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0 pointswonder_er5y ago0 comments

I am sorry that the "blind to institutional racism" crowd jumped on this so hard.

I'm with you, 100%.

Most white people think the slavery/genocide of america's past is just that - it's in the past. So, when they hear people pushing on verbiage associated with it today, they think "oh, that person is dredging up ancient history, why don't they get over it?"

I (and many others) would argue the legacy of that genocide and slavery is _alive and well_ and shapes our lives today, daily. [0][1]

If one could reasonably complain about master/slave language in the south in the 1850s, they're reasonable to complain about that language today.

Anyway, I think this work of getting rid of language rooted in violence and white supremacy is _very_ worth doing. It's just renaming branches, no one is asking someone to do anything more than press buttons on their keyboard.

Certainly, not everyone has to, but I hope some companies do this work, they're thoughtful and intentional about their language, and then they deliver better products and services by virtue of having healthier culture than their competition, and grow wealthy. Wealthier than the companies who think this work is not worth doing.

I'd never force someone else to rename branches, but I've renamed all of my branches I can control!

I emailed Github Support to see if I could get away from using `master` on Github Pages on my personal site, and they said they are working on it, but this isn't available yet.

Even this comment feels risky. It's attached to my name. I'm honestly a little intimidated to leave it, but it feels like a cop-out if I set up an anonymous account to say "I agree!"

[0] https://www.sceneonradio.org/seeing-white/

[1] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/behind-the-police/id15...

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5 comments · 2 top-level

bsaul5y ago· 3 in thread

You are opening the gates to hell, and don't even realize it.

The same is happening pretty much everywhere in society, where everything becomes contextual and should be adapted to the personal sensitivities of individuals. Which is fine for everything that's fashionable.

But code isn't (just) litterature or art or fashion. The first and foremost concern of code is to convey a precise meaning so that reader (and compilers) understand it correctly.

How do you know it is going to stop to slavery ? How about every single people in the world start getting offended by words in code because it may remind them of something painful in their history, or just doesn't suit their culture / religion / whatever ?

Will you have to create different branch of the linux kernel depending on where the code is going to be cloned ? Where is this going ?

PS: i appreciate greatly that you say you wouldn't force anyone to change their wording, and only change it for yourself. I believe that's the right thing to do. But i feel you greatly underestimate the long-term consequences of supporting for "inclusive terminology"

wonder_erOP5y ago

> You are opening the gates to hell, and don't even realize it.

That might be true! I suspect and hope that I'm not, but only time will tell.

> i appreciate greatly that you say you wouldn't force anyone to change their wording, and only change it for yourself. I believe that's the right thing to do. But i feel you greatly underestimate the long-term consequences of supporting for "inclusive terminology"

Yeah! As soon as someone says "here's a good thing I'm trying to do AND YOU ALL HAVE TO DO THE SAME OR BE SHAMED" they kinda lose my respect.

I can update branches on my personal stuff with zero consequence in 30 seconds. Easy.

Complicated CircleCI/deploy environments where branch names are hardcoded in a dozen different places, and the app is on fire already, and no one has time, and the manager is trying to hire new developers while keeping the senior devs happy?

I'm not gonna throw shade on them at all.

That all said, I would _love_ to talk about this more, if you're feeling inclined at all. I tried to dig up an email address for you, and couldn't find it. If you'd be willing to swap some emails on the topic, i'd be thrilled! Hit me up at joshthompson@hey.com!

CJefferson5y ago

Do you think, in most of these cases, master/slave is really the most precise terms we can come up with?

bsaul5y ago

i think a "master slave" architecture has become a very clear pattern in distributed systems, that anyone in the field recognize (as something opposed to a peer to peer for example).

this is precious, because it saves a lot of explanation time and ambiguities.

Once again i wouldn't mind using a different term if it made things even clearer for a given case. But only for this reason, and not for PC.

ThrowawayR25y ago

> "Most white people think the slavery/genocide of america's past is just that"

Why do you believe that it's just white people opposing this? (I'm not white.)

Why do you believe it's just American's opposing this? Alternatively, are non-Americans permitted to continue using these terms?

> "I'm honestly a little intimidated to leave it, but it feels like a cop-out if I set up an anonymous account to say "I agree!""

It's so de rigeur these days that you shouldn't feel bad about that. There are bad actors on all sides waiting to pounce on anything that anyone says.

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