We all have caturday!

Interesting metaphor. I’ve never really gotten that idea – I’ve never seen the connection demonstrated between the “big stuff” and seemingly innocuous things like ‘main’ vs. ‘master’.

Also, a lot of this feels misplaced. IMO, the root problem is one of attitude where the minorities are viewed as less-human, not deserving of equal treatment or equal rights. Change will happen as those attitudes shift. I haven’t seen a connection demonstrated between those attitudes and…well, pretty much any terminology issue that’s come up in recent memory.

Yeah, I can’t really explain it. Seems kinda silly, doesn’t it?

just another way of staying ignorant and insensitive to those events.

I don’t really see how that follows. Would you mind elaborating?

I’m a dev, and I’m the opposite. At my work, we use main over master. I thought it was a little silly when we first switched, but now I’m used to it. It’s an arbitrary label anyway – could easily use trunk/branch from SVN or release/develop or any number of other labels to keep track of code.

Hell, we got a new dev on the team a month or two ago, and he tends to name things ‘feat/do-the-thing’ instead of ‘feature/make-it-go’.

It’s not as big a deal as people online make it out to be.

Bypass the whole debate, adopt SVN’s ‘trunk/branch’ terms.

Great response, thanks for writing this. I live in the US, and your Coon -> Cheer cheese reminds me of Land O’Lakes butter – there was a brouhaha over a decision to remove a Native American woman from the packaging. Same result, it’s still in the butter section of the market.

My point is that small token changes cost virtually nothing

Well-put. I’ve been in the position of complaining about this type of change before, and this is a perfect counterpoint to that mindset. I’ve often said “What do we want? Police to face accountability when they commit crimes! What do we actually get? We’re going to use the term ‘main’ instead of ‘master’ for programming things!”

What we so often forget in that moment of “What, I have to re-learn some terminology? Ugh, friction!” is exactly your point about small courtesies. Something doesn’t have to be a Big Damn Deal to be worthwhile.

A long time ago, in a job not so far away, I worked on a computer project where we were using Apache Jackrabbit.

I quickly learned that I needed to search for Apache Jackrabbit and not just Jackrabbit – vibrators weren’t relevant to the project.

What do we want?

For police who commit crimes to have accountability!

What do we get?

We’re going to yell at people who use the ‘outdated’ ‘master/slave’ terminology!

Did you reply to the wrong comment?

So you’re saying copyright infringement is on par with speeding or parking past the meter’s end? Eh, fair enough.

If you do something illegal, you should be arrested.

Copyright infringement lawsuits are a far cry from bomb threats or the like.

I could never bear to watch any of his speeches. Too cringe painful.

Huh, I haven’t really heard people call her “Nancy”. Last time I recall her coming up amongst Republicans, it was “Pelosi” with a reference to the attack on her husband.

I was having this conversation the other day. Pelosi came up as a counterexample.

Now I’m not sure where the line is between subtle disrespect and simply using the more distinctive part of a candidate’s name.

I use podman at work, mostly just a Docker replacement. My biggest problem with it is typing “pdoman” in commands by mistake.

Good idea for those who are covered by the GDPR. Doesn’t help me, though.

Don’t regret too much. I wouldn’t be surprised if reddit’s “delete” function was really just "move to the “suckers-wanted-to-delete-this” file.

Not everyone is capable of learning or figuring it out.

Think about childhood dream jobs like rock star or astronaut.

Rock star: You need musical talent and stage presence, enough to entertain lots of people with your music. Me, I can sing in the shower and play some simple tunes on an instrument, but I’d starve if I tried to make it as a simple busker.

Astronaut: NASA requires a master’s degree in a STEM field, at least 1000 hours as a jet pilot, and that you pass a physical. Not everyone is capable of earning a master’s degree. Not everyone will be capable of learning to fly planes. And the physical – ever heard of a blind astronaut? Or how about conditions where your bones are brittle? Hop on the rocket - SNAP! Oops, broken legs. Etc.

Perfect for your ice cweam sundaes!