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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.
One such recent example included the manufacturer’s labeling of equipment where the words “Master/Slave” appeared to identify the primary and secondary sources. Based on the cultural diversity and sensitivity of Los Angeles County, this is not an acceptable identification label.
good fucking god. you stupid fucking pc idiots are ruining the world for the majority.
So what's next.... No more /sbin/kill for processes?
Ya know, any app that has "client" in the name probably refers to prostitution... Thats got to go too.
Oh My God! /usr/bin/touch promotes sexual assult. That's got to go too.
totem is going to offend Native Americans....
mount is sexist also....
reject.. That's going to hurt someones feelings, GONE.
Fuck it, lets just burn all the computers and go back to using bows and arrows, and hunting in the woods.....
I take no responsibility for what I say. Even though I'm never wrong
Where you see doom and gloom I see opportunity.
master -> general
slave -> private
master -> professor
slave -> grad student
master -> manager
slave -> Individual Contributor (IC)
master -> landlord
slave -> tenant
master -> bourgeoisie
slave -> proletariat
master -> oenophillic
slave -> hophead
master -> overlord
slave -> feckless heathens
master -> Hard Working American
slave -> Parasite
master -> owner
slave -> laborer
master -> manager
slave -> H1B
I could do this all day. The major takeaway is you can change the words, but the relationship is still there. I say do away with master/slave if only because it is somewhat outdated. In the spirit of hacktivism, let's choose a relationship that's more near and dear to problems we have today!
seriously? this is what the world is becoming????
Meh, it's not new. Editorial guidance for ANSI/ISO stanrds from 20 years ago included avoidance of "slave" (the oddball "master/peer" was recommended), as well as "cancelled, not aborted or killed" and "processed, not executed".
It gets silly, but then some technical terms become more offensive in translation, and that's a reasonable concern for a global audience.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I agree master-slave is problematic, but what are you going to use in place?
I think replacing master is stupid because you have things like "master data", "master recording" etc. where master is simply the authoritative source and that's the role of the master server too. It's slave that's anthropomorphic, derogatory and also kinda a term of art, I mean you could set up master-slave replication but you'd never say you enslaved a server. Master-servant would be a nudge better but still anthropomorphic. If we're changing the term I'd suggest master-puppet, it's pretty much exactly that - something pulling the strings on an inanimate object. It sounds kinda odd particularly since puppet master is already is a term but the newspeak would at least be logical.
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The terms were chosen by people with no particular connection to them, and there has always been a bit of simmering annoyance from people who do have a connection.
Who has a connection to slavery in the U.S. at this point outside of a small number of people who are typically smuggled into the country and forced to engage in prostitution, or perhaps a small number of immigrants who were essentially slaves in their native countries prior to emigrating? There's no one alive today who was a slave in the traditional sense (i.e., where this connection comes from), and I suspect you'd be hard pressed to find many people alive who even had grand parents who were slaves.
Further, almost any person can claim a connection to slavery if they want to look back far enough in their family history. It doesn't matter where you're from, your ancestors were serfs, indentured servants, chattel slaves, or a member of some other caste that lacked full status as a citizen or freeman. How far does a person get to go back in their ancestral history before we get to roll our eyes at them and tell them to stop being such a prat?
It also seems paradoxical that the umbrage taken to terminology such is this is more prevalent now, some three or four decades later (or more since someone may have broached this topic even before the 80's) when that connection to slavery would diminished due to the passage of time. The younger generations that seem so eager to seek victim status for long-past history are the generations farthest removed from it. If they want to make the world a better place, they need to get outside and help actual people who are suffering. Engaging in keyboard warrior internet slacktivism does nothing.
Depends on whether you've experienced it.
Back in the '80s, I was working with a contractor who was writing an external process to do some work for the main process that I was working on. We were developing this and doing some testing and his process crashed. So I gave him a call to let him know what messages I was sending it when it crashed. I called him up and said, "Hey, Phil, I just got a child died event..."
*Click*. He hung up the phone.
I called back. No answer.
My co-worker, sitting next to me, told me that I really fucked up. "How so?" "Phil's kid died about 2 months ago. SIDS."
It didn't really matter that the header identified it as a "Child Died Event." And parent/child processes are a common term, as is having a process "die." And I had no idea that this had happened to his kid.
But I still felt like an absolute jerk for the pain that I brought him. And to this day, I try to avoid that terminology when I can.
Dare I say it, there may be terminology that brings up really bad memories in other people. Not everyone has the same experiences as you and certain things may offend them more than they would offend you because of those experiences.
No, the reason they're trying to do it (they tried in the 90's and failed then, too) is much less meaningful. In fact, it is such a weak reason that allowing it would open a floodgate of "this offends me, change it" that would topple our society in short order. That's why we don't allow that argument to succeed.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
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.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
What you don't get is that burying the terminology contributes to burying the problem. If we didn't have the problem, it would be no big deal to take it or leave it, honestly; I have zero sensitivity to events 150 years ago. But we do still have the problem. So these issues need to be kept on the table. It's good that the PC butterflies are making a stink about this. Let them scream; the noise is useful. But don't capitulate. Slavery isn't dead. It should be, but it isn't.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
But these are the accurate terms here. Just because human slavery is evil shouldn't have any bearing on whether you have a master cylinder versus a slave cylinder. It doesn't promote or denigrate slavery, it is completely neutral.
Is the concern that saying "slave" is a trigger word?
Anyway, I remember old textbooks where you had father and son nodes, and that changed almost universally to be parent/child way back before political correctness arose.