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

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

#131

Post by tachyonbeam »

aaomidi wrote: post #121
giancarlostoro wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an actual American minority I'm a little upset that instead of someone trying to do something meaningful about racism they bikeshedded this solution. Git was made by a man from Finland, I find it highly unlikely he had nefarious intentions in naming the default branch 'master' and anybody who disagrees really needs to reevaluate everything we know about Linus. He doesn't care about people's attributes, he cares ab…

As another American minority I welcome changes to our tooling landscape and updating out of date language. No this doesn't do anything, but it significantly reduces the amount of time I have to say master in discussions related to code. Something I personally don't feel comfortable saying. No this isn't going to fix systemic racism, but it is setting the precedent that our standards can and should evolve with culture…

I myself am a minority as well.

I'm genuinely worried that all of this talk and social shaming related to "systemic racism" is actually going to create more of the monster it purports to try to defeat.

I mean, seriously. How do you think right wing people feel when they see left wing people on TV chanting that we should abolish the police? They clutch their guns even harder, that's what happens. By making an immense deal out of race issues, I think we might be making the problem worse.

In the 1990s, people generally had an attitude of "race doesn't matter", and now, it's become the opposite, "race is the only thing that matters". It's splitting us into factions and helping nobody.

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

#132

Post by aaomidi »

GhostVII wrote: post #53
PretzelFisch wrote: post #13

If the name change builds a larger, diverse, empathetic community. What have you or I lost?

We haven't lost anything, but we've gained the expectation that we should be accommodating a tiny minority of people being offended for no reason. Sure it's not much work to switch "master" to "main" (although in aggregate it's probably a tonne of person hours), but what happens when the next trend is to be offended at "blacklist", or "sanity check", or any of the other thousands of words that someone is inevitably g…

You're pushing all the "angry minority" stereotype in your language in your comment.

Like, if I as a brown person am uncomfortable something it's me being an irrationally offended minority.

If it's a white person it's just Mike having a bad day.

I'm glad you're not my coworker.

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

#133

Post by tachyonbeam »

spuz wrote: post #93
mason55 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 of…

master/slave is an analogy that is used in technology which has an obvious origin and personally has always made me slightly uncomfortable since I first heard about it with reference hard disk priorities. Similarly the terms male and female make me slightly uncomfortable with respect to cables and sockets. However, master in the context of git has no connection to the concept of master and slave. They are two differe…

The thing here is that master has meanings that exist outside of the context of master/slave. Yes, slavery is wrong, and hopefully everyone agrees, but there are no slaves in GitHub. There are no slaves when it comes to master records. Erasing the word master from our language isn't about healing, it's more akin to forgetting or denying the past, and everything that could remotely be construed as having a connection with things we shall not speak of.

As for male and female connectors... It seems like an apt analogy, no? And uh, when it comes to male and female connectors, they are both equal, they both play a part, neither is better than the other.

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

#134

Post by aaomidi »

tachyonbeam wrote: post #131
aaomidi wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As another American minority I welcome changes to our tooling landscape and updating out of date language. No this doesn't do anything, but it significantly reduces the amount of time I have to say master in discussions related to code. Something I personally don't feel comfortable saying. No this isn't going to fix systemic racism, but it is setting the precedent that our standards can and should evolve with culture…

I myself am a minority as well. I'm genuinely worried that all of this talk and social shaming related to "systemic racism" is actually going to create more of the monster it purports to try to defeat. I mean, seriously. How do you think right wing people feel when they see left wing people on TV chanting that we should abolish the police? They clutch their guns even harder, that's what happens. By making an immense…

I mean, I'm also for abolishment of police.

Police in basically everywhere of the world was made by the ruling class to keep people in order. This matter is even worse in the US that a LOT of police departments were literally made after the emancipation proclamation (or somewhat before), to capture runaway slaves. This is the history of policing in the US.

I think what it generally comes down to is a LOT of Americans, and a lot of people in the world haven't learned the history of their own country. People probably know more about WW2 than they do about the history of abuse in their own country. I unfortunately was one of these people and until I decided to listen to people and start studying the history of America I understood a lot of the things I stood for were based on essentially lies.

I do think saying "lets abolish police" without the context of "why", or "wait what about the murderers?" is harmful. I think people on the left generally assumes too much of people, and assumes that they've also spent many hours reading and understanding and discussing history.

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

#135

Post by tachyonbeam »

aaomidi wrote: post #134
tachyonbeam wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I myself am a minority as well. I'm genuinely worried that all of this talk and social shaming related to "systemic racism" is actually going to create more of the monster it purports to try to defeat. I mean, seriously. How do you think right wing people feel when they see left wing people on TV chanting that we should abolish the police? They clutch their guns even harder, that's what happens. By making an immense…

I mean, I'm also for abolishment of police. Police in basically everywhere of the world was made by the ruling class to keep people in order. This matter is even worse in the US that a LOT of police departments were literally made after the emancipation proclamation (or somewhat before), to capture runaway slaves. This is the history of policing in the US. I think what it generally comes down to is a LOT of Americans…

> I think people on the left generally assumes too much of people

I think it's perfectly legitimate to ask "what about the murderers, thiefs, rapists and criminal gangs? The obvious answer is that you need a police force. You can call it the flower-and-peace-corps if you want, but you need both enforcers and detectives to protect the population.

If what you mean is "reform the police", then don't call to "abolish the police".

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

#136

Post by [deleted] »

jamienicol wrote: post #128
GhostVII wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's their choice, but I still don't like the precedent it sets. I don't really care what they call it, I just don't want this kind of thing to become an expectation, resulting in me either having to do a bunch of renaming work or risk being seen as some kind of ist.

I'd try worrying less about possibly having to do some menial work or being perceived as an ist, and instead try to understand why some might be offended by such terms or what impact their prevalence might have on our profession and wider society.

[deleted]

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

#137

Post by disposekinetics »

nromiun wrote: post #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.

They got a taste of power, and so the demands will continue. The tyranny of the least tolerant strikes again.

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

#139

Post by denysvitali »

aaomidi wrote: post #127
denysvitali wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pure algorithms, for one. I don't think that Merge Sort for example has had or will ever have any political / social ramification. On the contrary, I see that now the SJW trend is to attack IT in general and make a huge deal out of terms that (given the context) are perfectly fine. I wonder how much it will take before we'll have to assign pronouns to the connetors or to the USB cables

We already assign pronouns and gender to connectors. Seems like you've not actually worked in IT if you don't know that? Pure algorithms have the capacity to change the world. Sometimes for the worse. An example of a pure algorithm with massive political and ethical considerations is crypto currency algorithms. I think a lot of people here would've benefited taking a basic "ethics in CS" class.

I wasn't talking about calling a female connector or a male connector, I was referring to the somewhat new trend of having to specify a pronoun in your Twitter bio because genders are non-binary.

> Pure algorithms have the capacity to change the world. Sometimes for the worse. An example of a pure algorithm with massive political and ethical considerations is crypto currency algorithms.

Nobody was arguing that. I just said that we shouldn't integrate politics into software, not the other way around. Obviously the code that we write is going to have an impact, but that's completely different from adding the impact from day 0 (e.g: software that spams propaganda in the stdout)

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

#140

Post by pseudalopex »

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #130
pseudalopex wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Changing a default isn't banning a word. The conference was called NIPS. It's slang for nipples and a racial slur. It isn't like everyone was mature about it. There was an unofficial event called TITS. People wore shirts proclaiming "my NIPS are NP hard". Funny but hardly professional.

Isn’t the obsession with professionalism a hallmark of “anti-Blackness”? /s I say this in jest but only because it’s incredibly easy to reproduce the absurdity of all this discussion, it’s all discordant and trivial

Some people do discriminatory things and call it professionalism. Like arbitrarily banning traditional hair styles. I've never heard anyone say avoiding sexual innuendo is anti black. Have you?
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