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Python Joins Movement To Dump 'Offensive' Master, Slave Terms (theregister.co.uk)

Python creator Guido van Rossum retired in July, but he's been pulled back in to resolve a debate about politically incorrect language. The Register reports: Like other open source communities, Python's minders have been asked whether they really want to continue using the terms "master" and "slave" to describe technical operations and relationships, given that the words remind some people of America's peculiar institution, a historical legacy that fires political passions to this day. Last week Victor Stinner, a Python developer who works for Red Hat, published four pull requests seeking to change "master" and "slave" in Python documentation and code to terms like "parent," "worker," or something similarly anodyne. "For diversity reasons, it would be nice to try to avoid 'master' and 'slave' terminology which can be associated to slavery," he explained in his bug report, noting that there have been complaints but they've been filed privately -- presumably to avoid being dragged into a fractious flame war. And when Python 3.8 is released, there will be fewer instances of these terms.

27 of 1,342 comments (clear)

  1. I nominate: by leftCoaster · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Gru" and "Minion"

  2. I agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The terms are needlessly evocative. I propose we use "dom/sub" instead

  3. Top Five Alternate Master/Slave Terms by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Funny

    5) Windshield/Bug

    4) Ampulex compressa / Periplaneta americana

    3) Eastwood / Punk

    2) Wall / Mime

    1) PC / Wrongthink

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  4. Re:facepalm by Kohath · · Score: 4, Funny

    The Progressive religion is coming for you sinners and blasphemers!

  5. Re: Re by SqueakyMouse · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well thatth thertainly offenthive!

  6. Re: Re by MouseR · · Score: 3, Funny

    Did you just frickin assume my preferred language?

  7. Re:Re by SCVonSteroids · · Score: 4, Funny

    What about when you destroy the parent?
    You've effectively orphaned its children. Now thats some pretty nasty nomenclature.

    --
    I tend to rant.
  8. Re:Re by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Welcome to being a smug twat on the internet!

  9. Re:Re by msauve · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think they should use bourgeois and prole instead.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  10. Re:Re by magarity · · Score: 5, Funny

    So what about people who are unable to have children, will they get offended by references to 'parent'?

    I suggest the terms "coordinator" and "volunteer".

  11. Re:more pc stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    excuse me, I have children to kill.

  12. Re: Re by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Funny

    LISP is an offensive term, it's called Lisp today. Off with you to a reeducation camp!

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  13. Re:facepalm by skoskav · · Score: 5, Funny

    master -> snake charmer
    slave -> python

  14. Re:more pc stupidity by Scarred+Intellect · · Score: 5, Funny

    Fuck it, lets just burn all the computers and go back to using bows and arrows, and hunting in the woods.....

    Shit, the Butlerian Jihad is coming sooner than we thought (and for more inane reasons!).

  15. Re: Re by BronsCon · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'd suggest you check your colon, but you were clearly in the middle of a direct visual inspection when you wrote that.

    --
    APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
  16. Re:Re by qzzpjs · · Score: 5, Funny

    What about when you destroy the parent?

    Well, normally the parent is expected to destroy all their children first, then die themselves. Can't have orphan processes running around your system... So we probably shouldn't use parent/child either for the analogy. Maybe manager/worker? Then we can think layoffs. :^)

  17. Re:Re by Mal-2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Advisor" and "Doctoral Student".

    --
    How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
  18. Down with man! by mi · · Score: 4, Funny

    While we are at this, when will the sexist man command be renamed?..

    I'd say, let's name it doc, but that's not very egalitarian either, as it implies a level of education unattainable to so many of the less fortunate. Plus, to some it also invokes the horribly racist imagery of Looney Tunes.

    If you've read this far and aren't outraged, you are a racist too — buy some racism credits to atone for the incorrect thoughts.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  19. Re: Bus slaves by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 4, Funny
    In most of the world, regardless of civilised or not, slavery is not connected with race, and in some countries is still going on.

    The relationship between subsystems on a bus is most definitely NOT parent-child - which may be appropriate for (example) software tasks.

    When the bus master tells you to jump, it tells you when and how high. I do not want my peripheral subsystems being incited to rise up against their masters just because Americans have linguistic problems.

    This is not a case for re-education: some people need to be sent to an educational system in the first place.

    --
    Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
  20. Re: Re by PetiePooo · · Score: 5, Funny

    Also as a person from a nation that was ruled by hungarian kingdoms (and later the austro-hungarian empire) for a 1000 years including attempts at hungarization I am strongly offended by "hungarian notation".

    Dude, we're all offended by hungarian notation!

  21. Re:We been down this road... by dissy · · Score: 4, Funny

    The Los Angeles County tried to ban Master/Slave for IDE cables in 2003

    In the electronic manufacturing industry I work kinda-in (purely IT, but still) we had a similar push not long ago to ban Male/Female when referring to connectors and instead use Plug/Jack.
    "Mating", the verb form, was changed to "Connect"

    A bit later this was changed again as the previously-female term "Jack" was offensive being a predominantly male name, so it became Plug/Socket.

    Even later as more complex connectors came into common use, it was noticed that things like the USB-A connectors had an outside shield component that made ground contact when plugged in, but at the same time the inserting component went *into* the cable where the 4 conductive plate traces were.
    Basically the previously-male side has a shroud that completely envelops the entire previously-female side when connected.

    The decades old term for these are "hermaphroditic shrouded connectors", which was also found offensive and changed to "surround connector"

    There was also "hermaphroditic non-shrouded connectors" previously called "genderless" which can connect both cable-to-panel as well as cable-to-cable, which are now to be called "combination connectors"

    The latest change we had to make was to retain the Plug/Socket terms but on the technical side no longer use "Plug" to replace "Male" and "Socket" to replace "Female"
    Instead "Socket" is whichever end is fixed in place (IE on a circuit board or a panel) and "Plug" to refer to a movable connector (IE at the end of a cable)
    So, the terms no longer indicate the obvious physical appearance of the connector, but how the connector is used.

    This also means for the previously-genderless instances of a cable-to-cable connection, you are to say it is two *sockets* connecting, and you can't have two plugs that connect.

    Confused yet?

  22. dump Python, use Perl! by KiloByte · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, it is time to boycott a language where political correctness trumps technical merit -- especially if the same language enforces whitespace bondage&discipline. So drop Python, we welcome you on the Perl side!

    --
    The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  23. Re: Re by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 5, Funny

    The same year, Django traded "master" and "slave" for "leader" and "follower."

    Or, in its German translation, Fuehrer and AnhÃnger, but the latter can also mean "trailer" so we'll use a more people-specific term, Volk. Fuehrer and Volk, that's it, no-one will be offended by that. It's a good thing there's such a rich (in German, "Reich") set of words to choose from for Django: Fuehrer, Volk, und Reich.

  24. Re:Re by ceoyoyo · · Score: 4, Funny

    Always kill the children before you terminate the parent.

  25. Re:Exactly! by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 4, Funny

    non-binary-non-racial-gender-queer-safe-space-resident and college president.

  26. Re: Re by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 5, Funny

    After I posted this I realised what the real problem is, and how to fix it: Every term you want to use contains connotations of control over something, e.g. A controlling B (master/slave, whatever). No matter what terms you use, in some language or some culture it'll upset someone.

    With one exception: There is a specific term for which the controlled not only don't mind, but actively seek it. That's "dom" and "sub". So I think Python should replace all occurrences of "master" and "slave" with "dom" and "sub". And then sit back while the SJWs come up with something else to be offended by, perhaps the blatantly pornographic nature of the letter "B" or the subtly suggestive "J".

  27. Re:Re by null+etc. · · Score: 1, Funny

    So if the purpose of the proposed change isn't virtue signalling, what exactly is it?

    It's fucking called empathy, and maybe you should try developing some.