I've read about a bunch of these renaming efforts in the past weeks and I think some of these are very justified while some of them seem to take it further than necessary. The master/slave naming seems clearly outdated to me and this one is a direct reference to slavery. A better word like replica exists so I'm using that instead. This makes a lot of sense. On the other hand there's efforts to rename white/black list…
I always thought about it as the "vinyl master" analogy as well but it looks like it has a master/slave origin from the Bitkeeper days. https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2019-May/...
On Redis master-slave terminology (2018)
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Re: On Redis master-slave terminology (2018)
#12Re: On Redis master-slave terminology (2018)
#13I suspect this is one of those topics that at some point, everyone will have just switched terms because it's not worth the hassle to fight these fights over and over again. Kind of a "I'm not wrong, but is it a good use of 20 hours a year to argue about this?"
Re: On Redis master-slave terminology (2018)
#14Re: On Redis master-slave terminology (2018)
#15What does he mean that you can't say "fake news" on HN?
Re: On Redis master-slave terminology (2018)
#16Re: On Redis master-slave terminology (2018)
#17The problem I’m starting to see is that the continued use of phrases like this (master/slave, blacklist/whitelist) can be a constant reminder to some that they “don’t belong here.” Obviously, in this context, they aren’t meant to be racist; but they are a reminder that racism exists. The end result is that it makes more people feel unwanted and ultimately leave tech.
The most dangerous part about this line of thought is that it is essentially unfalsifiable.
We are witnessing the long march through the institutions.
Re: On Redis master-slave terminology (2018)
#18I personally totally agree with the author. Anyone who chooses to be offended by words used in a totally different context is doing exactly that - choosing to be offended.
If we keep going down this path of endless meaningless virtue signalling, where will we stop? Is the term "black hole" racist too? What about blackout? Etc, etc.
No one really cares about these terms and it they do their opinion shouldn't outweigh the time, effort required to fix it, or the opinions of everyone else.
Supporting this kind of asinine shit is essentially letting big corps like Google get away with doing practically nothing while seeming like the good guys. Stop focusing on the surface level shit and start focusing on the real issues.
Re: On Redis master-slave terminology (2018)
#19Great point.
Re: On Redis master-slave terminology (2018)
#20I've read about a bunch of these renaming efforts in the past weeks and I think some of these are very justified while some of them seem to take it further than necessary. The master/slave naming seems clearly outdated to me and this one is a direct reference to slavery. A better word like replica exists so I'm using that instead. This makes a lot of sense. On the other hand there's efforts to rename white/black list…
On the other hand, I second that "slave" is not a good terminology and trivializes real slavery, while a lot of words like "replica" or "worker" are more descriptive in a software context.