It sounds way less offensive to those who decry the original terminology’s problematic roots but still keeps its meaning intact.
There’s no need for master terminology there
Nobody said there is a need, you could call it foo or bar and it would still work. It just that master more accurately describes what it is. Main for example does not describe a derivative relationship, master does.
Also, master in this context is totally unrelated to slavery so I could also just as easily say that there was no need to replace the existing terminology either. It doesn’t solve any real world problems of historic or currently existing slavery, and it doesn’t make anyone’s life better. The only reasons why it was done were appeasement and virtue signalling.
Sure, so if there’s no need for any certain terminology outside of an agreed upon definition what does it matter if it’s called master or main or unicorn farts? Why care about Master at all?
Why care about Master at all?
I’ve already explained all my reasons, but I’ll reiterate. To summarize I basically have five main issues with it
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The change was done in response to attempts at language policing and bullying by a vocal and militant minority. Giving into it is a form of appeasement towards an unreasonable demand.
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The change retroactively modifies a terminology that was already agreed upon. Like, if git sprung into existence today, not many people would have an issue with it if they would call it main or trunk or primary from the get go. But that’s not what happened. Git was released in 2005 and it used master terminology. As a consequence, many existing repositories also use master. Now when someone is working with branches, like doing merges or pull requests, they suddenly have to remember: oh in this repository it is main, but in that repository it is still master. Or they have go out of their way to modify decade old repositories, potentially breaking all kinds of behind the scenes CICD stuff. Or they have to go out of their way to revert the default on all systems that they’re working on back to master. In any case, this change is a source of errors and wasted effort for zero net good.
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It does no good in the real world other than making do-gooders feel good about themselves, and giving a capitalist entity some PR to appear more progressive than they are. We all still have masters, existing slaves are not freed, no historical wrongs of slavery or inequality are righted.
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It’s a misguided change in this case because the word master in this context doesn’t even have a relationship to slavery. Just like a master degree you may hold, or a master key or a master recording of your favorite album have no bearing on slavery. Note that there are no “slave” branches in git.
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Finally, in the case of git, master is simply more accurate than main because it carries a nuance (derivativeness) that main does not.
Take a breath dude. While I also don’t see how there is a connection to anything negative and think that older term was slightly more accurate, does it really matter?
If there’s any chance it helps maintain a hostile workplace/industry, it’s trivial to change. Might as well.
My company didn’t force a change but our git software changed their default:
- some repos use “master”, some use “main” and it really doesn’t matter
- the name of the main branch is based on age: before vs after the git software changed. Clearly the most important factor is people are lazy and the default is good enough
