It's pretty "lame" to push established projects to make confusing terminology changes to address whatever words the "peanut gallery" is upset about this week. Try not to be so "uppity", "guy".
"Slave" is technically incorrect. There are better terms to describe the behavior such as "follower" or "replica".
If someone has been around long enough to understand what a "slave" is can't figure out what a "replica" or a "follower" does, maybe they shouldn't be in tech. The transition cost for documentation is essentially zero.
Naming things is hard, and better names are better for everyone. Antirez said he would change the name if he could start over, hence the hill you're dying on is not shared by the author of the library you're posting on.
It's not just a replica, it can work offline for a while and push back. Leader/follower is also flawed in my opinion. It's master and a slave even if it offends your sensibilities. These arguments are a waste of everyone's time.
>This hill you're dying on looks awfully lonely.
Ironic coming from a grey response to a 15 point comment.
I will change my tune if even one victim of slavery comes forward and speaks about the use of the terminology.
> It's not just a replica, it can work offline for a while and push back. Leader/follower is also flawed in my opinion. It's master and a slave even if it offends your sensibilities.
I'm glad that your concerned that "follower" and "replica" aren't perfect terms. We should be concerned with terminology.
I humbly suggest that "slave" DBs are not physically whipped by their "masters", therefore are an even worse metaphor.
> These arguments are a waste of everyone's time.
Then why are you wasting your time? If you don't care, don't argue back. Boom, you've got your time back. We all get a better name, everyone is happy.
I agree that the terminology doesn't matter, but consensus does. Master/slave are the commonly understood terms.
Here's a question: if "slave" is offensive, should "kill" (as in 'kill 69' to kill a process in SQL Server) be considered offensive as well? Simply as a consequence of being something 'bad/immoral'? I'm sorry, and I'd be glad to be corrected, but I genuinely find this argument...disingenuous. And people who see things the same way I do see that kind of argument and think that you've got other motives.
EDIT: I want to say (to prevent this discussion from flying off into Trump-land) that I'm liberal on most issues except gun control. I just have a hard time relating to the 'micro-aggression-y' brand of liberalism I've been seeing of late.
Master/slave was also a commonly accepted role of business for far longer than it has been a computer term. We managed to change that in the west. I believe in us, we can do it.
> I genuinely find this argument...disingenuous
My argument is that the term is not technically correct. How is that disingenuous?
I'm arguing specifically against the term being offensive. EDIT: and oddly, I can't seem to find the word anywhere in your comment that I replied to. Am I losing my mind, or did you take that part out?
I had it in there to emphasize how un-technically incorrect it is. Apparently people saw the word "offensive" and they didn't read the rest, so I took it out to add clarity. I forgot that HN doesn't provide a diff of edits, so went back and added a note in the comment that it was edited.
Edit: Edited this note to mention I updated the previous note with an edit note.
I'm fine with an argument based solely on its technical merits. But then you're going to lose out to things like backwards compatibility and the sheer force of momentum - everyone understands these terms.
There are probably hundreds of ill-fitting terms in the tech world that now mean what we mean them to mean (lol). This one receives blowback not because it's technically unsound (which it might be), but because some paint it 'offensive'. That's why everyone seized on this part of your (now edited) argument.
For most projects it seems like a pretty easy change. You could add new keywords, alias the old methods/commands to them. You don't even have to deprecate them, just make the docs point to the newer terminology.
What is easier having to have this conversation EVERY time the term gets used for the rest of eternity, or making the change once and being done with it?
>What is easier having to have this conversation EVERY time the term gets used for the rest of eternity, or making the change once and being done with it?
That's not very compelling. Just because certain people make a lot of noise doesn't mean we have to do what they want us to do.
>For most projects it seems like a pretty easy change. You could add new keywords, alias the old methods/commands to them. You don't even have to deprecate them, just make the docs point to the newer terminology.
...for every project that uses these terms across the entire industry. You know what's easier? Not making the change. There are two arguments:
1. The technical gain by changing these terms outweighs the drawbacks (legacy code, consensus/convention, etc.). I doubt there's much to gain here.
2. The technical aspect doesn't matter since it's offensive. I've already addressed this.
It depends on how expensive your deprecation process is. I don't think we can generalize for entire ecosystems. Some langs and products it would be fairly trivial to update, and retain back wards compat. Others might be harder and stay constant for longer.
Antirez said if he started a new project it would be named something different. I can only assume some other future databases will will take this approach. Maybe Antirez will write one of them. When that happens now we have a new problem: divergence in the ecosystem.
My preference would be for a big project to adopt a separate term, "secondary", "follower", "replica", whatever. So that when other new DBs look for an "alternative term" there is somewhat of a standard. Really though, that's not even that bad of a problem, because when i say all those terms, "secondary" etc. it's pretty obvious in the context of a DB what i'm talking about.
Do you have to do something __just__ because people are making your life hard? No. Do you have to make a change just because something is technically incorrect? No. Do you have to make a change because something is offensive to a large group of people? Still no. Maybe a better question to ask is, at what point would the tables be turned? What would push you over the edge to say it should be changed?
>It depends on how expensive your deprecation process is. I don't think we can generalize for entire ecosystems. Some langs and products it would be fairly trivial to update, and retain back wards compat. Others might be harder and stay constant for longer.
Agreed - I was talking more 'sum' than 'average' cost.
>Antirez said if he started a new project it would be named something different. I can only assume some other future databases will will take this approach. Maybe Antirez will write one of them. When that happens now we have a new problem: divergence in the ecosystem.
Also agreed, divergence breaks the 'consensus/convention' I mentioned earlier. That definitely has consequences, although in this case it wouldn't be too bad, as you mention next:
>My preference would be for a big project to adopt a separate term, "secondary", "follower", "replica", whatever. So that when other new DBs look for an "alternative term" there is somewhat of a standard. Really though, that's not even that bad of a problem, because when i say all those terms, "secondary" etc. it's pretty obvious in the context of a DB what i'm talking about.
Also true, and (assuming we're making the change) that seems to be the path of least resistance. At least we'd only have one new term, lol. And they are fairly clear.
>Do you have to do something __just__ because people are making your life hard? No. Do you have to make a change just because something is technically incorrect? No. Do you have to make a change because something is offensive to a large group of people? Still no. Maybe a better question to ask is, at what point would the tables be turned? What would push you over the edge to say it should be changed?
It's hard to quantify the factors imo. You kinda have to balance consensus/convention & migration cost vs. 'cost of incorrectness' & 'human cost of offensive term'. Cost of incorrectness is a big one if newbies struggle to understand the tech due to confusing terminology, but I don't see that here. If the term were truly offensive I'd agree that that'd tip the scales. I just don't see it.
