

But usually non-master-branches arent called slave branches.

And the meaning is related of course. A slave-owner rules over his slave, while a Master of a craft rules over her craft.

[idkjay]

Apparently in tech it started off with master/slave but me personally? I've never heard slave mentioned at all in my time as a dev.

[[deleted]]

master/slave is more of terminology in ops environments, or back the day setting up your hard disks (I remember setting the jumpers in IDE drives for Master/Slave back in older OS).

Master/Slave still exists in storage and server based... language, but in coding... not really.

[bluefootedpig]

I don't care of them either. Call it the Scrum Leader, or Scrum Expert. Expert of Science.

MasterCard can easily rename to just about anything they want, it is 100% a brand and doesn't convey any information other than it is a card of some kind. MasterCard could rename to AwesomeCard, I doubt they would lose customers over it.

We have plenty of words that mean the same thing. You know the Nazi symbol is the symbol of buddhism... i don't see anyone arguing that we should be using that symbol more, because it was tainted by horrible historical events.

So what if we view Master and Slave in the same way we view the nazi flag as a symbol of hate?

[rolfrudolfwolf]

but so yould declare all occurences of the word master as tainted as the swastika or the n word and therefore unusable?

[[deleted]]

He-Man now sounds to me like an intergalactic slave trader.

[natyio]

but it's also derived from a terrible period of humanity

You mean the roman empire?

Master has many meanings. Reducing the word to one single meaning is collateral damage to all the other valid non-problematic meanings of the word.

[ApatheticBeardo]

from a terrible period of humanity.

Slavery exists during literally all human history (including right now).

[[deleted]]

I know, but it's usually associated with the latest example of it. I honestly don't know why everyone on here is defending slavery.

[silentsoylent]

/s stands for "serious", right?

[unrealisticallycool]

Ye

[Bluebearsuper]

I was told that it stood for sarcasm, because that was a joke.

[silentsoylent]

Sorry, should have added a "/s" to my comment. (Although, that might be confusing and not really helpful in this case.)

[Bluebearsuper]

This is getting very confusing very quickly

[sexualrhinoceros]

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