• rtxn@lemmy.worldM
    131·
    2 days ago

    Locking comments. Had a good run, over half a day, but this was always headed for an emotional train wreck.

  • lemmyng@lemmy.caEnglish
    517·
    2 days ago

    Just use main. I’m not bothered by either, but I’m not in the demographic that would be bothered by master, so I use main and STFU. It takes way less effort to switch to main (if you haven’t already) than to come up with all this rhetoric about why master shouldn’t trigger people.

    • PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de
      211·
      2 days ago

      I would argue that it’s best/easiest to leave existing projects on master, and just use main for new ones. Either way I agree, people arw reactionary af about this issue

    • Technus@lemmy.zip
      67·
      2 days ago

      That’s why we switched, on both closed- and open-source projects. There’s just no winning an argument that puts you on the same side as racists.

      At one point I was considering how, if someone asked on one of our public repos, I’d say “no” but at the same time post a receipt for a donation to the NAACP just to prove I wasn’t racist. Thankfully I realized how stupid an idea that was before it came to that.

      Performative wokeness is a cancer, man. Did any of this arguing and vitriol actually help any marginalized group in STEM? I really fucking doubt it.

  • rtxn@lemmy.worldM
    8413·
    2 days ago

    It’s a retroactive bastardization of the word based on one particular culture’s one particular interpretation of it (master being, apparently, a slaveowner) that ignores both the much earlier meanings of master artisan or master craftsman (as opposed to journeyman and apprentice) and masterpiece (through which an artisan is recognised as a master), and the modern meaning of a master copy (like a master record in disc printing).

    This isn’t like replacing the “master and slave” terminology with regard to connected devices. That one was warranted because it was often inaccurate and confusing. But forcing the adoption of main instead of master feels like someone got offended on someone else’s behalf because a word looked superficially like that other bad word, and apparently we can’t have an understanding that goes deeper than what letters it’s made up of.

    Amerika ist wunderbar. This is an --initial-branch=master household.

    • PixxlMan@lemmy.world
      8·
      2 days ago

      At some point needlessly banning words just empowers bigots by letting them claim larger and larger parts of the vocabulary. Shouldn’t we try to reclaim words instead, and deprive the words of their power? Just “banning” words, especially in cases such as this one when the connection to master/slave is pretty weak, actually increases the negative power of the words and I’d argue empowers people with malicious intent

    • PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de
      174·
      2 days ago

      regardless of that, it’s never inconvenienced me and it’s still a net gain in readability, since main actually means what it means. have my shell scripts set up to use either one for any repo I’m in automatically.

      • rtxn@lemmy.worldM
        215·
        2 days ago

        Honestly it’s not even about convenience. As far as breaking conventions go, this one has none-to-minimal impact – existing master branches won’t suddenly become invalid. But it’s yet another instance of a subset of a subset of a subset of users getting to enforce their sensibilities for superficial reasons, and ultimately with zero effect regarding the cause they claim to represent; cultural and linguistic differences be damned.

        I’d love to be more specific, but I don’t want the comments to turn into a warzone.

        And don’t pretend like master doesn’t mean what it means.

        • zeezee@slrpnk.net
          177·
          2 days ago

          And don’t pretend like master doesn’t mean what it means.

          Claiming that master on github stems from master recordings is not only disingenuous but also incorrect.

          As a FOSS alternative to BitKeeper, Git naturally reimplemented it’s naming conventions as well - and because of the power of version control - we can actually check what the original meaning was derived from:

          We are then going to modify the file on both the master and slave repository and then merge the work.

          And yes I agree that GitHub just changing the name of the default branch while keeping their ICE contracts is performative as fuck - which imo means we should both boycott GitHub and use naming conventions that don’t have a history related to one of the worst atrocities the global north has brought upon the world…

          • rtxn@lemmy.worldM
            81·
            2 days ago

            I concede the point about the word’s origin… not that I’ve seen anyone ever refer to a branch as a “slave”, nor do I think that it’s appropriate given that the branches are not subservient to the trunk/master/main/etc until one is merged into or rebased onto the other…

            I also wrote a whole-ass speech about the modern world’s relation to the Atlantic slave trade and the guilt certain people are trying to inflict on everyone, but I know what the replies will be (we’re just redditors by another name after all) and it’s ultimately not a soapbox worth dying on. Anyway, my thesis is study history, learn its injustices, and learn how to do better effectively.

  • Integrate777@discuss.online
    261·
    2 days ago

    I always rename my branch to main. Because it’s shorter? That’s the extent of my reasoning. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

  • ozymandias117@lemmy.worldEnglish
    761·
    2 days ago

    I get wanting to move away from “master,” but why in the world didn’t we use “trunk”

    It was already a standard name, and it fits “branches,” etc.

    • dan@upvote.au
      31·
      2 days ago

      “trunk” is what it was called in SVN, too. Well, kind of. SVN didn’t have a real concept of branching like Git does, but the main development would almost always happen in a root directory called “trunk”.

      I’m not sure why Bitkeeper used “master”, but that’s why Git called it that (Git was originally built as a replacement for Bitkeeper).

  • 0x01@lemmy.ml
    283·
    2 days ago

    The default branch for some projects is “production” since CD deploys on pushing to that branch

    For new projects, main. My thought is that even if master is not offensive, since the industry has generally made the change, the only reason to stick with master is stubbornness or hating political correctness, neither of which aligns with my self-view so I’ll use main and move on.

    In general if people are genuinely hurt by the use of some words, I’m not sadistic so I’ll avoid using them. From my perspective morality is the pursuit of the reduction of suffering, even if that suffering is internal.

    • monkeyslikebananas2@lemmy.world
      6·
      2 days ago

      Don’t forget laziness. I have some projects that have been around forever and I am not changing it across my infra because I am lazy. I will do it next year…

    • Miaou@jlai.lu
      32·
      2 days ago

      Do you have any evidence that “the industry” has made the change? My personal experience says the opposite. Unless you mean “new repositories use the new default name” which says more about people simply not caring rather than anything else.

    • cley_faye@lemmy.world
      1·
      2 days ago

      In general if people are genuinely hurt by the use of some words, I’m not sadistic so I’ll avoid using them

      That’s a sane position. Only issue is that this have nothing to do with the question, and the people that were the most vocal about this issue had no business talking about it in the first place.

      Ultimately, git is flexible; beyond some potential local and shared automation, anyone can call their local branches however they want, regardless of other and servers. Personally, changing years of habits and tooling (that probably should not have hardcoded some names in the first place) is not worth following a change proposed by misled people.

  • SavvyWolf@pawb.socialEnglish
    454·
    2 days ago

    Main.

    Don’t get me wrong, the whole debate is Microsoft just being performative (why not use your vast wealth to actually help people?). But honestly, putting the debate aside, “main” is just a clearer and more intuitive name.

    • CubitOom@infosec.pubEnglish
      432·
      2 days ago

      My scrum master said that we need new tickets to update the git branches and pipelines to use main instead of master since master was a bad word.

      I asked him what his job title was again and there was a pause.

      Then he said we can’t say that we are going to groom the code base anymore.

    • Photuris@lemmy.ml
      6·
      2 days ago

      I agree that it’s pathetic. I’ve never been a fan of virtue signaling.

      In the other hand, “main” is easier to type than “master” (or “trunk,” for that matter). So I’ve made peace with it.

      • Derpgon@programming.dev
        235·
        2 days ago

        Why not change “walkie talkie” to “radio phone”? It is so much cleaner.

        Because change for the sake of change always brings more work than what it saves.

        Why change something that works and everyone recognizes it? Of course, if this debate was there when the standard was created…

      • Lembot_0004@discuss.online
        115·
        2 days ago

        Because it is a historically settled down terminology that everyone understands and there is no adequate reason to change it.

        • PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de
          73·
          2 days ago

          everyone understands

          no, new people learn git every day.

          ‘main’ is much clearer. It’s maybe not the same readability gain as ‘blocklist/allowlist’ over ‘blacklist/whitelist’, but it’s still there.

  • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
    578·
    3 days ago

    I can work with either, but I cannot and will not forgive any deliberate changes from main to master.

  • lobut@lemmy.ca
    202·
    2 days ago

    If it uses master and it’s too much trouble to get people to switch. It stays master until we can coordinate.

    If I’m starting a new project I use main.

    Why?

    It doesn’t take much to do and it avoids any misunderstandings or arguments and we’ve got work to do. I don’t particular care if you guys are “stuck” on master. If that’s what it is and everyone wants to keep it that way, I don’t have enough will to change it. If it’s under my control, I will change it.

  • Brosplosion@lemmy.zip
    17·
    2 days ago

    I don’t care which one you use, just don’t change it once it’s established. So many legacy Yocto projects got broken cause open source libraries changed their branch names.

    • yarr@feddit.nlEnglish
      10·
      2 days ago

      I don’t care which one you use, just don’t change it once it’s established. So many legacy Yocto projects got broken cause open source libraries changed their branch names.

      This was one of the arguments when the renaming was first proposed. “Just rename it, it won’t break anything! It’s only racists that want to keep the name!”

      Sure, except for all the CI/CD scripts, release scripts, etc that all have “master” there and are now broken.

      I know of a company that their entire CI pipeline was broken overnight because some “helpful” person renamed the branch to master but didn’t bother checking out their pipelines…

      • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
        31·
        2 days ago

        I know of a company that their entire CI pipeline was broken overnight because some “helpful” person renamed the branch to master but didn’t bother checking out their pipelines

        Sounds like the sort of simpleton that would find “master” offensive.