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

[tggzzz]

The problem is always the same, make a fuss about what does not matter and ignore the real problem so that we have another fight for another day and repeat.

Very true, and the important point.

Except, of course, in the rare cases where the fuss does cause real changes.

There is no more natural selection between intelligent and average to below average. Even what little selection society can offer in thick people can't afford kids because they are generally less financially successful is not a thing.

That way lies social darwinism. The UK may well be heading back to the 1930s, when that was last tried in Europe

Still, it may enable people to invoke Godwin's law, and thus terminate this thread.

[Zero999]

Exactly.

What's worse is this could increase levels of racism. This will help the hard right who'll claim that all black people are whiny pussies who get offended by everything. Sadly many will believe them and join the backlash.

[Simon]

The problem is always the same, make a fuss about what does not matter and ignore the real problem so that we have another fight for another day and repeat.

Very true, and the important point.

Except, of course, in the rare cases where the fuss does cause real changes.

There is no more natural selection between intelligent and average to below average. Even what little selection society can offer in thick people can't afford kids because they are generally less financially successful is not a thing.

That way lies social darwinism. The UK may well be heading back to the 1930s, when that was last tried in Europe

Still, it may enable people to invoke Godwin's law, and thus terminate this thread.

Unfortunately society does not have any passive way of selecting and financial status is not a good selector, just look at our incumbent in number 10. Other methods would be ugly but I do often wonder why we pay people ta have kids, the answer is generally because they need the money, my answer is then why are they not paid more? We currently have a massive skew of very wealthy whilst having very poor with people doing OK in the middle. The first problem I see in child benefit is that for some it ranges from an incentive to have kids to an enabler for people not bright enough to get good jobs. BUT that comes with the proviso that jobs are reasonably paid. If you have a job you should be able to afford your rent and children without state handouts that in reality are just handouts to their employers who can now pay them less. This also means a low tax base and so shit services for the society and poor social conditions that lead to poverty and crime.

If everyone was given a fighting chance and the best rose to the top with a well funded state that provided quality services most of what SJW are quibbling about would not even exist and they would have to find real problems, that is of course if people of such low intellect as to fall down the SJW rabbit hole would not even exist.

Sadly no government wants a quality society of intelligent people because it means the rich won't be as rich and they own't be in power.

[SilverSolder]

The problem is always the same, make a fuss about what does not matter and ignore the real problem so that we have another fight for another day and repeat.

Very true, and the important point.

Except, of course, in the rare cases where the fuss does cause real changes.

There is no more natural selection between intelligent and average to below average. Even what little selection society can offer in thick people can't afford kids because they are generally less financially successful is not a thing.

That way lies social darwinism. The UK may well be heading back to the 1930s, when that was last tried in Europe

Still, it may enable people to invoke Godwin's law, and thus terminate this thread.

Unfortunately society does not have any passive way of selecting and financial status is not a good selector, just look at our incumbent in number 10. Other methods would be ugly but I do often wonder why we pay people ta have kids, the answer is generally because they need the money, my answer is then why are they not paid more? We currently have a massive skew of very wealthy whilst having very poor with people doing OK in the middle. The first problem I see in child benefit is that for some it ranges from an incentive to have kids to an enabler for people not bright enough to get good jobs. BUT that comes with the proviso that jobs are reasonably paid. If you have a job you should be able to afford your rent and children without state handouts that in reality are just handouts to their employers who can now pay them less. This also means a low tax base and so shit services for the society and poor social conditions that lead to poverty and crime.

If everyone was given a fighting chance and the best rose to the top with a well funded state that provided quality services most of what SJW are quibbling about would not even exist and they would have to find real problems, that is of course if people of such low intellect as to fall down the SJW rabbit hole would not even exist.

Sadly no government wants a quality society of intelligent people because it means the rich won't be as rich and they own't be in power.

It is always better to be rich in a rich society, than to be rich in a poor one...    The rich in very unequal societies are just not as smart as the rich in more egalitarian ones, is the simplest explanation that fits the facts.

[Simon]

But being rich is always easier in any context. most of the animosity in society is people trying to climb on each other to get to a better place because it is accepted that there is not enough to go round which is not true, but everyone always wants more.

[tggzzz]

But being rich is always easier in any context. most of the animosity in society is people trying to climb on each other to get to a better place because it is accepted that there is not enough to go round which is not true, but everyone always wants more.

My family got to know some people that were as rich as Croesus, but we didn't realise that at the time. They were delightful people. They valued our friendship and continued to do so after we realised who they were. Why? Because they knew we were friends of them, not of their money.

Is poverty better? Of course not. But money only buys a more comfortable type of unhappiness.

[SilverSolder]

It is a skill and an art to be happy.   The skills needed change with age, too.  It isn't really about the money, if you have what you need.

"You can't always get what you want", as the song goes...

[Nominal Animal]

It is a skill and an art to be happy.   The skills needed change with age, too.  It isn't really about the money, if you have what you need.

And generally, what you need is a community that supports each other, and not one that divides people in groups and clades that are to be treated differently.

[Simon]

We have a victim: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/generic-clocked-serial-protocol-on-stm32/
He's trying to use a serial port in USART mode because the datasheet called it a serial port because it did not want to say SPI because it then did not want to say master/slave. But it's an SPI protocol. This is what happens when you banish words and everything get's called "thing" in case someone get's offended by the different words.

Shame on TI.

[magic]

As much as I would like it to be true and have a good laugh at TI, the part dates back to 2008 so I doubt they did it for that reason.



Still have hope for the future, though

[EEVblog]

We have a victim: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/generic-clocked-serial-protocol-on-stm32/
He's trying to use a serial port in USART mode because the datasheet called it a serial port because it did not want to say SPI because it then did not want to say master/slave. But it's an SPI protocol. This is what happens when you banish words and everything get's called "thing" in case someone get's offended by the different words.
Shame on TI.

Random TI part:
https://www.st.com/resource/en/datasheet/stm32f205rb.pdf
Updated Nov 2019
Still has SPI and the words master and slave 34 times.
As for the TLC5926 chip, last updated 2015, I doubt TI are doing anything here as policy.
https://www.st.com/resource/en/datasheet/stm32f205rb.pdf
I've found it quite common for peripheral chips to just use the generic "serial" term and not SPI.
I think the reasoning here is that you can drive the peripheral with anything, doesn't have to be an SPI hardware device. In effect the peripheral is a "generic" device. But the micro they have to say it has SPI because that's a specific hardware feature people are after.

[magic]

It's not even true SPI because multi-chip topologies are supposed to be chained (not sure if SDO ever goes hi-Z to support bus operation) and commanding the chip what to do with received bits is achieved by out of band signals.

I call it YACSRP - yet another custom shift register protocol

[Simon]

Yes it's not truly SPI but basically that is the mode you would use. I have noticed many devices like the LCD screens that do not return any data avoid the terms master slave as they do not deem it true SPI but that is effectively what it is or the hardware you need to use. The term "serial port" is usually used to mean UART/USART

[nuclearcat]

I saw in last week some chips who use SDI/SDO in datasheets and it is damn confusing!
http://www.datsi.fi.upm.es/docencia/Informatica_Industrial/DMC/dallas/1722.pdf
Or book "Programming 16-Bit PIC Microcontrollers in C: Learning to Fly the PIC 24 " page 90 (screenshot attached).
And electronics is not like software stuff, you do mistake, you have to remanufacture batch of PCBs, and it costs money and time.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Sorry, SDO/SDI is not any more confusing than TxD/RxD if you ask me.

[Simon]

I am not saying that this was done because of "offensive terms" it is something that someone otherwise thought was a good idea and is causing confusion before you even talk about removing racist terms.

[Siwastaja]

SDI and SDO names have been used in SPI and SPI-like device specifications like forever. I like MISO and MOSI instead because they are super-explicit and spell everything out for you.

[Simon]

it's not even SDI SDO, it's the fact that they didn't just say SPI, this is SPI, SPI is so generic and has so many ways of being setup that is is not even a standard protocol just a way of referring to a particular implementation of serial port that is generically called SPI, no one expects this to mean that given any two SPI ports they automatically talk to each other as there are 4 data sampling modes, 8 or 9 bit versions and the option to have the slave send data back. Which is no different to a UART/USART which in turn is not a strict definition but a collection of common features.

[Halcyon]

I have different thoughts when it comes to master and slave.

 

[Simon]

SDI and SDO names have been used in SPI and SPI-like device specifications like forever. I like MISO and MOSI instead because they are super-explicit and spell everything out for you.

MOSI and MISO are better because it's a system wide definition and therefor a net. tx and rx cannot always be used as universal nets or things may go wrong. The difference is that tx and rx usually connect to a totally different device on another board so it's always local relative terminology. SPI was never meant to go off board so both ends are in the same context and clearly defined, another reason not to call an SPI port generically serial as it gets confused with computer terminology where serial is something like RS232 that uses a U(S)ART

[Simon]

master is a very broad term. it's even used in the context of learning something practical, you master a skill, you become a master craftsman. People wanting to get rid of master must have very limited exposure to the full extent of the english language.

[tom66]

I've seen SDI and SDO on datasheets from the late 90's.  It's not a new idea.  MISO/MOSI is probably preferred but in some cases you aren't wanting to infer a SPI port for a non-8-bit multiple wordsize (although as far as I know, SPI does not specify fixed word sizes, I've not seen a device offer anything outside of a standard range of 4-bit to 16-bit.)

[Simon]

8 bit micros will want to stay with 8 bit lumps with 16 bit being the exception. An ARM may have a 16 bit data register but even the new avr 0 series actually puts the 9th bit in a totally different SPI register like they just found a convenient register that does not have all 8 bits used, in this case I think it's the status register which kind of helps as in one read you get to find out what's going on and what you data bit is.

What is the official definition of SPI? did it ever have a standard bit length? it is certainly less prescribed than the U(S)ART/serial port standard. It's literally a shift register and a clock. serial peripheral interface in a good description of what you call one of these things, the chip is a peripheral of a master device, it has to be, it has to be driven by another device, it cannot work alone so it is a peripheral and it's coms are serial.

[EEVblog]

I agree that "serial port" would imply uart. "serial interface" at the very least should be used if its SPI-like

[Simon]

well serial is generic but when the hardware is SPI like then call it that. This is why you can't go around ditching words at the behest of someone that does not even understand the context you use those words in and how much confusion it will cause in your industry. If we called everything a serial port it would be chaos but this is effectively where this master/slave bollocks will lead us and there will come a point we lack the words to describe specific things.