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Gitlab default branch name changes to main

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Re: Gitlab default branch name changes to main

#281

Post by hnarn »

Olumde wrote: post #236

I'm African and I think these name changes are ludicrous. Why not fix the (hopefully unconscious) hiring biases that surely exist in big tech that ends up hiring overwhelmingly male candidates of European and Asian origin? Reminds me of something Martin Luther King (MLK) said after he started the second phase of his activism. Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts had been passed 1964 and 1965 respectively, so MLK start…

I agree with everything you just said, but why can't it be both? It seems to me like a knee-jerk reaction to disparage small, symbolic changes like this because there's more important change that should happen instead. This implies that there's some kind of zero sum game at play where people's tolerance for change is somehow depleted by small changes, making larger changes harder. I guess the jury's out on that one, I don't know of any experiments made that can indicate one way or the other, but I don't believe that's the case. In fact, I believe disparaging small changes can be harmful to larger changes, because it accuses people that engage in trying to make positive change happen of wasting their time, because they're not focusing on the changes that you personally feel are more important.

Having been an activist for many years, albeit in union related issues and not what's generally called "civil rights", I can certify that the main issue with any kind of social change or activism is that people are not engaging in it in the first place. Because of this, I'm firmly convinced that even "meaningless" change is at least change, and that denigrating it will turn people off on attempting change at all.

Re: Gitlab default branch name changes to main

#282

Post by taylodl »

noodlesUK wrote: post #205
TechnoTimeStop wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not America. America is the only truly free country. Only 15 counties in the world allow you to even own land if you're not from a specific religious group, ethnicity, or born in the country. And guess what they're all western democracies.

What? Citation needed. Unless you’re talking about citizenship/permanent residence being a prerequisite to owning land, there’s 27 countries in the EU alone that I think serve as counterexamples...

The US doesn't require citizenship in order to own land. The US also has public lands where anyone is able to hunt, provided they have a license. In most states a license requires paying a nominal fee and maybe taking a 1-2 day hunter education course.

Re: Gitlab default branch name changes to main

#283

Post by enigma20 »

macspoofing wrote: post #158

Yeah, I get it. It is a necessary change just so you take this of the table and not deal with the sporadic complaints that would come. Keeping the 'master' or 'master-slave' (in context of HA) terms just isn't worth potentially offending someone, or losing a sale, or getting bad press. We changed our verbage a couple years in our product as well just for that reason (Master-Slave to Primary-Secondary). The previous c…

What to expect, if we live in the world were intelligence is becoming rare, and people can't read the context, and get insulted by anything. More and more have such delicate souls, poor things.

Re: Gitlab default branch name changes to main

#284

Post by macspoofing »

oap_bram wrote: post #280
macspoofing wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's also legitimate reasons to why these changes are necessary outside of some loud obnoxious screams from certain SJW-like people, that yes, are annoying to hear. Some of the response from our community to "push back against this" is just equally weird, tone deaf and childish however. I understand your perspective. I'm not against changing the term. We changed it in our product a few years ago (master-slave to…

> Many people don't want to accept the position that they were purposely insulting other people when these terms were in widespread use. True, but I think it's important to notice that you're not purposely insulting people until you start defending this terminology that can be oppressive for some people. Everyone in this entire thread had the opportunity to go "you know what, if this makes someone feel unwelcome, I g…

In general I find tech to be a very welcoming industry, especially compared to every other industry. I think there's a human issue that is happening, namely, if you come in with a negative and accusatory energy people will be turned off by that, get very defensive, and mirror your energy back at you. That's not a tech thing, but a human thing. And yes, many people do feel beaten down with constant accusations of ill will. This is why the principle of goodwill and charity (i.e. assuming the best intentions of people) is so important for all sides.

Re: Gitlab default branch name changes to main

#285

Post by pastage »

macspoofing wrote: post #284
oap_bram wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many people don't want to accept the position that they were purposely insulting other people when these terms were in widespread use. True, but I think it's important to notice that you're not purposely insulting people until you start defending this terminology that can be oppressive for some people. Everyone in this entire thread had the opportunity to go "you know what, if this makes someone feel unwelcome, I g…

In general I find tech to be a very welcoming industry, especially compared to every other industry. I think there's a human issue that is happening, namely, if you come in with a negative and accusatory energy people will be turned off by that, get very defensive, and mirror your energy back at you. That's not a tech thing, but a human thing. And yes, many people do feel beaten down with constant accusations of ill…

Good intentions are hard to see, you missed it yourself. Of course SJWs have problematized this in terms of semantic drift, but most people only listen to the extremes and use those to define the average of that group. Often I find being tuned into the bad intentions of the people you agree with is more important.

Re: Gitlab default branch name changes to main

#286

Post by Olumde »

hnarn wrote: post #281
Olumde wrote: post #236

I'm African and I think these name changes are ludicrous. Why not fix the (hopefully unconscious) hiring biases that surely exist in big tech that ends up hiring overwhelmingly male candidates of European and Asian origin? Reminds me of something Martin Luther King (MLK) said after he started the second phase of his activism. Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts had been passed 1964 and 1965 respectively, so MLK start…

I agree with everything you just said, but why can't it be both? It seems to me like a knee-jerk reaction to disparage small, symbolic changes like this because there's more important change that should happen instead. This implies that there's some kind of zero sum game at play where people's tolerance for change is somehow depleted by small changes, making larger changes harder. I guess the jury's out on that one,…

Thanks for making that point. You are right. I was just concerned some organizations would take naming a repo as "job done".

Re: Gitlab default branch name changes to main

#287

Post by pastage »

Shish2k wrote: post #124
rualca wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What a strange thing to claim, when both this thread and the original post talk about things that need to update based on the change, such as CI/CD scripts, git aliases, and so on. I believe I've said something that's easy to understand, at least without bad faith. Git end users create repos only rarely, but creating preconfigured Git repos is gitlab's business. This discussion is about gitlab's announcement. Do yo…

> I believe I've said something that's easy to understand, at least without bad faith. I’m pretty sure I understand what you’re saying - "this change only affects creation of new repos”? The responder isn’t missing your point, they’re disagreeing with it - they're pointing out that anybody who needs to work with a repo now needs to explicitly configure the name of the canonical branch, where previously they could saf…

I assure you that the default is not always master.

Re: Gitlab default branch name changes to main

#288

Post by mleonhard »

Some words trigger strong negative emotions for many people. For example, anyone with a loved one who died by suicide can be triggered by the word 'suicide'. They can be working productively and happily, see the word 'suicide' in some code, and then spend the rest of the day suffering.

People deserve to work and live without triggering their traumas.

Name changes are cheap to implement. For example, we can use 'shutdown' instead of 'suicide' and help our teammates to be more productive and happy.

So let's just all do the name changes without complaining or judging the people who ask for them. We'll do it because we care about them.

Potential trigger words and suitable alternatives:

- suicide, abort -> exit, crash, stop, halt, shutdown, terminate

- kill -> stop, halt, shutdown, terminate

- infect -> assimilate, convert, install

- master -> main, primary, leader

- slave -> backup, secondary, follower

- blacklist -> denylist, blocklist

- whitelist -> allowlist, passlist

- daemon, demon -> server, worker

- cop -> supervisor, monitor, watchdog

- male -> plug, prong, sender

- female -> jack, socket, receiver

- mate -> connect, link, join

- gender-changer -> adapter, socket-to-socket adapter, plug-to-plug adapter

Re: Gitlab default branch name changes to main

#289

Post by lamontcg »

pimlottc wrote: post #273
lamontcg wrote: post #186

father/son nodes were changed to parent/child long before "wokeness" or "SJWs" or even "PC"

Was that actually a thing? I’ve only ever heard parent/child. Frankly, using gendered terms here just sounds bizarre.

My memory for that kind of thing only goes back to around 1990 and it happened before my time.

I think father/son was a 60s/70s-era-ism and it was changed 70s/80s?

Re: Gitlab default branch name changes to main

#290

Post by chrisweekly »

thinkingemote wrote: post #97
chrisweekly wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adoption of more inclusive terms is hardly "hysteria". This IETF memo^1 makes a rational, compelling case for adopting alternate terms. I encourage you to read it, and try taking a broader, more empathetic view. Pause to consider the weight and connotations of certain words for certain groups of people, before claiming victimhood or accusing others of hysteria. Characterizing the change as "PC Politburo" word-policin…

Part of taking a broad and empathetic approach is understanding all people's emotions, thoughts and desires without necessarily sympathetiszing with them. Empathy is a pre requisite for agreement, discussion and conflict resolution. What these types of changes show, however is that there is no discussion and the opposition to such change indicates a "lack of empathy" which is a classic othering tactic. That to me is…

"What these types of changes show, however is that there is no discussion and the opposition to such change indicates a "lack of empathy" which is a classic othering tactic."

Huh? That's quite a bit further a stretch than any of the "woke" accusations I've received for suggesting a pivot from "master" to "main" might actually be a simple improvement.

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