Master can conjure a horrible past. That's a real actual hazard.
Avoiding it should be easy. It should be the easiest of easy things. Make the change and move on. Hack your reality, improve things, don't make more of a glaring ugly mess of things than need be.
It costs so so little to do a small good act. You wouldn't name your primary branch holocaust or tyrant or oppressor or doommaker or worldruiner or hates[ethnicity]. But computing used master/slave extensively for decades (ex: I2C, IDE protocols). Folks arguing that it hurts their feelings to not have those names wouldn't be given any weight. These are alligator tears.
No one has made a case that "main" is a bad name. Because this isn't a real case. It's perfectly clear, no lesser a name in any way.
More broadly, when assessing positive liberty (freedom to do something) versus negative liberty (freedom from being dogged), we shouldn't favor positive liberty to make broadly harmful defaults that can hurt people and/or bring misery over negative liberty not have a world a rare couple antagonists insist on driving down in stature.
This feels to me like people either dragging their feet & bringing resistance, or, on many many cases, people actively obstructing, making an easy simple improvement much much more fraught & hard. And many of those people I feel like do it because they know it is a good change, and they actively seek to keep the world worse. I have little and descendingly less pity for any. If someone wants to build a case for why their feelings here that we shouldn't do this have weight, I'm all ears. And I'll spend some time to read more comments to see what I see. But the person I replied to made zero case for why they felt their emotional injury (as they begged for tolerance of intolerance), yet felt that their case should carry as much or more weight, where-as master/slave usage in computing are words which associates with slavery. Which is the ultimate positive liberty vs negative liberty case, which reflects the matter here: the negative liberty to not be enslaved outweighs any positive liberty to enslave.
You're free to think it's stupid!! That fact though just doesn't matter very much in this case. It doesn't actually really affect you. You can adapt, with barely more than zero cost. It's stupid maybe perhaps possibly!! But of no cost. And that's the weight of your feelings here: it's not actually of any consequence to you, you are claiming stake in a matter without any basis. You're free to feel however you like in this world, but whether those emotions actually match/reflect the circumstances that spring them matters. Generally I think most people kind of agree that it sucks that master/slave (ex: i2c, IDE protocols) nomenclature was chosen & used in computing, and calling the shift away stupid-in my view- should be taken as the smallest imaginable quantum of protest, the smallest tears imaginable. Stop stopping the world, let time progress forward, don't trap us in your negative energy forever.
> No one has made a case that "main" is a bad name. Because this isn't a real case […] they know it is a good change, and they actively seek to keep the world worse
It's a bad name and a bad change. I won't be using it. Not because "master" is good (I also won't be using "master"), but because "main" is bad—even worse than if they'd started referring to it in the documentation as the "default integration branch" and so named it "int".
I'd sooner support changing "master" to "margarita" than changing it to "main".
What is the issue with calling a branch `main`? It's the standard that's been adopted in my company and we haven't run into any issues; I'm wondering if there's anything we've missed.
(I've also seen `dev` used, short for 'development branch,' which seems pretty reasonable).
Really? I pointed out how patronizing your comment was and your response was to write a massive wall of text that is somehow even more patronizing?
Naming a branch in my git repository "master" does not "hurt people". It does not "bring misery" unless you were already miserable and looking for things to justify it. This change is of consequence to me. It does affect me. "Barely more than zero cost" is more than zero cost. I don't care if you think my opinion "doesn't matter" or is "weightless", because yours doesn't matter any more than mine. You are not a higher being of superior importance because you chose to dedicate your life to fighting a never-ending war against the unreleting evil force that is a word on a screen. Your tears are the biggest, and most pathetic of all.
Feels so very "all attack, no meat" to me. I don't see anything here working at deserving respect, nothing genuine, no try to win over to your opinion: it is focused on disregard & disconvincing, casting aside, with no actual thought or explanation or reasoning provided. You say this has consequences? Has meaning to you? Yet you don't elaborate on what consequences are, on why this great nothing-burger is so offensive.
> because your [opinion] doesn't matter any more than mine.
I wrote a wall of text because I actually care a tiny bit and have put work into explaining and backing my opinion & character. Because I think those opposed have a bar to meet, just as I want to clear a bar of respectability & engage duly on a topic that should be easy to improve on. What I see is you being quite aggressive & scathing while providing very scant little to argue your opinions.
You say our opinions are equally valid, but to me, opinions are weighed on argument, on what is said, and that's why I've tried to put my logic and character down here, to be honest & forthwith about what I'm saying: because that's the basis we have to use to assess opinions. This seems pretty agreeable to me, and again you have option to disagree, but I can't imagine doing so.
This is absolutely a question of weights. Making mountains out of mole-hills is to be avoided. The weight of this question is hardly worth considering at all, and it's absurd what tears you spill over doing such a simple improvement for the world. I'll also allow that perhaps the certainty & approach I've entered with has entrenched & only enhanced enmity to my cause. But with context, having seen master/slave used around in computing, and given how easy it is to shift & adapt to better, I continue to find opinions to the contrary to be unduly self-important, for no real reason. Why stand against such clear wins? My character may not be perfect for all, but let that not alone dissuade us.
Avoiding it should be easy. It should be the easiest of easy things. Make the change and move on. Hack your reality, improve things, don't make more of a glaring ugly mess of things than need be.
It costs so so little to do a small good act. You wouldn't name your primary branch holocaust or tyrant or oppressor or doommaker or worldruiner or hates[ethnicity]. But computing used master/slave extensively for decades (ex: I2C, IDE protocols). Folks arguing that it hurts their feelings to not have those names wouldn't be given any weight. These are alligator tears.
No one has made a case that "main" is a bad name. Because this isn't a real case. It's perfectly clear, no lesser a name in any way.
More broadly, when assessing positive liberty (freedom to do something) versus negative liberty (freedom from being dogged), we shouldn't favor positive liberty to make broadly harmful defaults that can hurt people and/or bring misery over negative liberty not have a world a rare couple antagonists insist on driving down in stature.
This feels to me like people either dragging their feet & bringing resistance, or, on many many cases, people actively obstructing, making an easy simple improvement much much more fraught & hard. And many of those people I feel like do it because they know it is a good change, and they actively seek to keep the world worse. I have little and descendingly less pity for any. If someone wants to build a case for why their feelings here that we shouldn't do this have weight, I'm all ears. And I'll spend some time to read more comments to see what I see. But the person I replied to made zero case for why they felt their emotional injury (as they begged for tolerance of intolerance), yet felt that their case should carry as much or more weight, where-as master/slave usage in computing are words which associates with slavery. Which is the ultimate positive liberty vs negative liberty case, which reflects the matter here: the negative liberty to not be enslaved outweighs any positive liberty to enslave.
You're free to think it's stupid!! That fact though just doesn't matter very much in this case. It doesn't actually really affect you. You can adapt, with barely more than zero cost. It's stupid maybe perhaps possibly!! But of no cost. And that's the weight of your feelings here: it's not actually of any consequence to you, you are claiming stake in a matter without any basis. You're free to feel however you like in this world, but whether those emotions actually match/reflect the circumstances that spring them matters. Generally I think most people kind of agree that it sucks that master/slave (ex: i2c, IDE protocols) nomenclature was chosen & used in computing, and calling the shift away stupid-in my view- should be taken as the smallest imaginable quantum of protest, the smallest tears imaginable. Stop stopping the world, let time progress forward, don't trap us in your negative energy forever.