[oap_bram]

I for one think it's great that people are willing to make things a little more accessible for more people. If people want to be part of our community of developers I think it's great that these organizations listen to people who might have a problem with certain terminology. Even though I don't have a problem with those terms, I think it's still worth evaluating if they're worth keeping if it makes it harder for someone to be part of our community.

Hope more of you feel the same, as I'm getting kind of tired of the "the SJWs are at it again" shtick. There's also legitimate reasons to why these changes are necessary outside of some loud obnoxious screams from certain SJW-like people, that yes, are annoying to hear. Some of the response from our community to "push back against this" is just equally weird, tone deaf and childish however.

Say what you want, be we all know we've done silly refactors over smaller things. So don't make this bigger than it should be: it's about making our community bigger by making it easier for people to be part of it!

[mswtk]

> I for one think it's great that people are willing to make things a little more accessible for more people. If people want to be part of our community of developers I think it's great that these organizations listen to people who might have a problem with certain terminology. Even though I don't have a problem with those terms, I think it's still worth evaluating if they're worth keeping if it makes it harder for someone to be part of our community.

Is it more accessible? As in, is this change driven by complaints from actual people who feel excluded by the terminology? As far as I'm aware, none of the projects making these changes even claims that, it's all speculation on behalf of hypothetical offended parties.

Not that it really makes it less annoying to have terminology used by people from all over the world be dictated by American cultural sensibilities, but it's easier to stomach if there's some material justification behind the change.

[cobraetor]

> Is it more accessible? As in, is this change driven by complaints from actual people who feel excluded by the terminology? As far as I'm aware, none of the projects making these changes even claims that, it's all speculation on behalf of hypothetical offended parties.

I'm an African American, and no I'm not offended by Git's branch name. White progressives spend so much time on virtue signalling but hardly pay any attention to pressing Black problems like Black poverty and education.

[buzzert]

Genuine question: do you feel like the changes are also condescending?

[oap_bram]

I don't know, I can't speak for the people who's access is limited. However, I am Dutch and can say that these cultural sensibilities are far outside of just the "American" one.

There are plenty of people that struggle with this terminology in a realistic way. Even if you can't find anecdotal evidence of someone being offended by this, you can rationally come to the conclusion that it might be worth changing it. And for it to be accessible, it doesn't need to come 100% from the people that face problems with the terminology. If it were to be 100% those people, than it would be a great from of cultural emancipation however!

[mswtk]

I mean, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for at least a couple actual examples of this change helping people feel better about participating in technology. In the absence of such, it all feels very performative and, dare I say, a cheap way to score good PR for participating organizations. I don't think it really hurts anyone to an extent that it should be opposed, but neither does it really help, until proven otherwise.

> However, I am Dutch and can say that these cultural sensibilities are far outside of just the "American" one.

Are they? Does the master/slave terminology also have very negative connotations in your culture? I thought it was almost exclusively an American thing due to their historical circumstances.

[oap_bram]

I would suggest looking up what the Dutch did in relation to race equality in history and how we were involved in a lot of slave trade, sometimes even to the US.

I would say you have a point with saying it's performative, and I don't have anything to counter that. However, perhaps your energy could be spent looking for someone that is actually offended by this to counter your own perspective?

Kinda Karl Popper style of disprove your own theory?

[mswtk]

> I would suggest looking up what the Dutch did in relation to race equality in history and how we were involved in a lot of slave trade, sometimes even to the US.

I am aware of the history, but that's not enough to give the words themselves emotional charge and significance. The reason this is so for Americans is that the consequences of slavery and racial segregation are keenly felt right now - it's not just an abstract wrong committed on people long ago and far away. As a point of comparison, I'm from Eastern Europe, and the word "slave" is derived from "Slav" - but this is effectively ancient history with little bearing on the present, and so the word doesn't carry any emotional charge or special meaning.

To put things differently, is there a segment of the Dutch populace for whom the words "master" and "slave" signify that kind of viscerally felt injustice, as they do for black people in the US? This isn't a gotcha question, I genuinely don't know, and these kinds can be arbitrary and irrational. For Poles, "slavery" is abstract, but "forced labor" brings up some major traumas from around World War 2, for example.

> Kinda Karl Popper style of disprove your own theory?

I was hoping someone would do it for me in this thread. :) Might still happen, if not, I might have to do some digging.

[akoncius]

> I am aware of the history, but that's not enough to give the words themselves emotional charge and significance.

I disagree. Nazis, soviets did a lot of crimes against humanity and in certain countries symbols of those regimes are banned, also speaking positively about it also is banned by claiming it dismisses all those crimes.

It’s not required for that word to be relevant NOW in order to be somewhat negative/avoided.

I think it applies also to master/slave stuff: it attempts to normalize those terms by dismissing history of those words. Also - if we forget shortly that we are used to master branch in git: why word “master” is right choice for it? for me “main” makes sense.

as for DB - original/replica also makes sense.

[throw0101a]

> dictated by American cultural sensibilities

The English-language Internet (and tech) field has a large centre of gravity in the US, so those of us outside of the US do tend view a lot of the rending of garments on some topics to be quite strange.

[hYKdTfpa]

>I for one think it's great that people are willing to make things a little more accessible for more people.

How does this make anything more accessible for anyone?

[oap_bram]

There are plenty of people in our society that actually have a negative relationship to these terms that we commonly use in our profession. Psychologically, it can be harder to be part of a group of people or a profession when you have to use these terms, therefor lowering accessibility. This can be because of stigma enforcing terminology (such is the case of master/slave for some people).

These are usually not effects experienced by the majority that's fine with those terms however, which makes it hard to empathize with people that do struggle. Unfortunately, people seem to think that rationality without empathy is always the road to a good conclusion. When you do it in these contexts, however, you're actively excluding those who you fail to empathize with.

[cobraetor]

Please stop speaking up on behalf of African Americans without consulting their own opinion on this matter.

I'm one and not even my Black friends care about this silly posturing from White progressives. We are frankly getting tired of this virtue signalling while the American society doesn't give a shit about actual Black problems.

What is "rationality without empathy"? Have you tried getting off that armchair and tried talking to poor Black people to understand how they feel?

[oap_bram]

Yes I have. Very weird for you to assume I don't. I don't live in America, however I am constantly reminded of my country's (The Netherlands) colonial past (you know, the spice trading, genocide inducing, slave trading one) and the repercussions of that. My city's suburban neighborhoods are filled with people of lower class of all different types of ethnicities. I've done as much as I could in the last few years to emancipate them, and as such I have ran into these "language problems" before, even in Dutch, even in different places than tech.

To act as if our community does not have those issues, or to think that I do not have anything meaningful to say because I'm in an "armchair" doesn't make sense. I'm not American, I'm not speaking on behalf of African Americans, I'm speaking on behalf of myself and my own experience.

I don't necessarily think this will persuade you to think differently however, so yeah. Keep your opinion, but don't assume my circumstance based on your subjective experience.

[string]

As someone from a working class background, I find your use of the term "lower class" problematic. It suggests you somehow perceive me and my ancestors as beneath you, or that we have less inherent worth as human beings. We prefer the term "working class". I find it strange that you're so keen to tell others that using inclusive language is a non-issue, yet you yourself are perpetuating stereotypes by using exclusionary and hurtful language.

[oap_bram]

You're right. My apologies. It is problematic and didn't think of the repercussions of translating my thoughts like that. I am capable of making mistakes, but don't mistake that for unwilling to do good or willfully being exclusionary or being hurtful on purpose.

EDIT: Also worth noting I am actually originally from those neighborhoods and I'm also raised in a working class family. I'm also working class by my country's standards.

[eli]

It evokes slavery and makes some people feel unwelcome. Many other projects have made similar changes to their own repos (eg Go made the same switch) and there has been quite a lot written on the topic if you google around.

[loeg]

> Say what you want, be we all know we've done silly refactors over smaller things.

As a very very junior dev, I had "nuke" in a function name, and logging that included the function's name. Turns out Japanese customers are not super big fans of nukes. Lesson learned, small change made, life goes on.

[macspoofing]

>There's also legitimate reasons to why these changes are necessary outside of some loud obnoxious screams from certain SJW-like people, that yes, are annoying to hear. Some of the response from our community to "push back against this" is just equally weird, tone deaf and childish however.

I understand your perspective. I'm not against changing the term. We changed it in our product a few years ago (master-slave to primary-secondary) as well ... primarily because even if you offend one (current or potential) customer it's just not a hill worth dying on.

But to address your point though, I wish there was some acknowledgment by 'the SJWs' (as you put it) that even if the term is archaic and should change, the tech community simply used a descriptive dictionary term for a particular architecture, and therefore the term is wholly unconnected to 'white supremacy' or 'systemic racism' or 'unconscious bias'. But for many who raise these issues, there is no good-will or charity. And that's why there is pushback. Many people don't want to accept the position that they were purposely insulting other people when these terms were in widespread use.

[oap_bram]

> Many people don't want to accept the position that they were purposely insulting other people when these terms were in widespread use. True, but I think it's important to notice that you're not purposely insulting people until you start defending this terminology that can be oppressive for some people. Everyone in this entire thread had the opportunity to go "you know what, if this makes someone feel unwelcome, I get that. Perhaps a good idea to change it". It's when people start defending something that is both "so unimportant that they don't understand" but also super important that it doesn't change just gives a really weird vibe.

I just can't seem to understand why people are so unwilling to just be a little bit more welcoming, even if it is hypothetical according to them.

[macspoofing]

In general I find tech to be a very welcoming industry, especially compared to every other industry. I think there's a human issue that is happening, namely, if you come in with a negative and accusatory energy people will be turned off by that, get very defensive, and mirror your energy back at you. That's not a tech thing, but a human thing. And yes, many people do feel beaten down with constant accusations of ill will. This is why the principle of goodwill and charity (i.e. assuming the best intentions of people) is so important for all sides.

[pastage]

Good intentions are hard to see, you missed it yourself. Of course SJWs have problematized this in terms of semantic drift, but most people only listen to the extremes and use those to define the average of that group. Often I find being tuned into the bad intentions of the people you agree with is more important.

[easytiger]

> I for one think it's great that people are willing to make things a little more accessible for more people.

This doesn't achieve that. It very clearly does nothing.

Human beings as basic pattern matching engines have been hacked by things like twitter to amplify beyond reasonableness many concepts and ideas which they are shown as related and then regurgitate and spread.

Whilst this in particular may not be "important" it is certainly but one minor example of a very serious trend that is demonstrating a very low latency mechanism at play for creating fast paced change in western society that undermines the strengths of slow change that made it so successful.

Now you might be the kind of person who might have a desire to see those fundamentals undermined under a guise of faux altruistic reasonableness, I don't know, but the overly simplistic acceptance of it indicates an avoidance of any of the reasons why people might be resistant to it. Thus why i question your motivations here.

[swiley]

I think it's important to be inclusive. I'm not against this but there are definitely situations where this has gone too far. I've started to notice some companies completely excluding white men from PR images and not sending them to events which is super weird and definitely not inclusive.

[cuddlecake]

I don't like the continuing insinuation that there's "some loud obnoxious screams from certain SJW-like people".

Usually it's just loud obnoxious screams from Anti-SJW people, and people blindly following the call to arms against what they call "SJW bullshit".

[oap_bram]

Yeah that's true, and I feel you on that. It's just that when conversing with people that do feel like these "SJWs" exist, makes it seem more nuanced, since you're distancing yourself from that stigma even though you're saying things relatively similar to SJWs.

Honestly, I just do it avoid being called one, even though I'm not in any way close to something that could be defined as a SJW.

[kyrieeschaton]

Anyone who believes that "master" is some kind of slur and takes the opportunity to take offense over it is not someone you want causing problems in your organization.

[oap_bram]

I dont know, I was taught from a very young age to be nice. And honestly, I kinda of kept it as a close part of my personality to not make anyone feel uncomfortable for any reason. Although I can argue most of these things from a political angle, I also feel like "making people feel more welcome" is a goal in and of itself, and therefor can't be overlooked.

Honestly, I feel like if you would have a problem with a particular community you would like to have it resolved too right? I just don't think that it's ever been about terminology because you never had to feel uncomfortable because of it. That's not bad however, but it's easy to forget that if you don't relate to someone subjective reality, doesn't mean it's any less real.

[egwor]

Totally agree with this.

If someone still struggles to get behind it, think of the few chars that will be shorter to type and also think how it is much easier to compare the branch concept a real tree, and talk about the main branch. Maybe they could have gone for trunk? (If you care so much about main vs trunk, then choose whatever makes you happy)

[rvnx]

It's very smart. Trunk is a better term than "main" and reflects very well the logic with the tree and historical naming (including CVS, SVN, and the trunk software itself).

main implies that one branch is more important than the others. This could be offending to some.

[dvfjsdhgfv]

> main implies that one branch is more important than the others. This could be offending to some.

What if one branch is actually more important than others? What about weighted graphs? Stochastic dominance? You can't blindly project social concepts on math/computing science, it's a blind alley.

[garaetjjte]

>main implies that one branch is more important than the others. This could be offending to some.

I can't tell if this is satire or not.

[you_are_naive]

It's HN so it may not be. In Japan, main family is the superior family while branch families are treated as lower class. This imperial system is still very much prevalent and map to skin too.

[afavour]

“I am personally not offended by this, therefore anyone that is offended is a problem to be removed”

People have different life experiences and backgrounds. The cost to you of renaming is near zero, if you’re the one loudly opposing something that makes your coworkers more comfortable then you’re the one causing problems in the organisation.

[IshKebab]

I have yet to hear of anyone being actually offended by this.

> The cost to you of renaming is near zero

Not true. I just had to update a load of tests for a git client I'm working on that assume the default branch name is `master` (I wrote them before this mess), and now I have to configure Git on every system I use to use a default name of master. It's not a huge pain, sure, but it isn't nothing and I don't get any benefit from it either.

[afavour]

Sounds like a flaw in your git client. It was always possible to change the default branch name, so hardcoding master was never right. You’re far from alone in making that assumption though! The good news is this makes everyone’s git tools more resilient.

> It’s not a huge pain, sure, but it isn’t nothing and I don’t get any benefit from it either

The entire notion here is accommodating people. It doesn’t benefit you personally but it does benefit others. And it’s not a huge pain. At a certain point we’re expending more energy debating doing this than if everyone just did it and moved on with their lives.

[IshKebab]

> Sounds like a flaw in your git client

It wasn't in the client, it was in the tests. You know like, here's a script that makes a test repo:

  git init
  git add foo.txt
  git commit -m "A"
  git switch -c develop
  git add bar.txt
  git commit -m "B"
  git merge master  # This will break soon.

> The entire notion here is accommodating people.

Is it though? It seems to me like the notion is appearing to accommodate people. I still haven't seen a single person say "my great grandfather was a slave and this offends me", only people saying "this might offend someone".

[dvfjsdhgfv]

> I still haven't seen a single person say "my great grandfather was a slave and this offends me", only people saying "this might offend someone".

In today's world, it's enough for many companies. Si vis pacem, para bellum. You don't want to passively wait until you're attacked, you need to prepare the defenses first so your enemies don't even have a ground to stand.

[afavour]

If you strip away all the political outrage what’s actually happening on a technical level is that git is adding a new feature: customisable default branches. I imagine they will provide an option to use it (“git checkout —-default” or whatever) and yes, you’ll have to update your tests to accommodate it. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to tweak code because of an external API change that doesn’t benefit me personally. Often it involves using an entire new API because the old one is being retired! Compared to that this is a walk in the park. A couple of hours at most. And yet everyone is expending hours upon hours arguing about it.

[schoolornot]

We all know exactly the kind of people driving this change. We've worked with them. We know how they function on teams and in the office. We know they aren't particularly good at what they do, barring a few exceptions. And we know what they will do to us, to our jobs, and to our companies if we don't bow to their demands.

[oap_bram]

I don't know, seems like a very weird subjective reality you're trying to push in an objective one. I am one of those people, yet I haven't had any significant problems with my work ethic.

Pushing a narrative that these people are "gonna do something to us" is a weird one to push. What's gonna happen? We're gonna be kinder to one another? We would want to make people around us happy in a profoundly human way rather than a shallow one?

Just to follow you along in your way of thinking. What are "we" gonna do to your job and your companies? I honestly fail to see what you mean.

[cobraetor]

Claiming without evidence that African Americans are offended (not to mention it is patronizing to them) by a term like "master" is subjective reality.

Cancel culture, which grand parent is referring to, is real. You will find many anecdotes on Hacker News. Here is one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21484347

[1123581321]

If an employer or coworker doesn’t agree to whatever is your latest demand, “you” would start a campaign to get them fired or contact their customers to try to lose them business. Happens regularly.

[oap_bram]

I mean, that would imply you would prefer a term that is in a way discriminatory to a particular group right? Not in bad faith, but it seems you kind off admitted that there is some evil in doing so, and that you're willing to do it.

Also, I wouldn't do that. Emancipating an actual workforce or colleagues would be my solution, not making the company suffer under it.

[1123581321]

No, but that’s the reasoning you would use, that anyone disagreeing with you must be evil or discriminatory.

[d0100]

> that would imply you would prefer a term that is in a way discriminatory to a particular group right?

Here we have an example of how you go about dealing with the issue

[JosephRedfern]

Where is this imaginary line between “ok to be offended” and “not ok to be offended”? Who decides where that line is?

If you can trivially avoid even the risk of offending someone — especially in a professional context — then why wouldn’t you?

[swat535]

How is making a change that impacts people globally (which includes non English speakers) to mildly please a tiny portion of loud people trivial?

[stnmtn]

How big of a change is this for you? I mean seriously?

[throwaway210222]

I cannot wait until the woke find out what 'robot' means in Hungarian.

[eli]

I feel that way about people who lack empathy

[africanboy]

As an Italian, let's talk about spaghetti code then :)

[temporama1]

The number of people that _genuinely_ have a problem with the word "master" (excluding all the weird (white) twitter people) is close to zero.

[salmo]

In most places this is true. But working in Plantation heavy part of the South, it’s awkward.

Read it in a Southern white male accent to someone whose grandparents were sharecroppers in the Delta. We lose a lot of black talent to other industries, non technical roles in IT, and other locations despite good pay/cost of living.

My black friend from high school on my team who is not overly sensitive and I have open conversations on race with has says it occasionally makes him cringe. I try to maintain an environment that’s sensitive to people’s real feelings, because I want them all to enjoy work. Not PC BS, but thinking about who needs to be asked to speak up, who needs more quiet time, etc.

Probably hearing it in a different accent would make it more divorced from the past.

This alone obviously won’t fix anything. But it’s one less thing to make people feel uncomfortable, and it doesn’t cost anything except a naming convention.

People talk about diversity as if it’s just helping minorities. But working with low and high functioning teams over the years, my experience is that a happy diverse team is productive and creates a better product. I think including more perspectives in a job that is creative creates better results earlier in the process.

[DarkByte8]

So what did your friend say? "I don't want to work here anymore because I keep hearing "push my change on master branch" and that is uncomfortable to me"? And how do you know that this is making IT lose talent?

[devchix]

> My black friend from high school on my team who is not overly sensitive and I have open conversations on race with has says it occasionally makes him cringe

I'm sorry to hear your friend won't be obtaining a degree just beyond a Bachelor's, or audition for the role of Bruce Wayne's butler, or pass beyond journeyman status in any trade. Does he not value recognized excellence? I presume he's not an heir presumptive of a Scottish peerage, nor does he aspire for a senior post in the Queen's household. Does he have any interest in the recording industry, I hear they do great things with old LPs these days to make them sound better. Perhaps he is musically inclined, there is a leader of the band job if he is. He could enlist in the navy, if he's not looking to get beyond an E-9. Regardless, I applaud gitlab for affording your friend the last venue of employment when the world and its derisive callousness collectively turns him away from his avocation. From development he may switch over to network and/or security, but better wait a few years. Those scoundrels still maintain a list of things that are denied, and things that are allowed, and your friend is probably not ready to know about them yet. To your friend!

By the way, does he have any possession? Any at all? He may be in for a surprise to discover how he himself is addressed. Break it to him gently, won't you?

[growse]

How many people have a problem with the word 'main'?

[temporama1]

Nobody had a problem with "master" 18 months ago. Including you.

[souprock]

If 4chan can cause an issue with the "OK" symbol, "main" should be easy for them to mess with. C and C++ will just have to change, along with street names and large water pipes.