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.

Comments

Re

[pele]

So what about people who are unable to have children, will they get offended by references to 'parent'?
This has gotten out of hand, definitely.

Re:Re

[stealth_finger]

So what about people who are unable to have children, will they get offended by references to 'parent'? This has gotten out of hand, definitely.

What about orphans, will they take kindly to constantly be reminded of parents? Why won't anyone think of the childrens?

Re: Re

[liquid_schwartz]

time to go binary...

Unfortunately many identify as non-binary. We'll have to keep looking for new metaphors

Re:Re

[Anonymous Coward]

These people need to just fuck off with their bullshit. Master and Slave have many legitimate meanings that have absolutely nothing to do with slavery. Just fuck off already.

Re:Re

[BronsCon]

And black people who weren't alive when slavery was commonplace aren't your pawns, either. Can we please stop using them? Seriously, let them rest, they've been free for over a century and a half now.

Re:Re

[K. S. Kyosuke]

There are many more orphans today in the US than there are slaves, which makes it even more imbecilic.

Re:Re

[cayenne8]

JFC....when will the political correctness stupid shit just die??

This one got to me:

"...given that the words remind some people of America's peculiar institution,:

Seriously? I mean, LOTS of countries had slaves if my history memory serves me right.

For goodness sakes...slavery ended a LONG time ago, get over it...move on.

These terms have nothing to do with slavery in any country.

What's next? Do we have to rename the "master" brake cylinder on your car?

Re: Re

[CoolDiscoRex]

Political Correctness flourises during periods of prosperity. This is because the needs of the affluent class are met, and the human mind craves problems to solve. Lacking adequate challenges to overcome, people will create their own. If you pay attention during the next recession, policital correctness will attenuate, only to come roaring back when things turn back around. It's also used as a hedge against lower-class cooperation during periods of expanding wealth inequity. You want the poor black man to look suspiciously at the poor white man, which is why wealthy whites whack the racial bees nest as often as possible then point to the "rednecks", and not the wealthy politicians who routinely sell them all. out. Fewer things scare the upper-classes more than the lower-classes begin to existing relatively peacefully. After all, there's way more of the lower classes than there are of the upper. Divide and conquer.

Re: Re

[jenningsthecat]

I suggest we rename master/slave to simon/player...

I'm sure some people named Simon will be offended by the association of their name with being controlling. The problem here isn't the nomenclature per se. The problem is that people get all fucked up when they are reminded of social hierarchy power relationships, especially involuntary ones.

The solution is to exercise a little intellectual and emotional discipline, to consciously differentiate between contexts, and to actively avoid the impulse to go looking for butt-hurt. The solution is definitely NOT to go all SJW on everyone's ass in a futile attempt to revise history by enforcing spurious and awkward PC-speak.

Re: Re

[Anonymous Coward]

Political Correctness flourises during periods of prosperity. This is because the needs of the affluent class are met, and the human mind craves problems to solve. Lacking adequate challenges to overcome, people will create their own.

Yep. I often irritate a SJW type I know by reacting to some of his rants with "that's nature's way of telling you there's not enough adversity in your life."

There is another part of it, perhaps. It occurs to me, listening to him, that a lot of this is also a form of self-aggrandizement. The poor downtrodden, whomever they may be, cannot defend (or make decisions for) themselves and need him and his ilk to save them. It's a way of positioning themselves as superior to others while pretending to do the opposite.

Re: Re

[weilawei]

No, you need to grow up. We are adults here, and we learned in elementary school what homonyms are. How many words would you have us invent to alleviate the existence of homonyms and cater to your puerile mind, which immediately has to seek out discriminatory meanings in words that sound or are spelled the same, but have different definitions? How many times would you have us redefine existing terms when some asshole decides to create a discriminatory homonym based on it?

Grow up.

The right to offend is more important than the right to not be offended. That's a requirement for adults, unless you'd rather be treated by a child, with parents to tell you what you should like and what you should be offended by.

The rest of us will just use our brains and decide for ourselves, preserving our liberties and freedom of speech, even (especially) if we have to preserve it for people like you.

Re:Re

[Anonymous Coward]

While this is true, ultimately, this is a "them" problem, not a you problem. It's just polite and good nature to realize that one should be careful around a person with a temporary problem or in light of a recent event, but it is the responsibility of that person to eventually get over it. It is *not* the world's job to bend itself around a particular individual's emotional needs.

When my family die, people constantly walk on eggshells around me related to talking about fathers and mothers, etc.. It was appreciated for a short time, but eventually became embarrassing and tedious. I knew it was my job to eventually 'get over it' or if not that, to not claim it's other people's fault when regular conversation brought back painful memories. I do not expect the world to bow to my needs.

I have done similar things to what you describe, and I still feel bad about them years later, but I also know it's not my fault as in this case, you did nothing wrong. It may have been worth a "sorry I didn't know" later if the chance arose.

Re:Re

[Gr8Apes]

And in fairness it *was* rather peculiar in that it departed greatly from the historical norm for slavery. Pretty much everywhere else the children of slaves were born free, and quite often had a clear route to citizenship as well. Quite often there was a generally accepted route for captured slaves to earn their freedom as well. The idea that someone could be born into lifelong slavery was fairly uncommon.

Ummm, no. I believe you're thinking of indentured servitude. Check your Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians for starters on slavery in the past. If you were born of a slave, you were a slave from birth. You might have a nice designation (Roman) but you were a slave. That some societies allowed some property, including money, to be "owned" by slaves and that they could sometimes buy their freedom in no way makes for a clear route to citizenship. In fact, citizenship was as exceptional to a freedman as freedmen were to slaves. In all these ways, American slavery was exactly like those others, going back through all of recorded history (minus roughly 1000 years from somewhere in the 400s through the early 1600s.

Re:Re

[sjames]

That may actually be in favor of master/slave since that is vastly less likely to trigger an actual bad memory in a living person.

more pc stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

good fucking god. you stupid fucking pc idiots are ruining the world for the majority.

Re:more pc stupidity

[BronsCon]

Because when doing X for Y reason becomes acceptable, Y becomes a viable excuse for any value of X.

facepalm

[ganjadude]

seriously? this is what the world is becoming????

Re:facepalm

[Anonymous Coward]

My stake is that terminology is all it is. We are referring to technical operations and relationships. They could care less what they are called. The fact that someone, somewhere, at some random time MIGHT have the hurt feelings because a word was used is pathetic reasoning to do what the SJW/PC crowd is now on a crusade for.

By all means, lets strike out every possible word that MIGHT hurt someone's feelings. Personally, I vote for "diversity" to be stricken next. In it's current context it offends me greatly, so that means we strike that one too right ?

Re:facepalm

[c]

let's choose a relationship that's more near and dear to problems we have today!

master -> lobbyist
slave -> politician

Oh for fuck's sake

[SensitiveMale]

Does PC cultures have to infect everything?

Everyone knows that it won't stop there. A few years later there will be more "offensive" words that need to be changed. Personally, I won't stop being offended until we're all coding in machine code and then I'll fight for machine rights because who are we to tell them their language?

Re:Oh for fuck's sake

[jythie]

Unless we return to an single homogeneous ethnostate, yes, it is going to infect everything because it is everything. PC culture is just what people call it when those who they view as not knowing their place try to have the same consideration as their betters. If you 'stop' it, all you do is assert another PC culture in its place catering to other demographic groups.

Re:Oh for fuck's sake

[quantaman]

Does PC cultures have to infect everything?

Everyone knows that it won't stop there. A few years later there will be more "offensive" words that need to be changed. Personally, I won't stop being offended until we're all coding in machine code and then I'll fight for machine rights because who are we to tell them their language?

I personally don't see the need.

But I give more weight to the offence felt by the descendants of slaves (who still deal with racism and slavery apologists) than the offence felt by people asked to use a different set of technical terms.

Re:Oh for fuck's sake

[hey!]

Well, every orthodoxy, left or right, has its own version of it; it always looks ridiculous when viewed from the outside. To me it seems kind of silly to get upset about a ball player kneeling during the national anthem, but I don't doubt that people are sincerely offended.

This particular form of PC comes out two things: (1) Niceness -- a desire not to hurt anyone's feeligns and (2) Optimism, of a sort peculiar to young people and engineers: if there's a problem we can just *fix* it.

Well some problems just can't be fixed. You can't eliminate friction from mechanical systems, and you can't eliminate social friction from human societies. The only way to keep people from offending each other would be to separate them so thoroughly that nobody ever encounters anyone who was in any way different from them in opinions and outlook. If you've ever been married you'll realize that pretty much means we'd all be on our own.

So either we learn to live with each other, which may make us miserable, or we learn to live apart, which will certainly make us miserable.

Re:Oh for fuck's sake

[BronsCon]

But I give more weight to the offence felt by the descendants of slaves (who still deal with racism and slavery apologists) than the offence felt by people asked to use a different set of technical terms.

While I can see why this would be the case, you also need to give consideration to the implication of allowing the terms to change. Whatever takes their place will have the same meaning and will, in short order, become offensive to the same group, in a never-ending cycle. It's not that we're offended by the suggestion that we change the terminology (thus why someone else's offense might hold more weight than ours -- because we are not offended to begin with), but that we recognize that it is a futile and wasteful effort and choose not to entertain it.

Re:Oh for fuck's sake

[nwaack]

Unless we return to an single homogeneous ethnostate, yes, it is going to infect everything because it is everything. PC culture is just what people call it when those who they view as not knowing their place try to have the same consideration as their betters. If you 'stop' it, all you do is assert another PC culture in its place catering to other demographic groups.

This is the dumbest thing I've heard this week. Go away, you SJW troll.

"peculiar institution"?

[110010001000]

How is slavery America's "peculiar institution"? Slavery has existed for centuries in many countries. It still exists to this day, even though people continue to ignore it.

Re:"peculiar institution"?

[ErikTheRed]

If something terrible is happening but it's not trending on social media then nobody gives a shit. The overwhelming majority of people in the US only get outraged when their peer group tells them to. Whether such outrage is sensible, proportionate, or useful is never a consideration. Being seen to "care" is what's important.

Re:"peculiar institution"?

[Kohath]

How is slavery America's "peculiar institution"?

Playing victim in the US can get you paid.

Re:"peculiar institution"?

[Anonymous Coward]

More like millennia. Black slavery is relatively new, used to be you just grabbed whomever from whatever land you pillaged. Rome had educated Greek slaves etc. Heck, the word "slave" comes from "Slavic" as the Slavic people were most commonly enslaved in the middle ages. Predominately black slavery is a new phenomenon due to sugar plantations and the climate of these plantations being close to Africa. It was also thought that blacks were more resistant to malaria etc.

Trigger words

[Anonymous Coward]

Trigger words like slave, monkey, etc automatically make the Left think of certain types of people, even though the context may be totally unrelated to people. If only the Left could deal with their own racism and resolve it instead of projecting it, the world would be much more peaceful.

Re:So what's the alternative?

[stealth_finger]

I agree master-slave is problematic, but what are you going to use in place?

Dom-sub? Capitalist-proletariat? PHB-engineer?

Do they really want to open this can of worms?

Why is it problematic? Because it perfectly describes the relationship between the devices? Slavery has been going on since one caveman had a bigger stick than the next and doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon, it's a lot bigger than a ~250 year period in one country that ended ~150 years ago. With all due respect to the USA, you need to get over that shit.

Re:"Politically correct," ...

[liquid_schwartz]

... also known as "being polite."

You can try and equate the two but it isn't true. One can be polite and still discuss master / slave on USB and other appropriate topics. One cannot be politically correct and do the same.

much ado about nothing

[vux984]

I'm firmly in the camp that thinks this is much ado about nothing.

But in the spirit of it being much ado about nothing, it seems absurd for me to get worked up about it. So if let them try to change it if it makes them feel better... if it gets traction and sticks... fine, whatever.

Just a thought here.

[hey!]

The thing that makes slavery wrong is that it treats people as if they were things without free will or feelings or purpose other than to serve us. Software modules actually are things without free will, feelings, or purpose other than to serve us.

It's offensive to call an adult black man "boy". It doesn't mean "boy" is an inherently offensive word or concept.

If you take a consequentialist view of ethics, the consequences of banning the word "slave" is that we no longer have a word to describe that concept. It does nothing for people actually are or were enslaved. How would you write a biography of Frederick Douglass? If you have a deontological view of ethics, there is no equivalence between describing an act and participating in the act; you can't end rape by not allowing people to use the word "rape".

People overall have a magical.view of words, which is why everyone is keen to police everyone else's language. That's how we ended up calling the place we poop the "rest room", which is kind of bizarre when you think of it.

Re:"Politically correct," ...

[kenai_alpenglow]

Because the goal posts keep moving. Look at the chain of words considered polite to use for someone who has trouble walking for an example. The words used for someone who has more melanin in their skin than other folks for another. Why not put the onus on the LISTENER instead of the SPEAKER for a change? Just because a snowflake gets offended doesn't mean the person speaking intended to be offensive.

Re:"Politically correct," ...

[Nocturna81]

The two are not mutually exclusive.

It's kinda obvious that some people are uncomfortable with the terminology.

How difficult is it for pliable minds to simply adopt another set of words to describe, precisely, the same thing?

What motivation exceeds being polite?

Being correct? Because screw being polite if it means it muddies the waters. Also, why do "we" need to be pliable? Why can't the other side of this argument get over themselves and accept that words can have different meaning depending on context?

Fucking idiotic.

[jcr]

"Master" and "slave" perfectly convey the concept. Pandering to SJW language police is not only a waste of time, it encourages them to waste our time on this kind of trivia.

-jcr

use words with denoted meaning, not metaphors

[SlithyMagister]

Master and Slave are metaphors for the controller and the controlled.

So use those, or synonyms of them.

Done

Re: Nice false equivalence

[BronsCon]

There may be a point you're missing, so let me spell it out for you: Black people who are alive today are not the same people who experienced Black slavery in America. When they claim they're the same people, they're guilty the same fallacy you're pointing out in my comment. If I'm wrong, so are they, and it needs to be left in the past where it belongs. Yes, I was inaccurate. On purpose. For a reason.

Keep it in history books, discuss it, make sure people understand why it was wrong so it doens't happen again, then move on. Anything else just perpetuates racism.

Political correctness

[sjbe]

JFC....when will the political correctness stupid shit just die??

Probably never. Whether that is a good thing or not depends on the circumstances. Some of it is legitimate calling to task of bad behavior. Many other bits are needless over reactions to jokes or other innocuous statements. For example it a political comedian like Bill Mahrer shows up on your college campus, lighten the fuck up and recognize a joke for what it is.

For goodness sakes...slavery ended a LONG time ago, get over it...move on.

Tell that to anyone who grew up prior to 1964. Just because slavery was officially ended in the US by the Civil War, doesn't mean everything suddenly became fair and equal or that we aren't feeling the effects of it even today. Furthermore there is still an active slave trade going on today. Just because it isn't legal doesn't mean it doesn't still happen. There are an estimated 20-70 million slaves in the world TODAY. No need to get triggered over just the term but let's not pretend it isn't a real thing.

These terms have nothing to do with slavery in any country.

That's simply not true. The terms did not appear out of thin air. They having nothing to do with specific instances of slavery but they unquestionably reference the practice. Same with references to male and female gender connector or terminals which has a clearly sexual origin for the term. Again, we don't have to get all triggered about it but you can't deny the origin of the term. That said if we have an alternative term available (and we do) do we really need to actively use ones that reference reprehensible or needlessly graphic practices?

"Makers"

[slipped_bit]

I have no problem with master and slave used to define relationships of subsystems, but here are a few terms that should be reverted:

"makers" -- They're hobbyists.
"life hack" -- a useful tip
"shield" -- Why the heck did this term come to replace the phrase "daughter board"?
"ends" -- Connectors. Seriously, I bought some cable from a guy once and he asked if I wanted the "ends." The what? "The ends. The ends for the cable." At the time I had worked with electronics for 25+ years and had never heard that term used to describe a connector.

But at least now when I hear that a "maker" has a "life hack" on how to attach the "ends" to his "shield" I know what the hell he or she is talking about. Now I just need to figure out if that shield is the parent or child.

Considering we still do slavery

[fyngyrz]

Considering we still do slavery, seems premature to me:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

The US has 1.5 million people in prison as of 2018...

...many of whom are there for "crimes" of a personal or consensual nature, and many of whom are used as barely- or un-paid labor, while at the same time being sucked dry financially for simple things like phone calls.

...yeah, I think "master" and "slave" can definitely remain around in their original context for quite some time.

Re: Considering we still do slavery

[fyngyrz]

You should be just as angry and outraged that the word Slave is in the dictionary. It's just as relevant.

You're very confused. I'm not in the least offended or angry by use of master / slave in the engineering context, or by these words remaining in our vocabulary in general. Quite the opposite.

I am offended by our filthy excuse of a legal system, though.

Re: Considering we still do slavery

[pollarda]

Since everyone is offended nowadays, I'm offended by their statement that it is a peculiar institution in the USA. Someone needs to go back and read their history. The Romans practiced slavery. The Greeks practiced slavery. The Africans did too even before they sold their slaves to the Europeans. The European institution of serfdom wasn't too far off. The Hitites practiced slavery, the Babylonians too. The Jews were slaves in Egypt. Pretty much all of history had slaves. To single it out as a singularly American institution is a bit nieve.

Re: Considering we still do slavery

[Opportunist]

You have to be found guilty of an actual crime.

Unfortunately that's not even true. What's required is you being accused of a crime and having a lazy court mandated lawyer who doesn't give a shit how the case ends and whose only motivation is to get out of it as fast as he possibly can, telling you straight up that you'll accept a crappy "deal" you're offered or he'll do his best that you regret it if you actually dare to go to court and waste his time.

You are, by the way, a minimum wage worker with zero money and no legal training. Good luck.

Re: Nice false equivalence

[BronsCon]

No, they live under the shadow of the actions of a small (relative to the size of their population) but disproportionate (relative to the size of the criminal population) number of other Black people. It's unfortunate, as the majority of Black people are just like the majority of people of any other race, they just want to live peaceful, law abiding lives, but that's clearly not enough to offset the disproportionate rate of violent crime from their population.

Ask any cop, they'll tell you the same. Go ahead, cherry pick a Black cop to ask. They'll tell you the same. Based on statistics, which is why racial profiling is done. I don't agree with it; but, then, I'm not the one out there putting my life on the line every day.

As for falling behind in education, you do realize that a high school dropout can raise a kid who goes to college and graduates with a doctorate, right? When that doesn't happen, it's most often more to do with choices that were made (though I'll give a nod to the price of a college education, as well). There's no societal cause or excuse for failing to graduate high school due to one's race.

And housing? People born in the 'hood move out every single day. People of all races, mind you; and of all education levels, as well.

Employment? That one does tie in with education, but factory work has always only required a high school education; if even that. There's less of that work available today, but we're talking about "the generations where they were disadvantaged", when that work was widely available. In fact, not only was it widely available, it was commonly abundant in inner-city areas where most Black people lived at the time. Good paying jobs for hard working Americans, and the smart ones took those jobs. Assuming they stayed in school, that is.

Individual racism notwithstanding, the only people disadvantaged more than a full generation after slavery was abolished were disadvantaged by their own poor choices and/or poor upbringing. I'll grant that individual racism was a lot more prevalent back then, and is still a problem today. If you want to blame that, go right ahead, and I'll agree with you; but to keep blaming slavery? Really? That's a crutch, and it's one that won't carry you very far. As I said, I know, personally, many Black people who've given up that particular crutch and done very well for themselves; I know none who've held onto it and gone far.

Slavery isn't the problem Black people face in America today; their inability to let go of it -- at least, those of them who refuse to -- is the problem. The proof is in asking any successful Black man or woman how slavery affects them today.

That, and individual racism, which is driven at least on one side by that side's inability to let go of the past.

Ask anyone who's ever faced adversity in their life whether that adversity -- that they actually dealt with in their own life -- still affects them. Note their answers, their general state of happiness with their lives, and how successful they appear. You'll quickly put together that the people who've moved on tend to be happier and more successful than those who have not. And if people can move on from adversity they, personally, have faced, they can surely move on from adversity their great-great-great-great-great-grandparents faced over 150 years ago.

Let's focus on the more recent atrocities the Black population has faced, and fix those. M'kay? Because those are actually affecting people who are alive today and could benefit from the positive attention.