Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

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If "Master/Slave" terminology in computing sounds bad now, why not change it to "Dom/Sub"? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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It sounds way less offensive to those who decry the original terminology's problematic roots but still keeps its meaning intact.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 3 months ago (2 children)

"main" is shorter than "master". "sub" is shorter than "slave". Why worry about social issues when you can just type less and move on? :)

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Sometimes it's not about typing.

In the electronics works the us a serial protocol called SPI Serial Peripheral Interface.

In schematics we might have a micro controller that connects to several sensors or memory chips on a pair of pins, 1 each for transmit and receive.

The micro controller is the master and the common nomenclature for the pin names is MISO and MOSI MasterInSlaveOut and MasterOutSlaveIn.

This overcomes confusion with regard to using things like TXD and RXD.

Wokeness has now suggested a bunch of alternatives.

PICO PeripheralInControllerOut and POCI... are the 2 leading alternatives.

Problem is I now have data sheets and schematics going back to the 1980s

It's bullshit to me.

Words can have more than one meaning. Context and meaning matter.

I just want design cool electronics.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Because you have already learnt the terms.

If you were starting out a term like PeripheralInControllerOut would make far more sense than MasterInSlaveOut.

A lot of industry-specific terms exist because someone didn't think a lot about naming 80 years ago and picked the first thing that came to mind. Turns out most offensive terms are also not intuitive to newcomers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

You've made my point well.

Absolutely I've already learnt it, and I don't intend to stuff around translating. At first it's one thing, maybe not cumbersome but then many things become a hassle.

Master and slave are not in and of themselves offensive words. You just assign offence to them, based on certain specific context, again proving my point.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Because I don't want to be forced to adapt by others. Let me adapt by myself. Adding an option for change is fine, but changing the default is fucking annoying. Fuck Github for changing master.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

Because I don’t want to be forced to adapt by others.

We are all forced all the time to follow social norms. Short of moving to a cabin in the woods, this is inescapable, for better or worse. In this master/main debate it seems like we can make some people happy with minimal cost. In the end it is a tiny irrelevance, when compared to other norms being changed.