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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”

#71

Post by drdaeman »

justRafi wrote: post #60

I don't think you can erase words from the vocabulary to get rid of bad undertones in society. If someone is offended by a "master" branch name, I suspect they are easily offended, and might be onto on some crusade. Renaming variables and tech paradigms that refer to computer idioms, not people, is lame. The real problem is misconception and bigotry in people's hearts. We could stop using the sex/porn industry and re…

> If someone is offended by a "master" branch name, I suspect they are easily offended

Worse, it feels like people are taught to be offended more easily, driving the sensitivity up to the max.

> We could stop using the sex/porn industry

Not going to happen. This industry had existed since times immemorial and is going to exist no matter what for as long as humans will have sex drive (and thus, fantasies and desires). Painting sexual and/or pornographic services as something inherently bad is only going to make it worse by driving industry into a darker shade. I could be terribly mistaken here (and beg pardon and counterarguments if I am), but in my understanding it's social and legal stigmas are what's primarily hurting people.

I don't mean to say there are no issues with that industry. Just saying that blaming it's very existence is not a solution. And - as a personal opinion - there's nothing wrong with sex or porn, as long as it's all well-informed, safe, sane and consensual.

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

#72

Post by syspec »

justaj wrote: post #65
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.

There's already incredible amount of documentation around that uses the word "master". (New) people getting aboard will undoubtedly read the (now stale) documentation and get confused, confusion results in questions, questions result in discussions and discussions take time away from the already overburdened FOSS contributors that make great things happen. All of this to give an appearance that social change is happe…

This only affects new repositories

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

#73

Post by rich_sasha »

In one swift stroke, GitHub fixed racism and diversity issues in tech. And all that without spending a penny, awkward outreach programmes or deep soul-searching as to the roots of the problem. In your face, naysayers.

Oh, wait...

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

#74

Post by dariosalvi78 »

Honest question: anyone here on HN from a black US background? How do you feel about all this"political revisionism" of the tech jargon? I find it silly to the point that it's offensive, but I'm not black and I don't live in the US.

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

#75

Post by Tomis02 »

I don't have a problem with changing the name but the motivation bothers me. For years we've had unintuitive/unfriendly names - an example on this thread was "pull requests", name picked by someone who was so high that he was seeing himself from the 3rd person, in a mirror, while standing on their head.

God forbid we change the names so that they actually start making sense; oh no, we stick with V1 til the heat death of the universe, we wouldn't want to confuse already confused developers by fixing the dumb thing.

Ok, fine, now that you've started, will you fix the rest of the names too? The ones that aren't politically charged, that is.

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

#76

Post by dariosalvi78 »

MikeTheGreat wrote: post #39
unwoundmouse wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

This past summer I helped teach a bunch of students to code, students who were from under-represented populations here in the U.S. They were horrified to learn where the 'master' term came from. Switching from master to main is a good change. The 'master-slave' terminology has been used in tech for a while (for example, IDE [0]). Yes, it's not intended to be a direct reference to slavery, but that's where the term or…

Do you that the word "liberty" comes from the Latin "libertas" which means the "condition of being not a slave"?

Tell it to your students next time and let's all make a fuss about the use of the word.

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

#78

Post by thundergolfer »

dariosalvi78 wrote: post #74

Honest question: anyone here on HN from a black US background? How do you feel about all this"political revisionism" of the tech jargon? I find it silly to the point that it's offensive, but I'm not black and I don't live in the US.

Not black or USA nationality, but this is not revisionism. The origin of the term in gut is in the master/slave concept and because that’s an ugly (and pointless) association the term is evolving.

Terms change. We will adapt just fine, and “main” is a better name anyway, as others have pointed out here in this thread.

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

#79

Post by hinkley »

Joeri wrote: post #33
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.

The naming is not accurate though. Many projects branch off from “development” and periodically merge into master. Calling it main more aptly describes the role it has.

If anything the commit tree structure of git warrants “trunk” far more than ever made sense in subversion.

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

#80

Post by ewanm89 »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #37
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.

That is not why it’s called that: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2019-May/...

Ah, there is a logical fallacy there. That logical fallacy that is just because they reused the same bitkeeper word that they took it from there AND are using it in the same sense. Ultimately this is a strawman, you are putting Bitkeeper's practice and arguments onto git.

Slave is never used once in git documentation, never has been and never will be: https://git-scm.com/search/results?search=slave

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