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

[SqueakyMouse]

Well thatth thertainly offenthive!

Re:Re

[lgw]

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.

Re:Re

[msauve]

I think they should use bourgeois and prole instead.

Re:Re

[magarity]

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".

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

[BronsCon]

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

Re:Re

[qzzpjs]

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. :^)

Re:Re

[Hylandr]

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/

Re:Re

[LynnwoodRooster]

Here you go.

Re: Re

[PetiePooo]

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!

Re:Re

[BronsCon]

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.

Re: Re

[arglebargle_xiv]

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.

Re:Re

[nukenerd]

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).

Re: Re

[arglebargle_xiv]

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".

facepalm

[ganjadude]

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

Re:facepalm

[skoskav]

master -> snake charmer
slave -> python

I nominate:

[leftCoaster]

"Gru" and "Minion"

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?

I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

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

"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"?

[thrich81]

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).

Re:more pc stupidity

[wizkid]

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.....

Slavery is American!

[Glarimore]

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?

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.

The Orwellians are mining for offense.

[ErikTheRed]

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.

Re:more pc stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

excuse me, I have children to kill.

Re:So what's the alternative?

[Kjella]

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.

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?

Re:more pc stupidity

[Scarred Intellect]

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!).

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

[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.