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GitHub, fuck your name change

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Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#791

Post by dang »

neronero wrote: post #158

EDIT: For comparison: * "Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers" (5hrs ago, 110 points, 30 comments) -> rank 2 * this post (2hrs ago, 1000 points, 500 comments) -> rank 20 Why is this post being penalized? Too many black folks commenting and up voting? (/s) ----- Amazingly well written. I'm going to say some things. You'd guess wrongly if you infer that I'm bitter - since I'm personally very lucky. Having been b…

> Why is this post being penalized? Too many black folks commenting and up voting? (/s)

That's a nasty swipe, "/s" or no "/s". Your question is answered twice in HN's FAQ: once at the top and once again ("Why is A ranked below B even though A has more points and is newer?") for people who don't realize that it was already answered at the top. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

Matter of fact, this thread has been carefully unpenalized by moderators who work tirelessly to support substantive, thoughtful discussion on HN. (Edit: that seems to have been a mistake—not about the thread, a lot of which was reasonably good and some of which was remarkably good, albeit on a tired topic. But it seems to have been a mistake about the article—see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26507622.)

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#792

Post by blackoil »

dustinmoris wrote: post #684
jssmith wrote: post #538

I want to share my own reactions to the name change since this is a really interesting topic. For context, I'm an African American, so many of my ancestors were slaves. - The first time it occurred to me that "master" in this context could offend anyone was when GitHub changed the name (and broke my workflow). - My immediate reaction was, "this change is by white people for white people," where "white" means anyone w…

[flagged]

Holocaust has its own impact. Swastika is pretty much a taboo in west, despite it being an ancient symbol and has major significance in Hinduism and Buddhism.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#793

Post by boardwaalk »

onetimeusename wrote: post #726
jssmith wrote: post #538

I want to share my own reactions to the name change since this is a really interesting topic. For context, I'm an African American, so many of my ancestors were slaves. - The first time it occurred to me that "master" in this context could offend anyone was when GitHub changed the name (and broke my workflow). - My immediate reaction was, "this change is by white people for white people," where "white" means anyone w…

I disagree for three reasons. 1) The burden falls disproportionately on Git maintainers and on people with large amounts of dependencies to the old word which is not a good way to distribute work (across tech workers) when making changes especially since some people will not even notice the change. 2) Not everyone uses Git each day and I am certain that people who continue to use the word "master" without knowing a t…

“Master of Science” is simply a use of a different meaning of the word. If anyone is suggesting to not use “master” across the board, even in the sense of “being really good at something,” they can shove off.

While the “master” branch is clearly using master in the sense that it asserts control of the other branches in some way.

So IMO, explaining could be done by pointing at the dictionary.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#794

Post by delaynomore »

I often wonder if these name change/inclusion initiatives are started for promotion purposes. At least from my observation at work, it seems none of them are led by under-represented groups. Instead, they are mostly led by white/over-represented PoCs.

Of course I don't dare to raise these questions at work (or with my real identity). These days if you are not onboard with these changes you might get labeled as racists.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#795

Post by Falling3 »

blacktriangle wrote: post #576
pron wrote: post #429

Saying that the left spends too much effort on rhetoric might be valid criticism, but focusing on it as reasons to "walk away from the left" (which not too many black Americans are doing, BTW) is disingenuous. Sure, the left talks about rhetoric, but it also fights for higher wages, civil liberties, healthcare, affirmative action, investment in education, workers' rights, and voting rights. It's fine not to like ever…

Look at you, you can't even respond to a black American who disagrees with you without telling him how to think, you are the American left.

At what point did the parent comment say how anyone should think? They presented counterarguments. Is that not allowed?

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#796

Post by tunesmith »

root_axis wrote: post #677
jssmith wrote: post #538

I want to share my own reactions to the name change since this is a really interesting topic. For context, I'm an African American, so many of my ancestors were slaves. - The first time it occurred to me that "master" in this context could offend anyone was when GitHub changed the name (and broke my workflow). - My immediate reaction was, "this change is by white people for white people," where "white" means anyone w…

As another black SWE, I'll add that I disagree with your perspective. I think the name change does more harm than good because it trivializes the movement. If the goal is to change minds and open hearts then where appropriate, we should endeavor to communicate in ways that will be well received by those who need to hear the message . Stuff like this is just preaching to the choir and alienating the rest, but also not…

Honest question, my initial response is that it only trivializes the movement if "see, we changed something" is used as an excuse to stop there. But if it isn't... what's the harm?

Most of this family of points seems to equate 1) being in favor of changing master to main; and 2) being in favor of stopping there.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#797

Post by boardwaalk »

root_axis wrote: post #677
jssmith wrote: post #538

I want to share my own reactions to the name change since this is a really interesting topic. For context, I'm an African American, so many of my ancestors were slaves. - The first time it occurred to me that "master" in this context could offend anyone was when GitHub changed the name (and broke my workflow). - My immediate reaction was, "this change is by white people for white people," where "white" means anyone w…

As another black SWE, I'll add that I disagree with your perspective. I think the name change does more harm than good because it trivializes the movement. If the goal is to change minds and open hearts then where appropriate, we should endeavor to communicate in ways that will be well received by those who need to hear the message . Stuff like this is just preaching to the choir and alienating the rest, but also not…

This seems pretty close to just saying, “If we can’t change the world, let us change nothing at all.”

Sure, it’s trivial. It doesn’t, in any significant way, actually do anything. But I find a lot of time when reviewing code — if there are code badly formatted or variables misspelled, I have a hard time looking at the actually problems in the code until those superficial things are fixed.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#798

Post by CountDrewku »

jssmith wrote: post #538

I want to share my own reactions to the name change since this is a really interesting topic. For context, I'm an African American, so many of my ancestors were slaves. - The first time it occurred to me that "master" in this context could offend anyone was when GitHub changed the name (and broke my workflow). - My immediate reaction was, "this change is by white people for white people," where "white" means anyone w…

"I want to share my own reactions to the name change since this is a really interesting topic. For context, I'm an African American, so many of my ancestors were slaves."

Yes and so were the ancestors of every race on this planet at some point.

"So, next time you are annoyed that you have to fix a script or you accidentally type master when you needed to type main, please just take a deep breath, change the name, and remember to reflect upon whether you have are subconscious habits or biases that work against diversity in tech"

What exactly am I supposed to be reflecting on? I don't need useless word changes that cause issues at my job to do that. This sort of strange thinking that somehow language causes racism and not the other way around needs to stop. It lacks so much logic it's infuriating, especially for people in tech fields. Additionally, you're simplifying words to one specific meaning when in reality the word master gets used in a multitude of different contexts that don't have any relation to black slavery AT ALL.

How about we do something useful with our time instead of constantly looking for victim hood and racism where it doesn't exist? I guess I should be somewhat encouraged because the fact that people have the time to worry about which words might be offensive (or make things offensive that aren't) means they're doing pretty damn well. So well, in fact, that they don't actually have enough going on in their lives and are making problems where they don't exist. The massive con here though is that eventually if you tell enough people they're victims of a system and can't help themselves it'll eventually cause real societal harm.....

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#799

Post by temp8964 »

jssmith wrote: post #538

I want to share my own reactions to the name change since this is a really interesting topic. For context, I'm an African American, so many of my ancestors were slaves. - The first time it occurred to me that "master" in this context could offend anyone was when GitHub changed the name (and broke my workflow). - My immediate reaction was, "this change is by white people for white people," where "white" means anyone w…

Do you really need to type master/main frequently?

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#800

Post by newacct583 »

jssmith wrote: post #538

I want to share my own reactions to the name change since this is a really interesting topic. For context, I'm an African American, so many of my ancestors were slaves. - The first time it occurred to me that "master" in this context could offend anyone was when GitHub changed the name (and broke my workflow). - My immediate reaction was, "this change is by white people for white people," where "white" means anyone w…

That's exactly how I see it too. These performative bits of nonsense are how we as a society build consensus, in this case something like "racial injustice is real, it matters, and it needs to be addressed with action".

And by all getting together and renaming our white/blacklists and master branches and slave devices, we're all agreeing that this is important.

And.... yeah, it's also a way to find the people who aren't willing to mildly inconvenience themselves in this pursuit. Yes, cranky posters like the OP are ALSO signaling with their refusal to go along. What they're telling the rest of us is that this racism stuff isn't something they want to care about.

And that's why we do this stuff.

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