• RichardDegenne@lemmy.zip
    0·
    8 months ago

    I’ve always taken issue with this “master” v. “main” argument.

    People think it’s “master” as in “master/slave”, but forked branches are not “slaves”.

    Instead, it’s “master” as in “master/proxy”. The forked branches are altered copies of an original. We have remastered movies, music and games, and I’ve never seen anyone complain about the word in this context. Why should version control systems be any different?

    • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      8 months ago

      People think it’s “master” as in “master/slave”, but forked branches are not “slaves”.

      I think they’re just uncomfortable with the word “master”, and that seems completely reasonable to me, especially when they’re people from a group which has been subjected to slavery.

      • NostraDavid@programming.dev
        0·
        8 months ago

        I think they’re just uncomfortable with the word “master”

        1 person over at Microsoft complained, and they moved mountains for this person to replace master with main. It sounds like a joke, but it’s not.

        and that seems completely reasonable to me

        No it doesn’t. Why does an entire industry need to flip over, because of a single person? Like the ability of changing the master branch for yourself should have been enough. Changing the default over on Github to strong-arm the rest of the world is disgusting behaviour. Which is why I’m sticking to master wherever I can.

        especially when they’re people from a group which has been subjected to slavery.

        That is literally every group… Every group has been slaves (and slavers) at some point in time. That’s not a good argument.