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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.
given that the words remind some people of America's peculiar institution
I find it odd how 'slavery' is so often framed as an American phenomenon, when it was/is a worldwide institution. The US was simply the last superpower to abolish it locally. Slavery is unfortunately alive and well, which should be clear to anyone willing to take a look around.
As for the topic at hand: The folks arguing for this might have a point if the terms being used were 'whitey' and 'blackey' or something equivalently racist, but I find the terms 'master' and slave' to be sufficiently "anodyne" considering they refer to a relationship between two things and neither term explicitly refers to a particular type of individual. Are we going to get rid of 'parent' and 'child' as well because some people were beaten by their parents?
I don't even think it is problematic. The real problem seems to be people who are taking terms outside their intended space. Why are we linking a scar on human history to terms explaining technical relationships?
I hope BDFL tells everyone to either shut up and get back to work or fork something on 4chan.
We need to abolish arrays.
Idea of placing one thing before another is offensive to retards.
All elements should get equal participation.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
The worst part is
given that the words remind some people of America's peculiar institution
Really? Slavery was a thing for all of recorded human history. Even now it's alive and well in places like Qatar. American slavery is an embarrassment to America, as we were slow to abandon it compared to Europe, and it took a war to do so. But slavery as a concept? It's hard to find any location on Earth with a written history that doesn't include slavery staining that history. It's not in any way "America's peculiar institution".
I've heard there are Millennials who were never taught that there were slaves in Europe, Rome, Egypt, Sumeria, etc, basically any place with government established enough to leave written records.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
This trend of seeking offense where none is intended is incredibly toxic to humanity. In the English language many words have different meanings based on their context. It's plainly obvious that no allusion to human slavery is meant in the context of software or hardware module relationships.
Let's be blunt about what has happened: people have been abusively harmed by others lying to them and telling them that context is meaningless. They have been given invented forms of discomfort in order to make them slaves to unpleasant emotional responses that have no underlying basis in reality. That's the irony here. The people complaining about the terminology are behaving in a herd manner, controlled by powermongers who benefit from it. Power flows from irrational group cohesion, and the cheapest and easiest form irrational group cohesion is hatred of the other. There are many ways to define the "other" and you can see it everywhere in politics: race, nationality, language, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and (seriously, humanity actually went here) word choice. Both conservatives and progressives exploit these shamelessly. Stop playing their games.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
I'm not a historian but ... The reference to slavery as America's "Peculiar Institution" is a term which goes back deep into the 19th century and isn't meant to imply that slavery is peculiar (as in "unique") to America but that slavery in the US was peculiar in the "different from other institutions" sense. It seems to have been coined by by the Southern pro-slavery politician John C Calhoun in 1837. A quick reference:
"PECULIAR INSTITUTION was a euphemistic term that white southerners used for slavery. John C. Calhoun defended the "peculiar labor" of the South in 1828 and the "peculiar domestick institution" in 1830. The term came into general use in the 1830s when the abolitionist followers of William Lloyd Garrison began to attack slavery. Its implicit message was that slavery in the U.S. South was different from the very harsh slave systems existing in other countries and that southern slavery had no impact on those living in northern states." -- from https://www.encyclopedia.com/h....
The term is seen fairly commonly in scholarly works, including this book from 1956, "The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South" by Kenneth M. Stampp (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peculiar_Institution).
IDE cables are a great way to show the problem.
Many motherboards had primary and secondary slots and each slot had a master and a slave connector.
There are still a number of things like to DNS and other network services where primary and secondary are not the same as master and slave and a primary or secondary dns server can have slave servers.
I understand coming up with different terms but we also need to make sure the new terms are not more confusing than what we have already.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
No we didn't keep it longer than anyone. It is amazing how ignorant people are of human history. In addition, slavery exists to this day. Furthermore the Civil War wasn't fought over slavery. Back to school for you.
It's fairly certain that they don't know that "slave" and "serf" are derived from "Slav". What, white people were slaves? Surely not! Only blacks suffered from slavery in their world, despite it being a historically worldwide phenomenon.
Did you know that lots of young people like to propose changing the word "kill" to something else? That was a thing 20 years ago, it was a thing again 10 years ago, I'd be very surprised if it isn't still a thing now.
I understand why ignorant people would want to constantly change terms; it reduces their disadvantage if they can interfere with communication! But no, in programming some of the important books are still 30+ years old. I'm not going to stop reading them, I'm not even going to stop using consistent terminology!
All they can achieve is that the libraries in that language have a special name, and the words master/slave still get used to explain that fact, but people don't write the words in their actual code. They can't force people not to use the word, and people will still use it, because as has been known since the earlier efforts, they don't have any idea what good replacement words would be.
This probably violates some written or unwritten /. rule, but I'm going to repeat a reply I made to someone else since your point is the same as theirs. You aren't interpreting "America's peculiar institution" as the historians who use it professionally do.
The reference to slavery as America's "Peculiar Institution" is a term which goes back deep into the 19th century and isn't meant to imply that slavery is peculiar (as in "unique") to America but that slavery in the US was peculiar in the "different from other institutions" sense. It seems to have been coined by by the Southern pro-slavery politician John C Calhoun in 1837. A quick reference:
"PECULIAR INSTITUTION was a euphemistic term that white southerners used for slavery. John C. Calhoun defended the "peculiar labor" of the South in 1828 and the "peculiar domestick institution" in 1830. The term came into general use in the 1830s when the abolitionist followers of William Lloyd Garrison began to attack slavery. Its implicit message was that slavery in the U.S. South was different from the very harsh slave systems existing in other countries and that southern slavery had no impact on those living in northern states." -- from https://www.encyclopedia.com/h... [encyclopedia.com].
The term is seen fairly commonly in scholarly works, including this book from 1956, "The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South" by Kenneth M. Stampp (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peculiar_Institution).
It also decreed zero prohibitions against slavery, and thus its views on how to treat slaves are irrelevant.
Why the fuck could there not have been a simple commandment to the effect of "Don't own people as property! For you yourselves would not wish to be treated as such."
Face it, the majority of Humans are much more moral than the cosmic horror thee Christians, Jews, and Muslims worship.
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There's this and the rampant slavery currently ongoing in middle east countries to say nothing of the sex slavery trade.
Changing the terms used in a programming language isn't going to stop slavery anywhere. It's just more useless virtue signaling where going out and DOING something to stop slavery. Join the Polaris Project if you want to make a difference, but don't require us to refactor miles of code just to make you feel good.
https://polarisproject.org/
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
because everyone is offended at things, we should not ban everything because some individuals might be intentionally offended at it. south park covered this in their x mas special in season 3 or so.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Oh please, there's 10,000 privileged white kids living on mommy and daddy's money who are doing the complaining for every legitimately offended black person. And no, they don't want the same consideration, they want superior consideration. They want to crucify every white person who uses even the slightest perceived offensive term while every anti-white term, stereotype, and other insult remains firmly on the table. Anyone who still thinks these PC SJWs stand for equality is deluded or lying, it's all about inverting the power structures, not leveling them.
Here you go.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Check your priveledge, white man
One thing I have always admired about the US it was the white man who fought against slavery yes he fought another white man however I am struggling to find another war fought on morals rather than for money, land, oil etc. It is those ideals that gave not only africans freedom but many others like mine also, anyone who came from a country where a minority was persecuted where they would like to escape to most would answer the US
Those "white men" deserve more respect and stop using privilege as an insult, privileges are sought after and normally bestowed of someone who has earned it
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
Pretty much everywhere else the children of slaves were born free, and quite often had a clear route to citizenship as well.
Nope. You think those Spanish galley slaves, Roman gladiators, Chinese eunichs etc had a route to freedom? Some slaves got to high rank as slaves went, and did not lead a bad life, but they were a minority. Most slaves in history would be lucky ever to have the chance of children (certainly not eunuchs unless they grew one).