Twitter removing "master", "slave", and "blacklist" to be more inclusi

ILoveYourVibes

2u2me wrote: »

I walk past a sunbed shop most days and there was never a shortage of customers.(Prior to the lockdown).

It's about attaining a standard of beauty that one doesn't have, and giving Nivea your money to achieve that. If you are black you need to get more white, if you are white you need to get more black.

YAY MORE SKINCANCER!


So you think because there is a sunbed near you that racism doesn't exist got it....glad we cleared this up.

I feel enlightened.

ILoveYourVibes

Deleted User wrote: »

And you tell me that I should do some research and find the root cause.

Dark skin is associated with working the fields. When my Asian students mock the kid with dark skin, it's about that. Light skin is seen as being a higher class in society.

If you think it has anything to do with race, you have simply no idea what on Earth you're talking about. Talk about being so up your own arse that you think Asian people using whitening cream do it to look like you.

Also ...all magazines go for lighter skin ..'whiter' skin.

ILoveYourVibes

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Also ...all magazines go for lighter skin ..'whiter' skin.

It has nothing to do with race. Why are you trying to make it out to be so?

ILoveYourVibes

Deleted User wrote: »

It's the same with the topic of this thread. It's applying age old terms to a modern social schism.

The title of this thread refers to something that isn't even going to happen.

2u2me

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

YAY MORE SKINCANCER!


So you think because there is a sunbed near you that racism doesn't exist got it....glad we cleared this up.

I feel enlightened.

Not just one sunbed, the place has about 10 and the queue out the door most days is pretty large.

To contrast this in China and especially Japan for centuries affluent people stayed indoors and under shade to keep their skin fairer.

To have tanned skin was associated with working the fields, being of a lower class.

It's not always 'because racism'.

ILoveYourVibes

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

The title of this thread refers to something that isn't even going to happen.

I don't understand why you think it's not going to happen. I doubt BBC and CNN are just making this up out of thin air.

Tell me how

Deleted User wrote: »

And you tell me that I should do some research and find the root cause.

Dark skin is associated with working the fields. When my Asian students mock the kid with dark skin, it's about that. Light skin is seen as being a higher class in society.

If you think it has anything to do with race, you have simply no idea what on Earth you're talking about. Talk about being so up your own arse that you think Asian people using whitening cream do it to look like you.

So you are saying you have first hand experience of where people are mocked because of their skin colour but you needed to have a step by step explanation as to why the word white is an issue on skin care products?

I'm out.

Tell me how

Tell me how wrote: »

So you are saying you have first hand experience of where people are mocked because of their skin colour but you needed to have a step by step explanation as to why the word white is an issue on skin care products?

I'm out.

Skin tone, not skin colour. Just admit you thought it was about looking more Caucasian and now you're out because you realise it's not.

2u2me

Deleted User wrote: »

Skin tone, not skin colour. Just admit you thought it was about looking more Caucasian and now you're out because you realise it's not.

Just like spray-tan and sunbeds aren't the same as blackface :pac:

2u2me

2u2me wrote: »

Just like spray-tan and sunbeds aren't the same as blackface :pac:

And you don't even have to look to other races to understand. White aristocracy maintained light skin because dark skin was associated with work.

It is so uniquely white to look at these things and think it's about race. Tell me how thinks an Asian person's standard of beauty is based on feeling inferior to Caucasians. It's absurd. As if Asian people give a toss about white people.

The word "master" is now being associated with white slave owner. Github is changing it as well so it will be called "Main". What's next, the word "owner"? It's unbelievably stupid so there's actually a chance.

Mastercard must be bricking it.

Tell me how

Deleted User wrote: »

Skin tone, not skin colour. Just admit you thought it was about looking more Caucasian and now you're out because you realise it's not.

No. Im done with discussing this with you because you gave a case which you were aware of where person A is made to feel inferior because of their skin colour and yet you still couldn't understand why there is now action on ways in which other people may be experiencing the same thing.

It takes some skill to have that insight and still appear ignorant as to what is going on.

RedXIV

Have to say, after stumbling across this, this seems like something that will cause more trouble than prevent.

Scenario 1: You go for an interview in Twitter now for an engineering role and asked to talk about an architecture you worked on, are you deemed a racist because you used the terms master & slave when describing, accurately, a system you previously worked on? Even in the most innocuous of situations where you have an interviewer say casually "actually we don't use those terms here, we use primary/replica" etc, it's still going to give off a vibe of "be careful what you say here". It'll make people question whether or not they want to work somewhere where the words you choose to explain a concept, even if they are well established in the industry, could lead to a sanction. I sure as hell would be worried that if they are willing to spend millions (and it would certainly cost millions) to rewrite code, they could easily lead to people getting let go for using the terms also.

Scenario 2: You inherit a legacy system or acquire it in a merger etc. It has these terms. You now have extra work in maintaining it, updating it, and if you run into problems with an older system and you want help, chances are you are going to need to google using these terms anyway? Is that allowed? The codebase itself may be ancient (look at banks) and they have zero intention of updating over a name change, so if you want to debug an issue you need to use original terminology. Will that be deemed racist?

Scenario 3: You ask for a black coffee. Is that now racist?

Language does certainly evolve but context is one of the key components of communication, and this seems like an attempt to focus on words without giving attention to the context they are used in. I don't agree with racism, but I also believe that every IT person out there has not thought to themselves upon hearing "master/slave" that "oh yeah, I'm white therefore I am a master". We generally have enough trouble trying to figure out architectures without trying to derive meanings to cause more hassle for ourselves

ronivek

RedXIV wrote: »

Scenario 1: You go for an interview in Twitter now for an engineering role and asked to talk about an architecture you worked on, are you deemed a racist because you used the terms master & slave when describing, accurately, a system you previously worked on?

No. And literally nobody is claiming anyone in technology is a racist purely because they use that terminology.

RedXIV wrote: »

It'll make people question whether or not they want to work somewhere where the words you choose to explain a concept, even if they are well established in the industry, could lead to a sanction.

It's entirely up to you if you want to work for a company or not based on something as innocuous as using less controversial names for things.

RedXIV wrote: »

I sure as hell would be worried that if they are willing to spend millions (and it would certainly cost millions) to rewrite code, they could easily lead to people getting let go for using the terms also.

Where precisely are you getting this "certainly cost millions" idea? Re-naming things happens constantly in software development houses and it absolutely does not "cost millions".

RedXIV wrote: »

Scenario 2: You inherit a legacy system or acquire it in a merger etc. It has these terms. You now have extra work in maintaining it, updating it, and if you run into problems with an older system and you want help, chances are you are going to need to google using these terms anyway? Is that allowed? The codebase itself may be ancient (look at banks) and they have zero intention of updating over a name change, so if you want to debug an issue you need to use original terminology. Will that be deemed racist?

Twitter isn't a bank; it's up to a bank to decide if they want to change their own internal naming schemes.

Also precisely where do you think this extra work would come from? Twitter can only change these terms within its own codebase and documentation; and if there were compelling reasons not to proceed with a rename I'm sure they wouldn't do so.

RedXIV wrote: »

Scenario 3: You ask for a black coffee. Is that now racist?

Slight different between a metaphor used to describe a technical concept and a factually correct adjective to describe a simple drink.

RedXIV wrote: »

Language does certainly evolve but context is one of the key components of communication, and this seems like an attempt to focus on words without giving attention to the context they are used in. I don't agree with racism, but I also believe that every IT person out there has not thought to themselves upon hearing "master/slave" that "oh yeah, I'm white therefore I am a master". We generally have enough trouble trying to figure out architectures without trying to derive meanings to cause more hassle for ourselves

Firstly I would argue that in many cases using the master/slave metaphor does not accurately describe the system in question. So using it in the first place can cause issues understanding an architecture precisely *because* it is not accurate.

Secondly I would argue that this is simply an exercise in inclusion and diversity; companies are making these changes to try and appear more inclusive to people of colour. They're doing it both for their current employees (the ones who are actually driving these changes); and to potentially increase their levels of diversity hiring. I don't see how any of this is a bad thing.

fly_agaric

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

I can't believe a grown adult would assume that light is associated with good all around the world.

Just to let you know ..that is not true.

Black and white dualism is VERY christian thing WESTERN THING.

And NO not all cultures think this way.

Egypt for example called itself the black land ...or the dark land ...they associated red with bad and black with good.

It would be like saying everyone sees the moon as bad and the sun as good.


And maybe even such a statement as 'darkness is associated with evil is universal' shows a rudimentary understanding of those very cultures at best.

Its blindness ...ignorance ...that is what is associated with evil....

Your example is not great imo. Ancient Egyptians worshipped the sun.
The ball of fire in the sky that banishes the "black" darkness of night, brings warmth and light, makes crops grow etc. seems to have had quite a large impact on the thinking of our ancestors.
Neolithic people in Ireland and elsewhere across Europe likely worshipped the sun in some way too judging by the megaliths they left behind.

There are some human universals I think which will end up reflected in languages, not everything is socially constructed. Have you got any other examples of cultures where "black/dark" is good and "white/light" is bad? Seeing as you seem to know about this stuff, and are aghast at people's ignorance.

One eyed Jack

fly_agaric wrote: »

Have you got any other examples of cultures where "black/dark" is good and "white/light" is bad?

Dark chocolate is delicious, white chocolate is shìte :pac:

degsie

I see that computer science literature may be revisited to remove 'master/slave' references.

RedXIV

ronivek wrote: »

It's entirely up to you if you want to work for a company or not based on something as innocuous as using less controversial names for things.

I think my concern would be working for a company that is bowing to trends that have minimal purpose. Don't get me wrong, some great work has been done to try and eliminate racism in the world, but deciding these common words in the english language is a slippery slope. As mentioned elsewhere, the industry is full of terms that could be derived as offensive. Do we stop using MongoDB because people thing it could derive back from a name that used to mean impaired?

ronivek wrote: »

Where precisely are you getting this "certainly cost millions" idea? Re-naming things happens constantly in software development houses and it absolutely does not "cost millions".

A single name change itself is not costly. However, you're talking about addressing terms baked into tools such as git which control a lot of code bases, to third party libraries. Are you going to use a third party library that asks you to use one of these terms? If not, you need to find a replacement. You will need to change any references in any number of places, many of which only interact with each other at an integration level, causing a massive amount of regression testing. e.g. I manage approx 70 code repos in my role. to change each of them, just to not use a "master" branch in git is going to take a while. Then I need to change where that branch may have been called (again the default for a lot of tools). And then I need to ensure that there have been no broken lines of communication across everything I manage, meaning every single code base I manage has to be updated. They need to be scheduled for release, that takes time. Not just my time, QA time, management time, CAB time, and once everything is done, just my repos alone could easily hit €1000000 in man hours across all team members.

And I'm not even in that big a dev house.

ronivek wrote: »

Twitter isn't a bank; it's up to a bank to decide if they want to change their own internal naming schemes.

Yep, I agree, they are not a bank. But you can bet your life not a single bank will do this. It'd be ridiculously expensive.

ronivek wrote: »

Also precisely where do you think this extra work would come from? Twitter can only change these terms within its own codebase and documentation; and if there were compelling reasons not to proceed with a rename I'm sure they wouldn't do so.

Ah but that's the thing! If we're eliminating the use from our codebase, does that include third party libraries? If not, why not? Is that not "worth the effort"? I could draw some parallels there between racism being "out of sight, therefore out of mind" but still present.
"We'll do the easy bit of scrubbing out these terms, but it's too expensive to do it totally" sort of situation.
Also the code base itself is only one layer of the offering. What about at a hardware layer? server management/networking layer? Unix has these terms at a low level and the majority of big name companies host on a flavour of it. Again, this is a pandering exercise if you're only going to do a Ctrl+F, Ctrl+R on your own code base but ignore what you're leveraging.

ronivek wrote: »

Slight different between a metaphor used to describe a technical concept and a factually correct adjective to describe a simple drink.

It's factually correct to use master/slave in many cases. A service that directs another service to do it's bidding fits the definition. While the argument here seems to be to use other terms that fit the same definition for master/slave, I can't understand why the same doesn't apply to coffee then?

ronivek wrote: »

Firstly I would argue that in many cases using the master/slave metaphor does not accurately describe the system in question. So using it in the first place can cause issues understanding an architecture precisely *because* it is not accurate.

Oh preaching to the choir that these terms CAN be used incorrectly, half my wrinkles come from people using the wrong terms BUT they are established terms in the industry and they do convey a basic enough concept that is important to understand.

ronivek wrote: »

Secondly I would argue that this is simply an exercise in inclusion and diversity; companies are making these changes to try and appear more inclusive to people of colour. They're doing it both for their current employees (the ones who are actually driving these changes); and to potentially increase their levels of diversity hiring. I don't see how any of this is a bad thing.

I guess I think there are better things to be doing to be more inclusive than muddying the waters of an industry that already has so much jargon in it that there are certifications in understanding the jargon alone

For example, black-box and white-box testing are industry terms, they refer to the fact that black-box testing means you don't see the internals, you only get to submit input and examine output. white-box means you can see how everything internally operates and test accordingly. I heard these in college, I got certified knowing these terms, I've been interviewed about them, interviewed others about them, and read books, papers, articles about them. If I was asked about clear box testing, I'd be confused. if I was told it was "how we refer to white box testing", I'd be thinking "this place is just going to be a headache translating industry terms"

fly_agaric

One eyed Jack wrote: »

Dark chocolate is delicious, white chocolate is shìte :pac:

I'm kind of partial to white chocolate...:o
I was going to remark on the self tanning "culture", but think that was already covered...
edit: and really didn't wish to drag it all back to skin colour!

fly_agaric

Do we stop using MongoDB because people thing it could derive back from a name that used to mean impaired?

Oh Jaysus...
Or "Dumb" terminals (though suppose that is a bit dated/not used?).

Deep_learning

Deleted User wrote: »

Twitter engineers replacing racially loaded tech terms like 'master,' 'slave'

No.. Not from their site's content or tweets.. From its codebase.

Since when does a programming language need to be more inclusive? Last year apparently. Some worthless cúnt who works there took issue with it and decided to save the world from racism and slavery.

But more importantly, how on Earth are "master" or "slave" racially loaded terms when there are more slaves now than ever before, and they're not all black, and the majority of slaves are owned by people of their own race? Why is America trying to force this idea on us that only black people have ever been slaves and only white people have ever been slave owners?

If they cared about black slavery, they should campaign for black people to stop selling black people to black people in Africa. But I guess it's easier to spend a few mill changing a programming language.

Right. It doesn't affect you but you completely lose the rag?

Potential-Monke

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

All because darker skin has been made less desirable.

If this is the case, then why are most* Irish women constantly getting tanned or applying fake tan for a night out? Most of the women I've known over my life wouldn't dream of going out without fake tan.

*Most I've dealt/interacted with, read: not all

RedXIV wrote: »

You ask for a black coffee. Is that now racist?

Yes (if you subscribe to that line of thinking).

ronivek wrote: »

Slight different between a metaphor used to describe a technical concept and a factually correct adjective to describe a simple drink.

Actually, you're wrong and a racist because of it:

Coffee is a brownish color that is a representation of the color of a roasted coffee bean. Different types of coffee beans have different colors when roasted—the color coffee represents an average.

Point is, and has been mentioned, words evolve. But it gets to a stage where a word cannot evolve any more.

Master: The term “master” (spelled mægster, magester, or magister in Old English) was borrowed from Latin, where a magister was a chief, head, director, or superintendent.

Slave: The term slave has its origins in the word slav. The slavs, who inhabited a large part of Eastern Europe, were taken as "slaves" by the Muslims of Spain during the ninth century AD. (Slavery existed well before this, as far back as 3500 BC, but wasn't called slavery until the above, it's awfully convoluted)

Master evolved into owning people, usually slaves, which are no longer Slavic people but people "owned" in general. The terms master/slave in IT covers a lot, and can't simply be replaced with 2 different words. Depending on the context, as outlined by those working in IT in the last 17 pages, the replacement words would be different depending on what you were talking about. So 2 words would have to be replaced with many.

And I too believe it's just pandering to the masses and making the company look good in the current climate. The real problem with this is, where does it stop? As someone else pointed out, do we have to come up with a new word for black? Will banks have to change from 'in the red/black' to something else? Will it end with just terms with black and master and slave in them?

That's why I don't like it. It feels like the beginning of something that will go out of control. We use hysterical a lot, but that has origins in women hating (it comes from the greek word for womb, and the belief that only women could get hysterical). But that word evolved into what it is today, until someone decides it's going to be the new hateful buzz word that needs to be removed. As an ex-Garda, we called the vans paddy wagons, even though that comes 100% from racism against the Irish.

I just don't like where this could go. And this is from someone who has spent his life defending himself from bullies, both in school and adult life, because of a feature I was born with.

joseywhales

All that matters in code is function and form, nobody cares about the language anyway, it's not for public consumption, though it's good if it's accurate for somebody new to interpret quickly, master-slave is very accurate.

There's been a whole argument about dark/light for some reason. Surely the fact that we are diurnal animals would indicate that we prefer light?

Tony EH

Deleted User wrote: »

Normal people can understand the obvious reasons for light / white being good and dark / black being evil.

Tell me how wrote: »

What are the obvious reasons?

It's a primal fear.

Fear of the dark goes back to when we were cave dwellers. I wouldn't call it "evil" myself, but certainly humans have always feared, or at least have been more wary of, darkness/blackness.

This is why there are phrases that have the word "black" or "dark" in them to mean negative things, such as a "blacklist", "pitch black" or "black dog".

This isn't really that difficult to understand.

Tony EH

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Firstly why do you think white is associated with light? Light has no colour?

No, but colours are brightened with white and darkened with black.

White is associated with brightness and clearness.

It's been a common correlation in the English language (and others) for generations.

Tony EH

RedXIV wrote: »

Language does certainly evolve

Language should be allowed to evolve organically, over time, as it has since we first started using grunts to form words.

Innocuous terms should never be forced to change just to accommodate morons.

Tony EH

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Egypt for example called itself the black land ...or the dark land ...they associated red with bad and black with good.

Egyptians worshipped the sun god Ra, because he brought LIGHT into the world and was the CREATOR.

Tony EH

One eyed Jack wrote: »

Dark chocolate is delicious, white chocolate is shìte :pac:

But milk chocolate is the best.

Tell me how

Tony EH wrote: »

It's a primal fear.

Fear of the dark goes back to when we were cave dwellers. I wouldn't call it "evil" myself, but certainly humans have always feared, or at least have been more wary of, darkness/blackness.

This is why there are phrases that have the word "black" or "dark" in them to mean negative things, such as a "blacklist", "pitch black" or "black dog".

This isn't really that difficult to understand.

I'm pretty sure Pitch Black is only ever used in the context of the absence of light.

Your other examples indicate how such terminology may have led to black people being perceived to be of different merit than white people and while you and others might say that you don't see black people in this way, you've just given examples of how it's apparently inherently obvious why white is good and black is bad with no consideration how centuries of that ideal may have influenced the experience and expectation of people of both races.

I've been somewhat indifferent to whether terminology is changed or not, but the way in which you and the OP are displaying how fundamentally white is viewed as good and black is bad has made me, a white person, consider what it must be like to have such a part of your character influence how you are likely going to be seen by many before they ever get to know you.

Tony EH

Tell me how wrote: »

I'm pretty sure Pitch Black is only ever used in the context of the absence of light.

It's still a "negative" thing, when you're a creature that uses light falling on a retina to see.

Tell me how wrote: »

Your other examples indicate how such terminology may have led to black people being perceived to be of different merit than white people and while you and others might say that you don't see black people in this way, you've just given examples of how it's apparently inherently obvious why white is good and black is bad with no consideration how centuries of that ideal may have influenced the experience and expectation of people of both races.

It has nothing to do with this. In fact you have to go out of your way to interpret those phrases like that. It's ridiculous.

Dark or black as a negative thing is associated with human (INCLUDING BLACK PEOPLE) need for light as a comfort mechanism.

If someone can misconstrue that into somehow being about a person's colour, then the "problem" (which doesn't exist in reality) is with THAT person. Not the phrase.

Tell me how wrote: »

I've been somewhat indifferent to whether terminology is changed or not, but the way in which you and the OP are displaying how fundamentally white is viewed as good and black is bad has made me, a white person, consider what it must be like to have such a part of your character influence how you are likely going to be seen by many before they ever get to know you.

Terminology shouldn't be constantly changing on a whim and especially not to placate idiotic notions. Otherwise we end up getting down to utterly meaningless and confusing terminology because someone somewhere MAY have some made up issue floating around in their heads.

In a company I worked for, there were different terms used for technical items. It was a bloody nightmare. There were usual terms, there were "new" terms introduced and there were company terms.

It ended up with nobody having a clue what the hell to use and in one large project, it was a disaster. That disaster prompted the company to form a policy to go back to the older, usual, terminology...

...because it was CLEAR and it WORKED.

I Am Nobody

Will they be removing "whitewash"as well to keep it balanced?