6 ms·

Names change all the time. Leader / follower and primary / secondary are better for a lot of things, anyway. Even ignoring the social issue, master and slave ar

Names change all the time. Leader / follower and primary / secondary are better for a lot of things, anyway. Even ignoring the social issue, master and slave are not great terms for how they are used. Frankly, I find it disturbing that so many developers are so attached to the master and slave terminology. It’s like the tech industry’s version of the confederate flag.

sk0g 6y ago
It's not just a developer thing, it's used in lots of other places, like master/ slave cylinders, etc.
hagy 6y ago
Agreed. Further, in most instances master/slave terminology is quite misleading with the master and slave doing similar work and commonly the master doing even more work. Leader/follower and primary/replica are much better terminology from a purely technical perspective. Its a plus that we also get to remove these two awful words.
- rimliu 6y ago
  Terminology is not misleading because everyone knows what it means in this context.
marvion 6y ago
> Frankly, I find it disturbing how attached so many developers are so attached to the master and slave terminology. I was about to write that too. I'm not quite sure if I find the change necessary - but who am I to raise my word against it. I'm a white guy, it is obvious why master/slave has negative connotations and that's enough for me to let them decide. I just listened to a podcast about "whiteness studies" maybe that enforced my opinion on this - but why would I - a white guy - would want to criticize this discussion. Be open, be welcome, accept diversity is a main rule in many projects. Why would I not want to change something that others consider harmful(especially something as simple as wording)
- aspaviento 6y ago
  > it is obvious why master/slave has negative connotations how? it only represents a kind of relationship (a terrible one, yes) between people. But it's only a historic terminology. Killer is a word that, following that logic, has negative connotations and it is used when people say "that's a killer feature". Stopping using those terms won't make past events to disappear. At worst, they'll be forgotten, making it possible for history to repeat itself.
  - quadrifoliate 6y ago
    Killer and master/slave are very different. "Killing" has rarely singled out one specific ground of people and subjugated them for centuries. In cases where it has, you don't use the word. Imagine naming a program that kills a bunch of processes on a box “holocaust”. But let's run with "killing" for a bit. If, hypothetically, you had a coworker whose family was murdered by a serial killer, wouldn't you be careful about using “He killed it out there” and similar terms around them? Or do you sit around logically proving why the context is different?
    - aspaviento 6y ago
      Those are fair points but I still don't think we are helping anyone with this over-protection. Would you hesitate to say that expression without knowing that coworker's background? Should he/she be offended when there isn't malicious intent behind those words? It looks to me more sensible and a better long term solution to help this person to deal with his/her emotions instead of trying to change everybody around them.
      - marvion 6y ago
        > Would you hesitate to say that expression without knowing that coworker's background? Ok. But. The discussion is about specific expressions almost everybody knows, not just random words. One of those words is `slave`. > It looks to me more sensible and a better long term solution to help this person to deal with his/her emotions instead of trying to change everybody around them. I think this only applies to situations in which one specific person has specific triggers who are e.g. tight to an psychological trauma...
3saryHg6LP2e 6y ago
It is not an attachment to the words themselves it is a reaction to the idea that words have some kind of implied sinister meaning outside of the context in which they are used. And yes, I use the word "sinister" deliberately - why aren't we banning the use of this word on behalf of left-handed people? Words get their meaning from common understanding, common usage and most importantly context. In context these words are fine.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
lr4444lr 6y ago
I find your deeply uncharitable assumption of why people use and prefer to use certain words unnecessarily hostile, and worth fighting. You want to only look at the context for people who oppose these words, and not at all for the people who want to keep them or their utility. I repudiate your goals, whatever euphemism you try to couch it in, e.g. "disturbed".

sk0g 6y ago

It's not just a developer thing, it's used in lots of other places, like master/ slave cylinders, etc.

hagy 6y ago

Agreed. Further, in most instances master/slave terminology is quite misleading with the master and slave doing similar work and commonly the master doing even more work. Leader/follower and primary/replica are much better terminology from a purely technical perspective. Its a plus that we also get to remove these two awful words.

rimliu 6y ago
Terminology is not misleading because everyone knows what it means in this context.

marvion 6y ago

> Frankly, I find it disturbing how attached so many developers are so attached to the master and slave terminology. I was about to write that too. I'm not quite sure if I find the change necessary - but who am I to raise my word against it. I'm a white guy, it is obvious why master/slave has negative connotations and that's enough for me to let them decide. I just listened to a podcast about "whiteness studies" maybe that enforced my opinion on this - but why would I - a white guy - would want to criticize this discussion. Be open, be welcome, accept diversity is a main rule in many projects. Why would I not want to change something that others consider harmful(especially something as simple as wording)

aspaviento 6y ago
> it is obvious why master/slave has negative connotations how? it only represents a kind of relationship (a terrible one, yes) between people. But it's only a historic terminology. Killer is a word that, following that logic, has negative connotations and it is used when people say "that's a killer feature". Stopping using those terms won't make past events to disappear. At worst, they'll be forgotten, making it possible for history to repeat itself.
- quadrifoliate 6y ago
  Killer and master/slave are very different. "Killing" has rarely singled out one specific ground of people and subjugated them for centuries. In cases where it has, you don't use the word. Imagine naming a program that kills a bunch of processes on a box “holocaust”. But let's run with "killing" for a bit. If, hypothetically, you had a coworker whose family was murdered by a serial killer, wouldn't you be careful about using “He killed it out there” and similar terms around them? Or do you sit around logically proving why the context is different?
  - aspaviento 6y ago
    Those are fair points but I still don't think we are helping anyone with this over-protection. Would you hesitate to say that expression without knowing that coworker's background? Should he/she be offended when there isn't malicious intent behind those words? It looks to me more sensible and a better long term solution to help this person to deal with his/her emotions instead of trying to change everybody around them.
    - marvion 6y ago
      > Would you hesitate to say that expression without knowing that coworker's background? Ok. But. The discussion is about specific expressions almost everybody knows, not just random words. One of those words is `slave`. > It looks to me more sensible and a better long term solution to help this person to deal with his/her emotions instead of trying to change everybody around them. I think this only applies to situations in which one specific person has specific triggers who are e.g. tight to an psychological trauma...

3saryHg6LP2e 6y ago

It is not an attachment to the words themselves it is a reaction to the idea that words have some kind of implied sinister meaning outside of the context in which they are used. And yes, I use the word "sinister" deliberately - why aren't we banning the use of this word on behalf of left-handed people? Words get their meaning from common understanding, common usage and most importantly context. In context these words are fine.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

lr4444lr 6y ago

I find your deeply uncharitable assumption of why people use and prefer to use certain words unnecessarily hostile, and worth fighting. You want to only look at the context for people who oppose these words, and not at all for the people who want to keep them or their utility. I repudiate your goals, whatever euphemism you try to couch it in, e.g. "disturbed".