from Hacker News

How to Rename Your Master Branch to Main

by justswim on 6/23/20, 11:14 PM with 36 comments

• by andy_ppp on 6/23/20, 11:55 PM

  I don't think there is ANY slave connotation assosciated with git. Sure words do matter and your words are being used to see things that aren't there - the meaning of the word master has been added to by its use in git repositories and it was NEVER used in the way that is suggested here; the email thread claiming that it is used this way is dubious at best. Master, in addition to meaning "controller" means:

  - main; principal. "the apartment's master bathroom has a free-standing oval bathtub"

  Because it's a master bedroom everyone understands and feels FINE that this is okay. EVEN in a master/slave hard drive setup (this adds a new meaning too) it isn't about subjugating disk drives, it's about slavishly copying another master (main, principal) disk. I'm very sorry if you're offended by words being used for very specific technology purposes but it isn't right that everyone has to conform to your way of seeing the world.

  EDIT: damn, glad to see that article has been flagged and at this point I'm so happy that hacker news does not allow politics.

• by deminature on 6/23/20, 11:59 PM

  At risk of treading into dangerous territory, I've never actually seen any minorities uncomfortable about master being named as such, just non-minorities uncomfortable on their behalf.

  Master dates back to 12th century latin and has numerous definitions, most of which have no connection to slavery.

  This seems very much like modern slacktivism - a feel good action which doesn't benefit anybody, least of all the group it was intended to benefit.

• by ehfeng on 6/23/20, 11:56 PM

  The name 'main' feels overloaded, just like naming the default branch 'default' or 'development', with the risk of "Who's on first?" confusion, especially when branching off branches.

  "What branch are you on?" "I branched off the main development branch for this fix." "Like...the `main` main branch or the main branch for the feature?"

  I like redis' rename of their default branch to `unstable`. Just like commits are tagged with the release numbers, the latest code that isn't yet versioned is by default 'unstable'. If the industry as a whole is going to make this change, I would prefer we choose a name that can be unambiguously referenced in conversation.

• by umvi on 6/23/20, 11:44 PM

  "master" has meanings other than "owner".

  I refuse to kowtow to political pressures that don't actually help minorities. What's next, Master Lock and MasterCard changing company names to Main Lock and MainCard?

• by cwhiz on 6/24/20, 12:01 AM

  I refuse to even entertain the idea of this. “Master” has nothing to do with slavery and “slavery” is not unique to any group of people or race. Read a history book.

  Renaming “master” to “main” helps absolutely zero people. It’s just some pathetic, low effort, virtue signaling.

• by lykr0n on 6/23/20, 11:49 PM

  I wonder how long until people start calling developers/projects racist because they don't make this change.

  I'm curious to know who caused this change, but I have a strong idea at what kind of person it is.

• by gjsman-1000 on 6/23/20, 11:41 PM

  I suppose then that we should rename Master's Degrees to Main Degrees. ;)

• by digitalsin on 6/23/20, 11:58 PM

  "The main argument for changing "master" to "main" is to reduce the occurrences of problematic terminology in a team's codebase"

  It's not problematic terminology unless you have problematic thinking, which seems to be more infectious these days than COVID.

• by hn_throwaway_99 on 6/24/20, 12:00 AM

  I don't have a problem making this change if it actually makes people of African descent more comfortable in the workplace and programming communities. I can understand it more easily for terms like "master/slave", and terminology that defaults white to "good" and black to "bad".

  My problem with this, though, is that it feels like the ultimate in "slacktivism" mainly put in place to make white people feel better about themselves. I have rarely (or, actually, never, but to be honest I haven't scoured Twitter looking for posts) seen black people pushing for these kinds of changes (as opposed to many other areas where changes would actually make a difference in the workplace).

• by bE9a3S5So8igd3 on 6/24/20, 12:51 AM

  Thanks I was devastated by the word "master" and now I feel very, very "welcome"

• by diob on 6/24/20, 12:03 AM

  I honestly don't know why people are resisting these sort of changes so much. I think it's due to Parkinson's law of triviality.

  It's so easy for people to have an opinion on this, when I would rather change the offending name and move on to more important things.

  Personally, I like the name trunk, since it makes more sense with the branching metaphor. But ultimately, call it whatever you want, I'll adapt.

• by throwaway__987 on 6/23/20, 11:54 PM

  I work at a $BIGCO and am inclined to do this, not because it will make any difference, but because it is the sort of thing they will do eventually, and if I raise it as an issue, it will look good for me.

  The company is extremely good at pointless tediousness anyway (our issue types in jira have been changed three times in the last year, and I could not even tell you what a bug is any more), so more busywork will be par for the course.