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

[JoeN]

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?

[coppice]

I think its getting hard to tell serious comments from parody.

[JoeN]

I think its getting hard to tell serious comments from parody.

I'm being serious, but I am open to being told it is a bad idea (and why).

Yeah, a lot of the other stuff is ridiculous. 

[coppice]

I think its getting hard to tell serious comments from parody.

I'm being serious, but I am open to being told it is a bad idea (and why).

Yeah, a lot of the other stuff is ridiculous.

You are talking about words applied to inanimate objects, not sentient beings with feelings. Get a grip.

[JoeN]

You are talking about words applied to inanimate objects, not sentient beings with feelings. Get a grip.

That's mean telling me to get a grip.  I am gripped.  I am merely trying to protect the ungripped.

[Someone]

I think its getting hard to tell serious comments from parody.

I'm being serious, but I am open to being told it is a bad idea (and why).

Yeah, a lot of the other stuff is ridiculous.

You are talking about words applied to inanimate objects, not sentient beings with feelings. Get a grip.

Eliminating the accurate use of the word only dodges the shameful things that people have done to other people in the past, it still happened. Producer/Consumer was a soft attempt at a "computerised" term but never really caught on in synchronous exchanges.

[ataradov]

Next they will go for male and female connectors

Those are just words. There is no need to eliminate them from the language entirely if they were used for bad things in one specific context.

[daqq]

FFS, this again? Is this one of those racisms that you have to have a Grievance Studies PhD at a prestigious university to understand?

I'm being serious, but I am open to being told it is a bad idea (and why).

Most notably:
- it's inaccurate - the MASTER/SLAVE relationship accurately describes the behavior and role of the devices.
- it's pointless - these are inanimate, non-sentient objects. They are not offended. The fact that, at some point, a group of people had been slaves is an awful, shameful thing. But I cannot understand why someone would be offended by me talking about, say, I2C timing. If someone is offended by that, he has other issues.
- it's dangerous and pointless in a different way - giving ground to idiots who are offended by pretty much everything will only cause them to be offended by something else. There was some discussion on changing the male/female designation of connectors because someone had issues with the implications that for something to be male it had to have a ding dong.

Update the documentation, wait for the results, less irritated people.

Why bother? They'll just get irritated by something else. You have to understand that you are dealing with rabid social justice warriors that have embraced the role of professional victims and are just waiting for people to change the world to suit their insanities.

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.

At the absolutely best it would be a neutral thing. Sure, it's feasible. It'll create some confusion, cost money and have no useful outcome.

[JoeN]

I am not trying to be political here, but practical.  I am not offended by these terms myself.  There is a very serious practical issue, though.  Which is that I think with everything that is going on and all the caving that companies in other industries are are doing (read the news), there will be some company in the electronics industry that caves on this first (my money is on Maxim), and then others.  So the serious question is do you want one pair of words to replace master and slave for the industry or do you want a bunch of different word pairs that different companies decide on?  In this industry, standardization is pretty important and usually a good thing.  So if it is going to happen one way or another, then it is best to be out in front of it with a new standard pair of words.  If it is not going to happen, well, fine by me of course.

[nfmax]

We could instead talk about 'SWMBO' devices and 'Rumpole' devices.

That should be uncontentious, no?

[Muttley Snickers]

FFS, this again?

Yep, it got to three pages long last time around.    

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/masterslave/

[daqq]

So if it is going to happen one way or another, then it is best to be out in front of it with a new standard pair of words.

(facepalm) Fair enough. Assuming that companies give in to idiocy, then the term PRIMARY and SECONDARY are simply bad. It invokes the feeling of inequality and classism, so someone might get offended. It should be EQUAL and EQUAL.

More seriously, the words PRIMARY and SECONDARY invoke the feeling of a equal-ish relationship, where there is no hierarchy, it just hints that one device will get data sooner or be prioritized or some such. But to use something other than MASTER-SLAVE you need to accurately describe a relationship where one of the devices has effectively no rights to do anything aside from what the master tells it to. The closes would be (with my limited grasp of english - it's not my primary language) COMMANDER-SUBORDINATE, though that's still not very accurate, and it's excessively long.

[JoeN]

FFS, this again?

Yep, it got to three pages long last time around.    

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/masterslave/

Sorry, I did do a search to try to find that to see if there was a prior discussion.

This is obviously because the question is getting pretty heated in the public discourse now.  I remember the last time this was discussed I was of the opinion that it would be forgotten soon enough and it was.  This time, I am not so sure it is going to be forgotten.  Things are even weirder than normal right now.

How about DILBERT and DOGBERT instead? 

[Berni]

This is just ridiculous.

But then again it was even controversial that Linux uses the number 0xB16B00B5 as the host id in HyperV. Whats wrong with it? Well it looks like big boobs... Its not like you even get to see this number anywhere. You only see it in the form of a #define in the source code. Why would you even care?

So if its this far reaching should now all manufacturers of chips with a SPI bus change the MOSI and MISO pin names? What about black holes? Are we allowed to call them black still? Should we call them light absent holes instead? And what do we print on black spraypaint cans? Light absorbing spray paint?

I'm all for black people rights, but if can't handle simple commonly used words (Ones printed bilions of times in literature all over the words) then that is your own damn problem you delicate snowflake.

[julianhigginson]

Primary and secondary would work fine as a replacement for master/slave. Most people are capable of adjusting to meanings.... Well except for fragile angry white guys, apparently.

[filssavi]

And so let the bikeshedding begin...

I don’t get why people get so attached to terms, there are countless other pairs that are equally as effective and comprehensible but don’t carry with them the associated history. Ex. Controller/controlled, controller/worker, supervisor/worker, etc.

Is it the phase out of master slave a priority? No, is it in the top 10? Hell no. However it might be a good idea on new clean sheet design to just decide on a different convention.

We have to understand that different countries and ethnicities have different offensive or generally frowned upon practices, for example in China planting chopsticks upright in rice is very frowned upon (it has to do with how dead people’s are remembered).
I would argue that even if it would be very useful in many restaurants with less than stellar hygiene you shouldn’t do it if you don’t want to look like an ass.

It is the same thing also with code of conducts, I don’t get why people’s are so against them, nobody will object if cose is rejected for technical reasons, however insulting people’s via mail should not be accepted as normal, just as it is not accepted in an In person meeting...

[voltsandjolts]

I don’t get why people get so attached to terms

Consistent technical language avoids unecessary ambiguity and makes for fluent exchange of ideas, without having to explain every other word.
There is no point in changing well-understood terms for irrational reasons.

[2N3055]

FFS, this again? Is this one of those racisms that you have to have a Grievance Studies PhD at a prestigious university to understand?

I'm being serious, but I am open to being told it is a bad idea (and why).

Most notably:
- it's inaccurate - the MASTER/SLAVE relationship accurately describes the behavior and role of the devices.
- it's pointless - these are inanimate, non-sentient objects. They are not offended. The fact that, at some point, a group of people had been slaves is an awful, shameful thing. But I cannot understand why someone would be offended by me talking about, say, I2C timing. If someone is offended by that, he has other issues.
- it's dangerous and pointless in a different way - giving ground to idiots who are offended by pretty much everything will only cause them to be offended by something else. There was some discussion on changing the male/female designation of connectors because someone had issues with the implications that for something to be male it had to have a ding dong.

Update the documentation, wait for the results, less irritated people.

Why bother? They'll just get irritated by something else. You have to understand that you are dealing with rabid social justice warriors that have embraced the role of professional victims and are just waiting for people to change the world to suit their insanities.

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.

At the absolutely best it would be a neutral thing. Sure, it's feasible. It'll create some confusion, cost money and have no useful outcome.

This.

If you going to do this I propose we ban all protocols, except those, in which all nodes sorry, participants will communicate all at the same time and all will have same priority and importance, using any protocol (language) they chose. All networking equipment must come packed in boxes that will be colored in all shades of colour spectrum (making sure that all wavelengths have equal surface). All interfaces will come without connectors, so they can chose themselves what shape, colour and gender (if they wish to make that choice) they will pick, and will be let to decide when they will interface at their convenience, if they choose to do so at all. Even if, and when,  they make that choice, their preferences for connectivity will be kept secret to protect their interfacing preferences private. All connectors cannot be purchased, or forced to do connector bidding, but they have to chose to be connectors on their own, and do connecting of their free will.

This topic is plain Monty Python.

Yes it is a bad idea. Very bad idea. Please stop.

Primary and secondary would work fine as a replacement for master/slave. Most people are capable of adjusting to meanings.... Well except for fragile angry white guys, apparently.

No it doesn't.  Primary and secondary means that you have two nodes that are communicating in set sequence ( like Time Division Multiplex), or that you have two nodes that have priority in choice but otherwise are same ( like primary and secondary node in cluster)  Primary and secondary terminology is already used up and spoken for, and means something else.
Master/slave means that master has absolute rule and slave can't even speak until spoken to....
While slavery as practiced by human race is abominable example how absolutely horrible shits  humans can be,  this is technology, and for that purpose it is perfect.


To OP.

And, just for you to know, abolishing speaking about things won't make things go away.  I was under impression that racial thing in USA is NOT that bad (I'm not from USA so I don't know how things are there), BECAUSE it is NOT PC to talk about it. For years, USA lies to rest of the world about this topic, by deliberately omitting information about it in mainstream media.

I think only talking about it will have chance of changing things. Censorship is bad.

[John B]

Master and slave are completely functional and descriptive terms applied to scientific and engineering concepts. They are fit for purpose, as are terms like retarded.

The actual issue is whether it's a good idea to take on the responsibility of moderating the emotions of alleged adults. Specifically, developmentally retarded adults who have an impetus to seek things which they take offense to, then demand the environment be suited to their emotional wants.

Changing people's vocabulary is not a finite goal. The act of controlling others is the goal, and as such it can never be satiated.

[nfmax]

If you don't like 'master' and 'slave', you could adopt the original (1981-ish) SASI/SCSI standard terminology of 'initiator' and 'target', and still be using consistent technical language.

[Berni]

Yes the technical reason behind using master/slave is that it is a well established engineering term used for >100 years. When an engineer sees master/slave they instantly know what kind of relationship is used between the two devices.

Okay Primary/Secondary is one alternative but this is also a well established engineering term for a relationship if two devices that do a similar thing but one operating with a higher priority. Often used to describe redundancy.

Retroactively changing naming conventions is expensive both in terms of money and man hours to do it while also costing more man hours in the future due to people having to look up the naming convention or making mistakes when not looking it up and misunderstanding it.

And its not like we have been hugging Master/Slave for everything. For example in communications you usually call it a Server and Client, because its similar, but slightly different than master/slave.

[julianhigginson]

I kind of like the BLE language of central and peripheral, though that kind of also implies a one to many relationship... The old client server of classic Bluetooth is ok too...

At the end of the day, you could call it eggnog and telescope and anyone who knows that they are doing will handle it and make things work.

As for SPI... Well, I mean it's not like SPI conventions are even that solid across different manufacturers anyway. Let's add in lawnmower and cupcake as the replacements for master and slave in the data sheets for half the manufacturers. That would be the least of anyone's SPI woes.

As for the whole concept of getting rid of master and slave for other terms, as someone whose life probably isn't really effected either way by slavery, I'm of the opinion that it's not my place to decide either way... If some people with a long history of slavery holding their ancestors back and still seeing strong echoes of that recent past effecting them today want to change it, then that's fine. We can drift across to new terms if that makes a difference... What I'm not fine with is a bunch of fragile, bitter, middle class white guys having apoplexy tantrums over how slavery is totally not a thing and nobody is effected by this language, just because they don't see it.

[bd139]

Politicising language idioms is how we end up with burned books.

[julianhigginson]

Politicising language idioms is how we end up with burned books.

No... I'm pretty sure that fascism is how we end up with burned books........

[hans]

This is just ridiculous.

But then again it was even controversial that Linux uses the number 0xB16B00B5 as the host id in HyperV. Whats wrong with it? Well it looks like big boobs... Its not like you even get to see this number anywhere. You only see it in the form of a #define in the source code. Why would you even care?

Well we must also start banning all Java applications, as Java .class files uses 0xCAFEBABE as header magic number.

Alternate proposal: we just document the magic number as uint32_t 3199925962, then nobody can be offended, as it's the same bits but a different interpretation.