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by citilife 2841 days ago
I think it's sad this was a debate at all. As a maintainer, there is some responsibility to respond to people who are working with you or using your product.

On the other hand, personally I would have just said: "deal with it".

The fact of the matter is, virtually no one has been or is a slave, no one is being mocked, no one is being belittled, it's a term used to describe a system. Sure, it could be more "politically correct" (I use master and worker, personally) - however, if I inherited or was working on a code base. I would not have been as open to changing terminology as this guy.

As he put it, we are there to program.

If it doesn't enhance readability, speed, etc. it's not changing - stop wasting my time. As a "computer scientist" we should try to be objective about terms, and build forward. That means, potentially changing that terminology for the future, but also not being emotionally attached to the terms which are not intended to be subversive, subjective, etc.

We live in a society, people are going to use the term "slave" to describe things, people are going to say things you don't like, use terms you don't enjoy. I hate acronyms, I find that it is a way to segment a society or group into those who know them and those who don't. Even the term "LOLWUT", means you need to understand the term "LOL" and where "WUT" comes from.

... And that's my point, as a society, I shouldn't be pushing my preferences onto you. I should be learning to deal with my own emotions and understanding. If it's something that impacts my freedom, then maybe I should bring it up. Calling something a "slave" doesn't mean it impacts your freedom.

2 comments

> The fact of the matter is, virtually no one has been or is a slave

why do you believe that?

I think it's supposed to mean: "virtually _no one alive_ has been.."
That's a pretty strange thing to believe as well.

One source puts the number of humans alive in 2016 that have been or are currently slaves by some definition at 40.3 million.

https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/findings/global-find...

> If it doesn't enhance readability, speed, etc.

I disagree. Having terminology that is clear (which master/slave is not) decreases the time needed to spend to get an understanding of whatever it is you're working on.

Also related, if someone is offended by terminology then that will slow down their progress in understanding because they first have to process those feelings in order to continue.

Master/Slave is clearly defined in any sort of systems programming. You're taught it in school, there's a wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master/slave_(technology)

Don't give me that - also as a maintainer, I wouldn't want to work with people who slow me down on terminology issues (when they feel offended, for industry standard terms).