What is your default git branch? is it master or main?
When they started changing default branch from "master" to "main", & forcing us the change, what was your initial reaction?

I was very much annoyed! & I'm still using master as my default branch. But pretty sure, the new generation of git users would use main as default in the future, & that kinda bothers me.

Why does it bother you?

i literally don't care, can be 'master', 'main', 'prod' or whatever the fuck the world is gonna come up with next. At the end of the day you work with it all the same.

"Master" and "Slave" shouldn't be a problem in IT.

Anyone who has a problem with it: get over it or go pick leaves in a forest.

My main branch is called 'triangular-trade' for provocative purposes

> what is your default git branch?

I use master still. Main branch just sounds boring

>What was your initial reaction?

annoyed to hell and back. Still am, they had no good reason to do this.

>New generation of users won't be bothered

Yes, they chose to systematically wipe us out, by changing the education system at it's core and forcing their own beliefs on the impressionable children. I wonder where I've seen that before... Looking at you Mao, Stalin and Hitler... Every good propaganda has to target the "future generations" in the end. No one else matters in the long run, not really...

I can handle a lot of things, but when people do stupid things just for the sake of being stupid and ignorant, that's where I draw the line. The fact that actual developers never had a say in how the platform is changed really shows you how much we matter. Just cattle being fed whatever they serve us.

I keep master for existing projects and use the default main for new projects.

we have a mix of both, and some of the projects instead of that the main branches are named after the lead dev. I personally don't care at all, even if it's name is GrandSpaghetti. just point it out once and I'm good to go

@Hazarth What about using harmless color names. Black = dev and white = main

next step : You cannot paint your wall in white.

People should stop associating objects with humans. Do they think a master HDD cares if it is call that ?

@Grumm For goodness' sake, don't give them ideas!

@Hazarth pretty sure that any offended person will not be on this platform. This is not FB or Twitter :D

(I hope...)

I prefer master so that when I say main it’s unambiguous that it’s referring to the main file/function, rather than the git branch, but beyond that I don’t really care

We use develop. Have been for years. Main and master are actually way more ambiguous than develop, prod IMHO.

Master/slave language also just isn't a fun reminder for folks who are less represented in IT regardless of whether or not its actually referring to slavery (lookin at you, Jenkins).

If it makes someone more comfortable working on my team, why wouldn't I change it if i can?

@noobrants sure but that is where things go wrong.

Nobody should be uncomfortable by seeing a master branch.

But this discussion will go in the same as saying if the vegan is more comfortable eating at my table, why wouldn't I just stop eating meat.

We all should have the freedom of choice. But if one specific group is getting what it wants, all those basic needs are thrown out of the window.

@Grumm I get where you're coming from, but I think thats a bit of a slippery slope fallacy.

Like, vegan vs meat is a good example --- having a master branch isn't a part of my identity, whereas choosing to eat meat is definitely a personal choice.

But seeing master as the language used to describe a branch could remind someone who has an ancestry of being enslaved of messed up stuff and make them uncomfortable. Not really my place to say they shouldn't be uncomfortable, even if the context doesn't make sense.

Trauma responses are often not rational, doesn't mean we should ignore them.

Idk, seems like a small courtesy change to me.

In reality, I think the better argument against this change is that it doesn't make tech more accessible to underrepresented people, it's just a rhetorical change that feigns being progressive.

But at the same time, then why wouldn't I be OK with it?

Mastar

Mastard

I find it ridiculous but don't mind using main. This is one instance where I try to just let the CoC enforcers feel useful for once in their lives while I try to be productive without getting into arguments. Maybe this is me coping with giving them the submission they *really* seek from others, but I have enough problems with the work itself that I don't want to create more friction.

@noobrants it's not like there even is a "slave" word in git to use as a counterpart of "master", at least not that I've heard of. A master can also be a teacher, and semantically makes some sense when you create other branches off of it. The whole shenanigan with the "master" word is simply because people who feel the need to engage in "social justice" looked for something to create a problem over. I would not be surprised at all, and in fact would most expect, that this whole thing came out of the minds of white people with nothing better to do, and that most black people, if reminded at all of slavery because of this, would just shrug it off as a silly crazy thought, and wouldn't ever mind it again. The core of this issue is that it's just one of the many instances of some people trying to get others to exercise submission, as they understand that people who are submissive in silly matters are more likely to become submissive and compliant in more significant ones.

@nururururu It is white woke soccer moms who are offended for other people who they have never met. The same people who would tell minorities what it best for them. Because they just cannot fend for themselves. That is the mindset that brings this kind of garbage.

@nururururu yeah I get that, the white liberal progressive stuff can definitely water down real progress in tech and I don't think there are a ton of people who are offended by it in reality.

I just don't care about having a branch named master at all. It can make some sense, but it's not a cultural thing for me or even something that technically clarifies its role to a newcomer better than develop, prod, main, whatever.

So if there's a one in a million chance someone is offended by it, chuck it to the wind, it doesn't matter. That doesn't apply to everything, but in this case, I think devs are way overreacting to the significance of this branch name.

If you're angry that white liberals are doing this instead of halting police brutality, I'm right there with you, we should be focusing on other things.

Also relevant, I dont think this about forcing developers into submission.

I didn't feel dominated by anyone using main as a default branch name.

Sure, GitHub is just playing lipservice to racial equity on this one, but I seriously doubt that they had forcing me into submission in mind when making that change.

I mean, isn't having to use "master" as a branch name way more dominating? We didn't complain about it then.

Like why do we actually give a shit about this? And not just it's symbolism of forcing us to do something or being bullshit, do we actually care about the material change to our daily life?

I don't, got way more bugs to fix than allow something like that to annoy me.

Master, nice and consistent. The few projects that accidentally had main as default merge target were converted as it would mess with both some local scripts/aliases my team mates have and the ci:cd config that would be inconsistent.

@puradawid I'm also bothered by it as it cost millions and accomplished nothing. And if one was bothered by the default branch name it was already configurable...
I hate politics in my work, that is why I'm an engineer. Fuckers try to put politics in my tooling can fuck off. I will oppose everything they try to accomplish till I die.

@noobrants I understand your point that it's not significant

I guess it's not so much dominance or submission, it's that there seems to be an underlying intention of conditioning people to feel inadequate for questioning minor demands so they question themselves when looking critically at major ones

There are dumb people involved in this and there are very smart ones, too; it's not like the smart ones are pointlessly obsessing over minor things, they know it's effective to keep pushing silly stuff until you get tired of the overload and just try be left alone and accepting of their terms in order to do so

@illuminaughty uhhhhh idk about you, but I haven't had my foot chopped off for leaving work early recently... so no. Not at all the same.

@Nanos cuba, russia, soon China.

@Grumm i don't ear meat, but don't mind if people around me eat meat. After all it is their health they destroy.

I just care about myself and not if people make comments about me and my food.

Veggie alternatives are actually quite good. And even help with CO2 emissions.

@max19931 This can be a great discussion.

But you kind of start doing what the whole 'master/slave' problematic does too.

We eat meat at least 2.6 million years ago. If it was really that bad they probably would have stopped eating it a long time ago.

Next is the CO2. Sure now it is maybe less than meat. But how long will that be true ? Let's say you need 10 liters of water to grow 1 almond.

And you cannot just replace like 100g of meat with just 1 almond or beans.

Can you imagine if even only ~1 billion of humans become vegan ? (so only 1 out of 10 humans!) You will not have enough space to even grow all the plants and resources needed to feed them all. (Or you will need to build giga factories with tons of artificial light and heat. How will that not generate extra CO2 ?)