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Update to Git changes the default of init.defaultBranch to main

lore.kernel.org

41–50 of 271 posts

Re: Update to Git changes the default of init.defaultBranch to main

#41

Can we please stop wondering about being politically correct and focus on the real problems of the world? Thanks! I would also like to add the fact that politics or any social matter IMHO should be kept out of software in general. I don't think that any other engineering field has this much drama over some words that have been part of our whole life until now like IT is having.

Tell that to Dominion Voting Systems...

Re: Update to Git changes the default of init.defaultBranch to main

#42
post #9

Sigh... sad to see the tech community bullied into compliance over a non-issue by political correctness activists. It's not really that big of a deal (and in some ways "main" is better anyway because it's 2 characters shorter), it's just the principle of the thing that bothers me. I would rather see projects and people stand their ground instead of caving to pressure anytime a twitter mob comes along.

The intransigent minority [1] strikes again.

Perhaps the tech community should grow a spine and stand up to the minority that demands these sort of changes. That is: if the tech community /really/ doesn't want them, which (to me) is unclear.

[1] https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

Re: Update to Git changes the default of init.defaultBranch to main

#43

I've long felt that "trunk" is a much better name than "master" or "main".

I dunno, I associate "trunk" very strongly with svn.

My company's internal repos usually use "devel" as our default branch, but that's partly a convention inherited from the ROS ecosystem where the different main releases have a codename and fixes get patched between branches with names like jade-devel, kinetic-devel, lunar-devel, etc.

Re: Update to Git changes the default of init.defaultBranch to main

#44

If I say "you are the master of your own destiny", is that offensive, because the word "master" is always offensive? I think that "main branch" sounds fine, it makes as much sense as "master branch", but I'm irked that people are always caving to word policing. Like, we're just going to scratch a whole bunch of words from the dictionary because someone somewhere is offended? The other day, people at my workplace were…

Similarly, I have worked in places where the word "brainstorming" (as in, "a brainstorming session") was banned because of its apparent offensiveness towards those with epilepsy. The funny thing is, 93% of people with epilepsy do not find the term offensive.

https://www.epilepsy.org.uk/press/facts/brainstorming-offens...

Re: Update to Git changes the default of init.defaultBranch to main

#45

Can we please stop wondering about being politically correct and focus on the real problems of the world? Thanks! I would also like to add the fact that politics or any social matter IMHO should be kept out of software in general. I don't think that any other engineering field has this much drama over some words that have been part of our whole life until now like IT is having.

Imagine if instead of master/slave the terms were master and "n-word". Would there be a reasonable argument to change it at that point?

If you say "yes" then you agree there is a line somewhere. If that's the case then we should discuss where the line should be and why it should be there instead of saying "stop [worrying] about being politically correct".

If you say "no" then your argument is that no words are too offensive to use or we shouldn't care if people are offended by any term at all. Which is an argument that you're free to have but if that's what's happening then make that argument and advocate for why it would be ok to use the n-word as a terminology as well.

I think that in these discussions it's easy to get sidetracked because people are actually arguing different points without realizing it. You're talking about the same scenario but you're arguing from different premises which means there's no hope of coming to a shared understanding because you're not actually talking about what you disagree on.

Re: Update to Git changes the default of init.defaultBranch to main

#46

Can we please stop wondering about being politically correct and focus on the real problems of the world? Thanks! I would also like to add the fact that politics or any social matter IMHO should be kept out of software in general. I don't think that any other engineering field has this much drama over some words that have been part of our whole life until now like IT is having.

> politics or any social matter IMHO should be kept out of software in general How would that work?

right? maybe Op would care to give examples of software issues that have no social or political ramifications?

Re: Update to Git changes the default of init.defaultBranch to main

#47
post #12

The branch name "master" does not have "golden master" or "master copy" roots: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2019-May/...

The error message in the commit that introduced that change uses the word “insane”. I hope they changed it to “mentally challenged”.

https://github.com/git/git/commit/cad88fdf8d1ebafb5d4d1b92eb...

Re: Update to Git changes the default of init.defaultBranch to main

#48
I don't really mind this change. But selective outrage like this is really strange. Some people on Twitter decide a word is offensive and the next day I am just expected to just stop using them. It's hard enough to learn English without these new laws all the time. I don't think this happens to any other language.

Re: Update to Git changes the default of init.defaultBranch to main

#49
post #20
post #9

Sigh... sad to see the tech community bullied into compliance over a non-issue by political correctness activists. It's not really that big of a deal (and in some ways "main" is better anyway because it's 2 characters shorter), it's just the principle of the thing that bothers me. I would rather see projects and people stand their ground instead of caving to pressure anytime a twitter mob comes along.

Git is Free software so nothing is stopping people from forking it and excluding these patches if they feel that strongly about it.

That is not the point. The point is millions of man months of time an money are being spent doing something that has zero meaning. Changing master/slave on networking, ok. Changing master copy to main copy doesn't remotely help black lives or black pride or anything whatsoever. If all the time and effort doing this was actually spent on useful things to help black lives it would be 10000x more effective. Instead all that time and effort is being flushed down the toilet.
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