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New GitHub repos to have default branches named “main” instead of “master”

zdnet.com

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Re: New GitHub repos to have default branches named “main” instead of “master”

#11

Post by susam »

Political correctness aside, "main" does sound like a more natural name for the main branch.

The term "master" for a branch name always felt a little strange to me. One might ask, "What is master?" The answer usually is, "It is the main branch."

The same thing held true for "trunk" in the SVN world, although it made more sense. One might ask, "What is trunk?" It requires a lengthy explanation, "It is the main development branch. We will create other release branches from it. Imagine a tree with a trunk from which other branches grow."

One is less likely to ask, "What is the main branch?" The branch name is self-explanatory.

Re: New GitHub repos to have default branches named “main” instead of “master”

#12

Post by unwoundmouse »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #3

This is a tiny change that has no substantial negative effect on anyone’s life. If they’d renamed “pull requests” to “merge requests” no one would care, at all. Let’s please not make a big deal out of it.

You know, i highly doubt any developer black or not ever looked and said “wow this master branch naming really makes me feel oppressed.” If this is you, please correct me. However, i do know lots of developers have bash scripts, terminal aliases, python workers that use the “master” terminology that will need to be changed. This seems like an absurd and unnecessary change to me, causing more net damage than benefit. Beyond git, i believe master is a power dynamic that exists and is sometimes the best way to model a system - and we should attempt to describe systems clearly unrelated to racism as accurately as possible

Re: New GitHub repos to have default branches named “main” instead of “master”

#15

Post by jakelazaroff »

unwoundmouse wrote: post #12
jakelazaroff wrote: post #3

This is a tiny change that has no substantial negative effect on anyone’s life. If they’d renamed “pull requests” to “merge requests” no one would care, at all. Let’s please not make a big deal out of it.

You know, i highly doubt any developer black or not ever looked and said “wow this master branch naming really makes me feel oppressed.” If this is you, please correct me. However, i do know lots of developers have bash scripts, terminal aliases, python workers that use the “master” terminology that will need to be changed. This seems like an absurd and unnecessary change to me, causing more net damage than benefit.…

    sed -i 's/master/main/g' *
Problem solved!

Re: New GitHub repos to have default branches named “main” instead of “master”

#16

Post by s9w »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #3

This is a tiny change that has no substantial negative effect on anyone’s life. If they’d renamed “pull requests” to “merge requests” no one would care, at all. Let’s please not make a big deal out of it.

It is a big deal since it's a show of force that the mob can force them to buckle. They can literally change the words you use.

Re: New GitHub repos to have default branches named “main” instead of “master”

#17

Post by andy_ppp »

susam wrote: post #11

Political correctness aside, "main" does sound like a more natural name for the main branch. The term "master" for a branch name always felt a little strange to me. One might ask, "What is master?" The answer usually is, "It is the main branch." The same thing held true for "trunk" in the SVN world, although it made more sense. One might ask, "What is trunk?" It requires a lengthy explanation, "It is the main develop…

Master also means principal. Controlling speech due to political correctness is extremely post modern but I’m not sure that language creates reality in the way these people seem to think. Words are not inherently racist it’s how people use them, therefore I’m against changes like these where clearly there’s no racism at all in having a master branch.

Re: New GitHub repos to have default branches named “main” instead of “master”

#18

Post by oarsinsync »

unwoundmouse wrote: post #12
jakelazaroff wrote: post #3

This is a tiny change that has no substantial negative effect on anyone’s life. If they’d renamed “pull requests” to “merge requests” no one would care, at all. Let’s please not make a big deal out of it.

You know, i highly doubt any developer black or not ever looked and said “wow this master branch naming really makes me feel oppressed.” If this is you, please correct me. However, i do know lots of developers have bash scripts, terminal aliases, python workers that use the “master” terminology that will need to be changed. This seems like an absurd and unnecessary change to me, causing more net damage than benefit.…

A lot of systems I use have renamed master/slave to leader/follower.

It set me back a moment the first time I saw it, and took me about 30 seconds to mentally internalise the change. After that first time, no issues as a reader of the code/config.

Re: New GitHub repos to have default branches named “main” instead of “master”

#19

Post by astraloverflow »

The etymology of "master" according to Wiktionary:

From Middle English maister, mayster, meister, from Old English mǣster, mæġster, mæġester, mæġister, magister (“master”), from Latin magister (“chief, teacher, leader”), from Old Latin magester, from Proto-Indo-European *méǵh₂s, (as in magnus (“great”)) + -ester/-ister

Re: New GitHub repos to have default branches named “main” instead of “master”

#20

Post by echelon »

justRafi wrote: post #13

'master' branch is like a master recording, an original from which copies can be made off. I don't have a Master degree in English, but it feels someone is terribly confused.

I feel like we tried to fix "master" and "slave" in replication terminology (which we should) and it leaked into areas where the semantics were entirely different.

"Whitelist" and "blacklist" are also terms that deserve attention, more so than "master branch".

The "master" branch is the "master" record. The official copy. The entertainment industry "remasters" their source recordings. The original Star Wars gets remastered frequently.

I don't think that the recording and entertainment industries are going to change these terms, because I don't think they're racially charged in the context in which they're defined and used. There's literally no parallel. In our industry, we have other suspect things called master, which is why it stands out.

In any case, I think it's impossible to rethink this decision now. Walking it back feels icky and political, and we should always err on the side of inclusion anyway.

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