How this is going to help exactly, remains a mystery to many of us. It's tempting to simply dismiss all this as just another poorly-disguised attempt at virtue-signalling. But in the spirit of joining in the fun, let's take a look at some of the terms slated for erasure and their proposed replacements. And some terms that haven't yet had the dubious honor.
1. Master/Slave
This term is used in tech to describe situations where one process or entity controls another, or where one is an original and the others (the "slaves") take reference from it. Ostensibly, tech such as GitHub, Python and Twitter (and even MySQL!) have decided that they will no longer use the terms "master" or "slave" in their code repositories. Instead, terms such as "main" and "replica" will be used. |
| No more master-slave relationships! |
It's a bit of a stretch of the imagination to equate a "Master" branch in GitHub with slavery, but what do I know, right? I'm not a marginalized race in the US. Hell, I don't even live in the US!
2. Black/White
Google claims that the terms "blacklist" and "blackhat" have negative connotations associated with the color, and this is somehow denigrating African-Americans. Instead, we should be using terms such as "rejectlist" and "allowlist" to replace "blacklist" and "whitelist", respectively. |
| We can't be blackhats anymore? |
To be fair, "rejectlist" and "allowlist" are a lot more obvious than "blacklist" and "whitelist". It's objectively a good change. I just think the reasons behind it feel kind of forced. It's almost like someone's trying a little too hard not to offend black people.
3. Chief Technical Officer
Hey, how about "Chief" Technical Officer? Or "Chief" anything? Isn't that insulting to Native Americans who actually earned that title? Non-native Americans, you can do better. |
| So Sioux me! |
Native American cultural appropriation is a real thing, yo. Just ask Chris Hemsworth.
4. Ninja
Eradicating the word "ninja" from tech vocabulary will be welcome. That's also cultural appropriation. Imagine how the real ninjas feel, having that term co-opted by a bunch of computer geeks who probably couldn't throw a shuriken worth a damn. |
| Won't someone please think of the ninjas? |
Also, it's incredibly lame to describe yourself as a "code ninja". Please just fucking stop.
5. Kanban
Another case of cultural appropriation. The Kanban was originally used in manufacturing operations in Japan. Then this got taken to the USA, and some time later, the tech industry took to using this to manage software development processes. We can still use Kanban boards, though maybe we should start calling them something else? |
| Yeah, call 'em something else! |
I seriously doubt the Japanese are anything less than smug that the Kanban got adopted by the Americans. But wait... does this whole movement actually have anything to do with the feelings of other cultures, or is it just an excuse to make tech companies feel all progressive and shit?
6. Sanity Check
The term "sanity check" is usually in the context of testing. However, the word "sanity" might be sensitive to people who suffer from mental illness. I'm no expert here, and far be it for me to sound unsympathetic, but could that be because they suffer from mental illness? |
| Who're you calling insane?! |
The term "smoke test" has been suggested as a substitute. But it appears that the term already exists, and there's actually a difference. You know what, this is crazy (no pun intended) and I'm just gonna let the experts sort this out.
7. Dummy
A "dummy" anything is usually used in software development as a stand-in for the real thing. A dummy account. A dummy file. Dummy content. Just like crash-test dummies are used in place of real people. |
| I surrender to the awesome power of your Wokeness. |
But no, what if it triggers people who are, say, not the brightest bulb in the chandelier? We want to be inclusive, right? Twitter has suggested "placeholder", which actually isn't that bad. Unlike the case of "blacklist" and whitelist", however, the term "dummy" was actually pretty obvious already and I don't think it needed changing.
8. Throttling
In software, "throttling" is the process of regulating the rate of processing, because sometimes you gotta slow stuff down in order for things to go smoothly. After all, resources are limited, and we don't want the system to bite off more than it can chew. |
| Just choking, folks! |
But geez, this term is just so violent. It brings to mind wringing of necks and MMA chokeholds. Why such a hostile term? How about "hugging"?
9. Penetration Testing
This is actually a term used in computer security, to assess the defenses and robustness of any particular system. But it's kind of lewd, isn't it? Penetration? |
| Such penetrating insight! |
Think of all the locker room jokes we computer nerds could make if this term were still in use. How about we just scrap it so people don't feel, y'know, uncomfortable?
10. Alpha/Beta
Alpha release. Beta release. These terms are commonly used to describe software versions. You know what else they're used to describe? Males. |
| That's Alpha AF. |
Maybe usage of this term encourages toxic masculinity. Should we chance it? I mean, if we're going to deprecate the use of "master" and "slave", surely this is next!
Conclusion
Yes, I'm being really facetious here. But let's be real for a minute.Naming things is one of the great struggles of software development. Congratulations, we just made it a whole lot harder.
It's not that I think tech terms are set in stone and shouldn't change at all. Obviously, some change is for the better. Even more obviously, it would be better if they were done for the right reasons. If done to improve clarity or sustainability of maintenance; some objectively beneficial metric, yes I'm all for it.
But if it's done just for the sake of appealing to the Social Justice mob, I think it's ill-advised. Because there's no end to this sort of thing. People are always going to be offended by something or other. The world doesn't revolve around the USA and their great struggle with racism and their history as slave-owners, and it's time people realized that.
Now that's a master main stroke!
T___T
T___T
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