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'Master' and 'slave': Tech terms face scrutiny amid anti-racism efforts
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GeorgeOfTheJungle:

--- Quote from: bd139 on June 13, 2020, 06:29:30 pm ---Programming in Rust cures cancer.

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Built on V8, Rust, and Tokio.: https://deno.land/manual  :-+
PlainName:

--- Quote ---(here is a link to one big cause of many problems, nicely formatted for printing, worth downloading)
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Whatever the worth of the rest of your post, it was spoiled by my feeling the fool for following that link. Why couldn't you just say "trade agreement" somewhere so we would know it's a tongue-in-cheek thing? Maybe the rest of the post is the same distraction humour, hmmm?

Edit: Couldn't think of the word earlier. 'Rick-roll' - that's what it came across as.
nctnico:

--- Quote from: JoeN on June 11, 2020, 06:37:43 am ---Every techie knows what this means - you don't even have to read the article (overly long, you know the examples better than the author does), but here it is if you want:  https://www.cnet.com/news/master-and-slave-tech-terms-face-scrutiny-amid-anti-racism-efforts/

I've been against this in the past because I thought it would create confusion.  Now that I think about it, if we can all (100% of the industry - think IEEE directive) agree on the copypasta, this might be a good and feasible thing.

I propose changing MASTER to PRIMARY and SLAVE to SECONDARY.  Since MASTER and SLAVE are words that are not otherwise often used in technology, probably updating documents is as simple as doing a replace on these two words, with a quick check.  Induhvidual engineers will probably not adopt the new words orally until there is a new generation, but who cares.  Update the documentation, wait for the results, less irritated people.

What do you think?

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Semantically incorrect. The word master implies a controlling entity and slave implies an obeying entity. Ofcourse you could go for 'controller' and 'obeyer' but that is still semantically the same as master and slave. And why hide history? Those unfamiliar with history are bound to repeat it.

BTW: Perhaps we should stop buying stuff from countries which have a repressive regime if we want to make the world a better place.
cdev:
That actually is the real, easy to verify, reason why education has been privatized and IT has been globalized- bringing us back towards a kind of indentured servitude "master and servant" workplace-  as they say in that song, "its a lot like life"

--- Quote from: dunkemhigh on June 14, 2020, 12:02:47 am ---Edit: Couldn't think of the word earlier. 'Rick-roll' - that's what it came across as.

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That link was to a taiwanese govt web site.


--- Quote from: nctnico on June 14, 2020, 12:47:18 am ---
Semantically incorrect. The word master implies a controlling entity and slave implies an obeying entity. Ofcourse you could go for 'controller' and 'obeyer' but that is still semantically the same as master and slave. And why hide history? Those unfamiliar with history are bound to repeat it.

BTW: Perhaps we should stop buying stuff from countries which have a repressive regime if we want to make the world a better place.


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We should and can, but when government procurement is involved I think they have actually made it FTA illegal to let most human rights considerations impact purchase decisions in any way. Trade rules are supposed to be human rights agnostic. However, I do think its okay to refuse to buy the products of prison labor. Some countries (obviously not the ones that use it) do have prohibitions like that and I think not buying the products of overt slavery is for the time being okay.

 But it likely is coming back, I am not kidding.
PlainName:

--- Quote ---Ofcourse you could go for 'controller' and 'obeyer'
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The thing about 'master/slave', which most of the alternatives seem to fall down on, is that they roll off the tongue easily. Two syllables is the max we want, purely because any longer than that will want to get shortened in usage. They are also very different in the way they are said and written - you can easily tell they are different just from looking at someone saying them even if you don't (consciously) lipread. So, for instance, a previous suggestion of 'controller/controlled' would be real bad on just these counts, and since they differ only in one letter - and the last one at that - I can't imagine the pair being a suitable alternative. Most alternatives suffer similar problems.
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