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Whenever you start writing even a small amount of code, you will run into the need for a version control system.
—which I shall from now on refer to as VCS because I have lazy fingers and you are a busy person.
Now don’t you do that thing where you roll your eyes and shrug. Keep reading. I’m just planting the context; this is not a post about boring tech stuff. Just boring people (well yes, in tech but that’s illustrative of a bigger issue).
Wait, what do you call this?
Arguably the most used of these VCS (Version Control System, okay?) is a thing called Git. And you’ve just rolled your eyes and shrugged again, but you’re right: this is a stupid name. Just forget about that and do not click on the Git link or you’ll end up with eyeballs luxation and dislocated shoulders.
To simplify, a VCS is primarily a tool that helps you keep revisions of your work at various stages, track and record every subsequent incremental changes you make to your “base” code (such as fixing the new bugs you—inevitably—introduce when fixing old bugs) and let other people working in concert on the same project do the same things without the whole edifice collapsing and people starting to throw angry pixels at each other.
It really is nothing more to a software developer than what a monkey wrench is to a plumber: very useful when you need one, but very dull and not glamorous in the least—and certainly not a thing over which you should obsess (unless you forgot to put it in the toolbox before leaving, and now you have to explain to the client why there won’t be no showering today, M’am.)
Git is articulated around the analogy of branches. The root is your fully working source code. Anybody willing to work on that code pulls (downloads) a clone of the repository (basically a folder on a public or private computer) where the root files and every other existing branches are stored, down on their own computer. In doing so, they also get a copy of all the revisions records that Git stored (which is one of the notable differences between Git and other VCS that rely on a centralized server, but we’ll stop here lest your eyes start rolling again.)
Working on their local clone, they can then create additional branches to add a feature or fix a bug without messing the root. They push back (upload) what they’ve done to the original repository (files, records of their modifications and all), where any worthy change can then be merged into the root.
There’s a bit more to it, but that’s pretty much everything you need to know about Git in the context of this post. A sigh of relief is in order, as only nerds and Left wing bigots can get excited over a virtual monkey wrench.
And Boy, do they indeed.
Dazibao in May, struggle session sans delay
The root branch in Git was always called the master and anybody using Git and knowing the way it works (the clones/branches paradigm) always understood without any ambiguity that the master is, as the dictionary says, an original from which copies are made
. Even outside the self-centered Nerdian galaxy, anybody working in music or video production is familiar with the concept, and knows there’s nothing dubious or even nefarious about the term.
But in the age of the Great Woketardian Cultural Devolution, this is not something the ever vigilant Nerd Guard would overlook. Anything that can be used to establish their totalitarian utopia will be put to good use.
The struggle session takes the form of a minor Git update, in which to my surprise—that quickly turned into irritation—I was faced with the following choice:
I was confounded at first. For one thing, I didn’t expect the woke disease to creep into such a dull, mundane affair as a development tool. It’s like turning into your DIY store and have a clerk explain that, no, you can’t buy any screwdriver anymore because that’s kind of sexist and borderline rapey thus you will find what you’re looking for in the twisty-turny tools aisle, Sir.
I tried to figure out if there was any real, valid technical reason to prompt for such a change. And then it dawned on me, after spotting the “inclusive” weasel-talk: ah, yes. Master. Of course.
It was nothing more than woke bullshit. Black pixels matter too.
I promptly fixed the problem by answering in the best possible way:
Deeming my struggle session a resounding success, and now confident that anybody who ever was a slave or ever owned one—and is still alive today—will instantly feel at home with my nomenclature (you can’t be more inclusive than that), I dug a little bit more into the issue.
And wasn’t surprised.
What a quick and wearied search taught me is that, sometime in May last year—in much the same fashion as in May 1966 in Communist China—some Very Concerned Person posted a request on the Git development mailing list, “suggesting” that the main branch should stop being called “master” because “offensive terminology” and stuff.
Long story short, because me lazy finger, you busy person, and we both tired of that First World Wave of Coercive Insanity:
- The armchair Red Guard who started the struggling session hails from a Boston, MA based gang calling itself “bocoup”, that claims to provide “Inclusive technology consulting”1. I guess they’re like copyright trolls, only they scour the interweb armed with a list of “offensive terminology” and go after anybody who uses any part of the List of Forbidden Words, intimidating them into making amend publicly. Struggle session for all, now on Zoom.
- According to a former contributor to the Git source code, who has a detailed explanation of the sordid affair—and makes some very good points about the genuinely offensive stupidity of it all (though quite wrong on the part of “progressives on the right side of history, conservatives on the other”)—the concerned netizens who argued and voted over the Proposition are all only slightly duskier than unsoiled morning snow. Including, as always, the tool from “bocoup” who initiated the session.
Quote:
let’s say for the sake of argument that “master” is a bad word, even on (sic) modern times, in any context, and the people that get offended by it have all the justification in the world (none of which is true). How many of these concerned offended users participated in the discussion?
Zero.
That’s right. Not one single person of African descent (or whatever term you want to use) complained.
What we got instead were complainers by proxy; people who get offended on behalf of other (possibly non-existent) people.
Or to keep it short, woke totalitarian bullshit, indeed.
The initial answers to the request were—encouragingly—to tell the bocoup git that this was a stupid idea, and that in addition, he had basically lied about other projects endorsing that change. But the Nerd Guards piled on, the sheep followed, and the Git Foundation took both knees, thus convincing me, as a user, that if they spend the time and manpower on something like that rather than on fixing bugs and improving the software, then they are not reliable and I should start considering alternatives.
It’s just a tool after all.
You may be tempted at this point to think that it’s a lot of noisy nonsense, and roll your eyes again. Just nerd bitches having a pillow fight over nothing right?
I would like to remind you that, for bad or worse 2, software is and will be ruling the world for the foreseeable future.
Unless some unexpected and increasingly needed global EMP frees us from it, these sanctimonious nerd bitches who climb over each other to demonstrate their allegiance to a totalitarian ideology that was already discredited 50 years ago will have a hand in nearly everything that affects us. Personal, medical and financial records and transactions. Cars and transportation, public facilities, home and office appliances, all to be hooked on 5G and coalescing into the Internet of Things.
Oh and voting machines, of course.
Comments
Comments thread (4)
5208 - martywd
martywd
In the past, IDE drive assignments (master/slave), now this! This is just pathetic.
I pull from a bunch git "master"’s (Oh no, I typed a bad word!) for apps I routinue use, one at least that also runs a forum but hadn’t heard yet about this latest woke nonsense.
Thanks for heads up, TDF. We are truly doomed.
.
5209 - Cluebat
Cluebat
Vox Day has covered this orchestrated convergence of open-source communities extensively.
These self-appointed community guidelines Marxists will eventually destroy the project.
Funny workaround.
5210 - TooTall
TooTall Utah
A simple remark but thenI’m a simple person.
5218 - Quoth the Raven
Quoth the Raven Alone, in the mountains, occasional contact with people I love, surrounded by snow but still, with lots of wood available for the fire. And lots of ammo. Oh yes.
I know what all the words mean, but I brought my sys admin in to read this over my shoulder. He snorted in disgust and said, "Yeah. This is what’s happening, even in my company."