We live in troubled times. It is evident by riots and a general dystopian Zeitgeist that seems to be the current force underpinning everyone's current actions both online and offline. One of these actions is to rename terminology because of a supposed or real association with black periods of our Western history. For instance the word “master” is one of these words that is currently used in a variety of situations:

• master / slave replication or master / master replication
• master branch on Git
• master audio channel
• master copy
• master's degree

There might be several other words like “whitelisting/blacklisting”, “slave” and “blue/green deployment”.

I think all civilised folk are in agreement that we do not support racism or tolerate bigotry and in general we are all for equality. Having said that I think changing definitions of words or inventing new words is not constructive.

I delved a bit into the etymology of the word “master” and it seems that is pertains to another item on the list “master's degree”. It comes from the verb to master and that in turn refers to someone being able to be an expert in the subject at hand or skill. For example master blacksmith, master swordsman or master logician. Also it is used as an honorific title as in young Master. So the word slave existed around the same time. The context of master in the sense of being a slave owner is only used in the 1700s it seems. Before that it was used to mean someone who has someone else in his service but the person being referred to in this sense was called a servant or apprentice.

Jargon

Some words are just technical terms and what does it matter what they are named, we change them all the time so can we not just change them now? There exists some criticism to people who are opposed, but to be fair these words have been around since day 1 and they mean specific things outside of the context of what they were once used for. The fact we have “whitelisting/blacklisting” does not mean when we use either we get a sense of being suppressed or using our privilege to put items in one or the other. It is just a way of filtering and you change your perception on what you want to filter. Either you check the list and you are allowed because you exist in the list, or you are denied because you exist in the list.

Master / slave denotes a relation between entities that just describes it accurately, we are not glorifying the existence of it and neither when we use this do we actually feel like we are somehow feeling attached to the slave owners of yore.

I am opposed to the “blue / green deployments” terminology as the existence of Smurfs and the Gringe makes this oppressive.

Alternatives

The alternatives exist, they will be using “main” instead of “master” or maybe “primary”, and “secondary” instead of “slave”. The difference is that primary and secondary do not describe an accurate relation. Main and secondary also describe a relation more like redundancy not necessarily synchronisation. It also implies there is a tertiary and so on. They also describe levels of quality rather than relational properties. If something is a tertiary connection that means it is less than a primary connection. Should we use the word “default” instead of “master” maybe?

Default of what? The default state? The default deployment? The default version? The default is used when there are choices that impact something and you have to choose. When talking about what version of the code, what does default then mean? The most stable, the bleeding edge one or maybe something else?

Overdoing it

I think we are overdoing it as most people are against racism and pro BlackLiveMatters movement and all that. However we do not really have concrete problems, other than racial inequality in judicial system of the United States and police brutality. What I mean to say is that people find it difficult to participate or help out in a meaningful way to do reform, so the obvious thing to do is to change wording in order to feel a sense of accomplishment.

It seems like this at least. Personally I want to wage war against cappuccino, it is a clear sign of white supremacist intent. There is black coffee that is being topped with white foam. That is a clear reference to days of slave owners and we the fact we still want to or are oppressing people of color. I also do not want to use words like replica because they might be offensive to androids or people identifying themselves as cyborgs or cybernetic enhanced individuals.

Actually I should stay away from all computers these days, as they are all binary by default. In these days of gender fluidity and non binary organic beings it is offensive for sure. Quantum computing will be giving us a way out luckily.

Problems

The problem is that all words can be related to some group or subgroup of people or likeminded individuals that can choose to take offense. This is why I feel we need certain words to be in use and existence so we can refer to it, or change the meaning of a word. Changing what a word means, happens often enough. Fag for existence meant a cigarette and suddenly it meant some one who is homosexually active or being blamed as doing such.

So let us change the meaning of the words “slave”. It means integral part for a system to be redundant and bears great responsibility for keeping the components all connected and running correctly.

#devlife