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GitHub is working on renaming default branch from “master”

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Re: GitHub is working on renaming default branch from “master”

#32
put more time into rebuilding the communities in which you physically reside than into bikeshedding quick symbolic actions to numb your conscience.

donate the cash equivalent to the engineering hours required to make and test this name change to BLM instead, and get something of actual consequence done.

Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?

Re: GitHub is working on renaming default branch from “master”

#34

This is just so damn pointless. It will cause some "great" controversy, people will be called white supremacists for refusing to stop saying master. Now even if this catches on, then yeah OK I'll start naming my branches as main unless I want to make a political statement, which would just add to confusion when developing. Meanwhile these people will pat each other on the back, yell "yeah! We sure made a difference."…

> just... why?

It's called "virtue signalling," I'm told.

Re: GitHub is working on renaming default branch from “master”

#35

I'm a strong supporter of social justice. I don't really object to people putting in work to change language like that if they think it's important. Especially when the work required is minimal. That said, this is slightly ridiculous. Have customers seriously complained about the term "master"? And my impression was that the usage was more similar to "master copy" than "master of the plantation". Honestly, it's frust…

I don't think it's because people are offended at the use of the word master, in this case. I think, that it's symbolic. By making a point of getting rid of the word master, you're showing that black lives matter.

Re: GitHub is working on renaming default branch from “master”

#36
I've said it before, and I predict it now again: a language that is named after valuable mineral chunks that are often/usually/predominately mined by slave labor in predominately non-white countries is better thinking about a rebrand.

Especially when it's basically ground zero for SJW activity in software development.

Re: GitHub is working on renaming default branch from “master”

#37

I'm a strong supporter of social justice. I don't really object to people putting in work to change language like that if they think it's important. Especially when the work required is minimal. That said, this is slightly ridiculous. Have customers seriously complained about the term "master"? And my impression was that the usage was more similar to "master copy" than "master of the plantation". Honestly, it's frust…

> That said, this is slightly ridiculous.

Which makes it actively harmful: Anything you do which is even somewhat ridiculous can be seized upon by your political enemies and turned into ammunition against you. They can claim your whole movement is about the ridiculous thing, and use it to derail discussions: "Yes, yes, that point is good, but did you know they renamed something in a piece of software just because it vaguely reminded someone of slavery? Time to talk about that now!"

Re: GitHub is working on renaming default branch from “master”

#38
post #18

"main" does seem like an objectively better word to use. The definition fits better in almost every use case. May seem like a silly gesture to some, but imagine feeling an emotional trigger every time you had to use a basic tool for your job. That'd piss me off.

counterpoint: I'll be pissed off and emotionally triggered, knowing that they bent over backwards just to be "politically correct" or "progressive".

It's a bit of a paradox isn't it, if you really are emotionally triggered by people making a gesture to black developers, doesn't that suggest that developers are really easily emotionally triggered, and therefore making the gesture is actually important and therefore you shouldn't be triggered because it's not bending over backward to be politically correct it's actually tackling something that's a real issue?

Re: GitHub is working on renaming default branch from “master”

#39

What bugs me about crap like this is that it ignores world history, makes these people feel good about doing nothing of consequence, and takes attention away from things that will actually help. If you are going to help, actually do something that improves the lives of people. Maybe, you should really put some effort into beefing up the Computer Science programs in black high schools and colleges? You are Microsoft,…

A small symbolic thing is still worth doing, even if it doesn't directly improve the lives of people.

Re: GitHub is working on renaming default branch from “master”

#40

Here comes the newspeak.

There's a reason "slippery slope" is often followed by "fallacy"...

Sorry mate, your master decided you don't have a privilege to post a content here and marked it as flagged.
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