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master vs main (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev
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[–] 16 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I believe it was more because in database terminology there were masters and slaves for replication. Version control came under fire soon after.

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago

    Apparently master / slave goes back more than 100 years. An example is "slave jib", which was a sail on a sailboat that was permanently set to catch the wind, and was almost always working. Or slave clocks and master clocks, where one primary clock is used to set other dependent clocks.

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  • [–] -4 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    That’s funny, I’m guessing they thought they were being original and edgy when they merely looped back to the older use. In any case, I’m glad programming lingo doesn’t sound like a klan rally

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  • [–] 18 points 11 months ago* (2 children)

    It doesn't have to be edgy, it just explains what happens. In db replication, a master holds the truth and slaves repeat it/follow orders. The US has a unique and relatively recent relationship with chattel slavery so people are more sensitive to it now. Doesn't make it right or wrong, the words mean certain things that describe what the system does.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Your description actually illustrates how terribly inaccurate the metaphor was. If enslaved people imitated the people who enslaved them, they'd be sitting in a rocking chair on a porch sipping lemonade.

    The US has a unique and relatively recent relationship with chattel slavery so people are more sensitive to it now.

    The earliest record of the master/slave terminology being used in engineering is 1904 by which point slavery was already outlawed in almost every country, including the US. You're right to say that chattel slavery in the US was a uniquely grotesque form of slavery, but there is no system of slavery in history where slaves are primarily imitating their masters. No matter what anyone's sensitivity to the topic is, it's a bad fit for what's being described.

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Slavery was not outlawed in the US. It is the only western country where it remains legal.

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  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago

    I assume you're referring to the technicality that the thirteenth amendment allows unpaid labor to be legally compelled out of prisoners, and that's a valid thing to be outraged about, but your statement is wildly misleading to anyone who isn't already aware of that technicality.

    The existence of the loophole is terrible and should be amended, but it's nowhere near the humanitarian crisis that widespread chattel slavery was. Ironically that will probably make it that much harder to be fixed since it's more difficult to draw pubic outage towards it.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    It sounds precisely as edgy as I thought. Supervisor/grunt. Yodel/echo. I offered one with whimsy and another without as much edge.

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago (1 child)
    • Leader/Follower
    • Origin(al)/Replica
    • Primary/Secondary

    There's a lot of really well-fitting words to accurately describe the relations. Master/Slave is honestly not one of them.

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