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

951–960 of 1001 posts

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#951

Post by charlescearl »

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…

As a Black data scientist I will say that words have power. That naming things has power. That acknowledging the depth of white supremacy, its depravity, and need to utterly and completely remove it and all of its vestiges is the most important work that can be undertaken.

There used to be a Confederate statue in the town square where I live. Many Black people worked over decades to point out what the statue symbolized, how the Klan had revised history in building that statue. Some white people wanted it gone. Finally a lot of white people wanted it gone. Then these same people began calling for reparations. A local college instituted reparations. There are calls to engage with land back movements.

I’ve lived through many backlash cycles. Locally we’re still dealing with egregious health disparities that are costing Black lives daily. There is gentrification. The city’s just lived through a night in which white supremacy took the lives of several Asian women.

But something has changed.

Words matter. We have to keep chipping away at this monster.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#952

Post by dennis_moore »

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…

> So, next time you are annoyed that you have to fix a script or you accidentally type master when you needed to type main, please just take a deep breath, change the name, and remember to reflect upon whether you have are subconscious habits or biases that work against diversity in tech.

Could you please give me specific examples of what biases I, a software developer, may have? I like to think that I have always treated people with respect, judging them only by the character of their work and interactions with me, as opposed to stereotypes based on characteristics outside of their control. Perhaps I am wrong, but reflecting did not help maybe because I have had found no luck finding a thorough, rational source to educate myself on these issues that doesn't just echo meaningless politically or emotionally loaded statements. I am thus genuinely interested to hear from someone like you who is directly affected by these issues.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#953

Post by marknutter »

Freak_NL wrote: post #155
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…

Aren't you worried that by applying political labels like 'left' (or equally often seen in the US context: 'liberal') for something that does not really represent that political ideology, you are at risk of further polarizing such debates? This specific instance seems like an overreaction of some in both corporate and social media culture. One poster already pointed out that this is likely more about corporate fear o…

This goes way beyond just trying to get ahead of a potential PR disaster. I can think of nobody out there in non-nerd world that would've raised a stink about the word "master" being used in some programming context, just like they haven't raised a stink about the term MC. This is ultra-woke privileged white tech lefties who truly do feel like their fighting for social justice by doing this kind of thing.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#954

Post by vagrantJin »

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…

> remember to reflect upon whether you have are subconscious habits or biases that work against diversity in tech.

I find statements like these to be well meaning straight from the pulpit of a culture that finds cancellation or edits prefferable to new and better.

It's decline. Regression. It's looking at the present solely through the eyes of the past and a refusal to look an inch forward.

A word won't change the state. It's meta. The nub of the issue is that a black kid who might have an interest in computing has access to one, does he have that as a choice, and can anyone help or nudge him towards an academic pursuit in computing. That's where the work is.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#955

Post by ycombigator »

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…

This is interesting. I'm white.

The word master doesn't occupy this space in my head and never has. I've associated this term primarily with teachers from a very early age. There's obviously the master-slave terminology in tech, but that really doesn't map to slavery in my head. This is probably because I'm from the British Isles which has a very different history in terms of slavery.

For me, I felt this change was really about the impact this term has for people who have been impacted by slavery having to continue to use these terms, which I thought many must felt comes across as, at best, insensitive.

Hence, I felt the cost of doing this seems reasonable. I mean, if we used the term holocaust for wiping a hard drive at some point people would probably have said - "err, yeah, no that's just a bad idea", because it would be offensive.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#956

Post by ycombigator »

I initially felt similarly to the person that wrote the OP.

Then I thought - would anyone be offended if we use the term "holocaust" for wiping a hard drive.

The language we use does impact how we think and frame things, that's part of being human.

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#957

Post by ceod »

Yeah i've always looked at my master branch and stared into the horizon, missing the good old days of slavery. People forget white populations were subjected to horrible stuff too. Looking back long enough one will have a tough time accounting and redressing stuff. Hey my Neanderthal ancestors were tortured by your Neanderthal ancestors. You owe me big time and also a branch name change...

Re: GitHub, fuck your name change

#960

Post by dshpala »

Yeah? How about the other way around - I'll start using 'master' more in my code from now on. No more 'primary' things, only 'master'. What do we have here, serverUrl? How about masterUrl?

I'm less than half-joking here.

God this woke stuff is worse than Trump I swear.

Post reply on HN