However, this has since proven to be false based on email records from the development of Git.įinally, while this isn't an argument against the change per se, there is an argument that changing master to main is simply the work of armchair activists who do the bare minimum in order to sleep easy at night. Others argue that a different practice could annoy or confuse new developers as they ramp up on a codebase.Īnother controversial argument against the change is the idea that the master branch doesn't actually have references to slavery - instead it came from different beginnings similar to words like Master's degree.
Rename branch code#
Some say that the change break a lot of code and risks a lot of needless technical headache. Why not change Master to Main?ĭevelopers who defend the "Master" terminology argue that it's an engineering standard, and engineering standards are useful and shouldn't be broken without reason. The change is a reminder of the intentionality required to make environments more inclusive. Īnother argument for changing master to main is to raise awareness in the tech community about micro-aggressions and Black issues. "Master" is not the only problematic word other terms like "blacklist", "whitelist," "black hat", and "white hat", for example, have also been recognized as problematic terminology. Removing this language from company vernacular is a small way to help make technology more accessible and inclusive to Black people. The origin of the term "master" in computing is controversial, but email records from the Git developers confirm that they were referring to the common master/slave metaphor when the industry standard was set. The main argument for changing "master" to "main" is to reduce the occurrences of problematic terminology in a team's codebase. Many names have been suggested, like "primary" and "default", but "main" has so far emerged as the most popular alternative.
In the vein of making technology a more inclusive place, one initiative has been to rename the master branch to a different name. The name "master" is significant because it has been both the standard name for the default git development branch but also carries clear references to slavery (e.g.
Rename branch how to#
The current discussion has been around naming terminology in software development and how to make it more inclusive to the Black community.
This move is one that we've adopted at Kapwing, and in this article, we'll discuss some of the thinking that went into this change as well as a short tutorial on how to do it yourself! What is the current discussion about? One recent movement in the tech industry has been around changing the default "master" name to another name like "main". If you're a software developer in 2020, you're likely familiar with the term "master" as the name of the primary branch of development in Git.
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