Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GitHub, fuck your name change

mooseyanon.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

701–710 of 1001 posts

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#701

Post by _def »

So I'm a european white guy and I know that Identity Politics covers topics which make it extremely hard to find a consesus, but here are my two cents. Please share your thoughts with me.

Tackling huge problems in society (and in general) takes time. It's good do discuss the direction society should move as whole, and act accordingly in the future. But it's also important to act _right now_ as best as we can to put the fire out.

Will adjusting our language get rid of social problems? No. Will it help getting rid of social problems: in the longterm, maybe? I don't know. But I know that it doesn't hurt you to act considerate towards other people. So why not just do it?

The thing is, it shouldn't stop there. Inclusive language is just a small step towards a more peaceful society. We'll need many of those.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#702

Post by christiansakai »

kazinator wrote: post #680
_nckn wrote: post #592

I'm Asian, wasn't born in America and didn't grew up in America as well. I don't have a horse in this race. I don't feel annoyed to change that term. I'm only annoyed if someone guilt trip me if I don't change the name out of ignorance (i.e, I don't follow politics, no time for social media). I don't think I have any bias against women or minority in tech. Changing main or master or slave doesn't ring a bell or evoke…

Changing the default branch name in git is technically disruptive, therefore annoying to people who have to deal with it.

I imagine so for monorepos with plenty of developers working on it. But wouldn't that be solved easily with "git rebase -i " and maybe some other CI/CD pipeline.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#703

Post by toiletfuneral »

root_axis wrote: post #677
jssmith wrote: post #538

I want to share my own reactions to the name change since this is a really interesting topic. For context, I'm an African American, so many of my ancestors were slaves. - The first time it occurred to me that "master" in this context could offend anyone was when GitHub changed the name (and broke my workflow). - My immediate reaction was, "this change is by white people for white people," where "white" means anyone w…

As another black SWE, I'll add that I disagree with your perspective. I think the name change does more harm than good because it trivializes the movement. If the goal is to change minds and open hearts then where appropriate, we should endeavor to communicate in ways that will be well received by those who need to hear the message . Stuff like this is just preaching to the choir and alienating the rest, but also not…

this is a good point. There's a lot of attempts at fixing issues through optics and performative acts to show understanding but these gestures can be sort of awkward or totally unnecessary while potentially hypocritical if it isn't coupled with material changes.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#704

Post by bredren »

PretzelPirate wrote: post #485
timvisee wrote: post #445

> Either do some real shit or stay silent. Stay the fuck out of our way and don’t pretend you care. Then we can all get on with our lives. Yes! Also, I think that if you see 'master' for a git branch as a problem, there is something seriously wrong with you.

Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft. I’ve seen many Microsoft employees internally comment on how they don’t like the term “master branch”. I believe Microsoft’s renaming (this is my personal belief) was somewhat influenced by that internal push. It may not mean much to you, but if it made some people feel more comfortable it’s a good change and has very few downsides.

This is my sense as well. Much of change comes down to daily "inconvenience." In that way, Guggenheim's "An Inconvenient Truth" nailed this.

Attacks on "main" as being ineffectual or indications that "the real problem to solve is this over here so don't do this" doesn't diminish the value of iterative changes.

SCRUM focuses on learning by doing, and we may look back on main vs master as an experiment that had no effect. Or we may look back on branches with a master branch and feel differently about them. It is far too early to tell.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#705

Post by eitland »

oaiey wrote: post #619
aaronbasssett wrote: post #606

Please name one country that never had slavery?

Never is a hard word. Let me explain: In the US the white were masters and the black were slaves. A white was rarely a slave, a black person was likely a slave. And slavery was not abolished that long ago. In MANY countries people of color X enslaved people of color X. So now - many generations later - no one knows anymore who was slave and who was master. So the term master is insignificant for the individuals in th…

1 million or more Europeans were enslaved in Africa: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_slave_trade

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#706

Post by drngxn »

jssmith wrote: post #538

I want to share my own reactions to the name change since this is a really interesting topic. For context, I'm an African American, so many of my ancestors were slaves. - The first time it occurred to me that "master" in this context could offend anyone was when GitHub changed the name (and broke my workflow). - My immediate reaction was, "this change is by white people for white people," where "white" means anyone w…

> What's powerful about this name change is that it pushes us to alter a habit, in my case one embedded deeply in my fingers, something that I do every day without realizing that I'm doing it

This is the entire point, this sentence right here.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#708

Post by mnsc »

vmception wrote: post #47

I’m a black American and agree with everything that this person in London wrote. It is also a common criticism of the American “left”, and is entirely accurate. For everyone perplexed about black Americans and other people of color walking away from the left, its because you/they don't see us as equals that can be bothered by the exact same things that other Americans can be bothered by: being told what to think, wat…

> I’m a black American ...

Do you think that there's a difference with using "master" for the main branch vs using "blacklist" for stuff you don't want in your system? Or are they equally non-offensive to you?

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#709

Post by wreath »

dustinmoris wrote: post #684
jssmith wrote: post #538

I want to share my own reactions to the name change since this is a really interesting topic. For context, I'm an African American, so many of my ancestors were slaves. - The first time it occurred to me that "master" in this context could offend anyone was when GitHub changed the name (and broke my workflow). - My immediate reaction was, "this change is by white people for white people," where "white" means anyone w…

[flagged]

Small correction but the holocaust wasn't the biggest genocide in human history.

Obviously this isn't a competition nor it should be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_tol...

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#710

Post by droopyEyelids »

The key quote from that passage, to me, was "Is it too much to ask for tech companies to run an apprenticeship program for people changing careers, etc?"

Certain people face _structural_ impediments to getting into tech. CEOs and HR love to brow-beat _individual_ managers and recruiters to fix the diversity issue in companies.

But you know what the decision makers never, ever do? They never create a _structural_ program to address the _structural_ problem. What if they expanded headcount by 10% to add an apprentice and make time for the team to train that apprentice. How much difference would we make in 'fixing our ratios' every year?

Post reply on HN