Alternative terms for master and slave

It seems the terms *master* and *slave* are being phased out of the tech lexicon with help from Google. I know this is like herding cats, but I have a proposal for a terminology change.

Just replace *master* and *slave* with *Alice* and *Bob* respectively. *Bob* attaches to *Alice* and then *Alice* tells *Bob* what to do, so it's easy to remember. Isn't that more fun than *master* and *slave*?

In SPI terminology, *mosi* and *miso* become *aobi* and *aibo*. If you have multiple Bobs on the bus, it gets better. Alice has a meeting with the Bobs.

On 12/15/20 5:32 PM, Brad Eckert wrote:
> It seems the terms *master* and *slave* are being phased out of the tech lexicon with help from Google. I know this is like herding cats, but I have a proposal for a terminology change.
> 
> Just replace *master* and *slave* with *Alice* and *Bob* respectively. *Bob* attaches to *Alice* and then *Alice* tells *Bob* what to do, so it's easy to remember. Isn't that more fun than *master* and *slave*?
> 
> In SPI terminology, *mosi* and *miso* become *aobi* and *aibo*. If you have multiple Bobs on the bus, it gets better. Alice has a meeting with the Bobs.

Two boobs attached to  Alice.

On 2020-12-15 11:32, Brad Eckert wrote:
> It seems the terms *master* and *slave* are being phased out of the
> tech lexicon with help from Google. I know this is like herding cats,
> but I have a proposal for a terminology change.
> 
> Just replace *master* and *slave* with *Alice* and *Bob*
> respectively. *Bob* attaches to *Alice* and then *Alice* tells *Bob*
> what to do, so it's easy to remember. Isn't that more fun than
> *master* and *slave*?
> 
> In SPI terminology, *mosi* and *miso* become *aobi* and *aibo*. If
> you have multiple Bobs on the bus, it gets better. Alice has a
> meeting with the Bobs.

My favourite alternative to master - slave is

    boss - body

as in "everyBODY does what the BOSS tells them".

Boss-body has the nice property that both words have the same number of 
letters, so variable names etc. can be nicely aligned in the code :-)

On 15/12/2020 10:32, Brad Eckert wrote:
> It seems the terms *master* and *slave* are being phased out of the
> tech lexicon with help from Google. I know this is like herding cats,
> but I have a proposal for a terminology change.
> 
> Just replace *master* and *slave* with *Alice* and *Bob*
> respectively. *Bob* attaches to *Alice* and then *Alice* tells *Bob*
> what to do, so it's easy to remember. Isn't that more fun than
> *master* and *slave*?
> 
> In SPI terminology, *mosi* and *miso* become *aobi* and *aibo*. If
> you have multiple Bobs on the bus, it gets better. Alice has a
> meeting with the Bobs.
> 

The software world is full of terms that can offend people if people
choose to be offended.  Just look at processes on *nix systems - you get
daemons and zombies, you stop a process by killing it, parent processes
can't die until all their children are dead (or else the children turn
into zombies), and so on.  I remember someone on my CSP course at
university complaining about the terms "angelic choice" and "demonic
choice".

And of course in electronics we have male connectors and female connectors.

Perhaps black and white photography should be renamed to "shades of grey" ?


No, "master" and "slave" are not being phased out except by a few
companies where some PR twats can't understand that their thoughtless
eagerness to be "politically correct" actually offends people more than
leaving things as they are with convenient and practical names.

On 12/15/2020 2:32 AM, Brad Eckert wrote:
> Just replace *master* and *slave* with *Alice* and *Bob* respectively. *Bob*
> attaches to *Alice* and then *Alice* tells *Bob* what to do, so it's easy to
> remember. Isn't that more fun than *master* and *slave*?

Doesn't that, also, imply a sexist interpretation (Alice being the driver of
the relationship?)

Perhaps "Pat" and "Chris"?

Then we can have Pat-Chris Flip Flops!  (and whatever innuendo attaches,
there!)

> In SPI terminology, *mosi* and *miso* become *aobi* and *aibo*. If you have
> multiple Bobs on the bus, it gets better. Alice has a meeting with the
> Bobs.

On 2020-12-15, David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

> And of course in electronics we have male connectors and female connectors.

I remember about 35 years ago, when I said something about a male or
female connector within earshot of my girlfriend. She asked why
they're called male and female and how do you decide which is which?

I picked up two connectors, showed them to her and then plugged them
together.

She was horrified.

--
Grant

On 15/12/2020 16:07, Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2020-12-15, David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
> 
>> And of course in electronics we have male connectors and female connectors.
> 
> I remember about 35 years ago, when I said something about a male or
> female connector within earshot of my girlfriend. She asked why
> they're called male and female and how do you decide which is which?
> 
> I picked up two connectors, showed them to her and then plugged them
> together.
> 
> She was horrified.
> 

I can understand these things being a surprise, or possibly even
offensive, to people unfamiliar with the particular field.  But when the
terms are everyday technical terms, people using them do not associate
them with the same things.  When you decide if the coax connector on a
board is to be male or female, you are thinking about the physical
connector - not human body parts.  (You might think about human body
parts next time you do have a connector - but that is only because we
have been discussing them in that way.)

You have a similar effect in human language with swearing.  People never
mean these /literally/, or think about the real meaning of the words
when they swear.  (It can be fun when first seeing swear words in
different languages, if you translate them literally because you don't
know they are common curses.)

For people who work with SPI buses, talking about an "SPI master" and an
"SPI slave" makes them think of microcontrollers and eeproms, not a
scene from "Gone with the Wind" or "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom".

And if someone thinks it is a problem that the words "master" and
"slave" (or "male" and "female") are used in these contexts, then they
should stay out of that kind of conversation - they don't understand it
anyway.

On Tue, 15 Dec 2020 11:59:36 +0100, David Brown
<david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

>On 15/12/2020 10:32, Brad Eckert wrote:
>> It seems the terms *master* and *slave* are being phased out of the
>> tech lexicon with help from Google. I know this is like herding cats,
>> but I have a proposal for a terminology change.
>> 
>> Just replace *master* and *slave* with *Alice* and *Bob*
>> respectively. *Bob* attaches to *Alice* and then *Alice* tells *Bob*
>> what to do, so it's easy to remember. Isn't that more fun than
>> *master* and *slave*?
>> 
>> In SPI terminology, *mosi* and *miso* become *aobi* and *aibo*. If
>> you have multiple Bobs on the bus, it gets better. Alice has a
>> meeting with the Bobs.
>> 
>
>The software world is full of terms that can offend people if people
>choose to be offended.  Just look at processes on *nix systems - you get
>daemons and zombies, you stop a process by killing it, parent processes
>can't die until all their children are dead (or else the children turn
>into zombies), and so on.  I remember someone on my CSP course at
>university complaining about the terms "angelic choice" and "demonic
>choice".

Some might also be offended by running Ethernet controller in
promiscuous mode, accepting all packets.

On Tuesday, December 15, 2020 at 5:59:42 AM UTC-5, David Brown wrote:
> >
> The software world is full of terms that can offend people if people 
> choose to be offended. 

Sorry, I stopped listening to you after you showed extreme ignorance.  

Yeah, people can be offended by things we think of as innocent.  I recall a female assembler being offended by the use of the terms male and female for connectors.  I tried to reason with her for a bit, then I asked, "OK, what should we call them?"  That completely changed the tone of the conversation and we worked something out. 

I don't recall the terms we came up with, but the conversation made her happy and we never had that conversation again.  Win-win.  

-- 

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

Here is another example.  What do you think of using the term "carnal knowledge" to refer to knowledge of the inner workings of a function?  

This was a real discussion in a language forum.  People were tossing the term around and I didn't know what they meant by it.  I looked it up and found it's actually a term from mostly legal usage and fairly archaic.  I have a relatively large vocabulary and the group is international, so I figured I would not be the only person needing to look it up.  Since the only definition of carnal knowledge is to have intercourse with someone as in a trial, "Did you have carnal knowledge of the victim?"  

That just sounded strange to me.  We give new meanings to words often, typically a closely related term that is given a particular shade of meaning in a technical context.  I could not figure how anyone would think a euphemism for the sex act would be an appropriate term to requisition for use in discussing technical issues. 

I was accused of being a prude and seemingly in line with international opinions of people from the US.  Many of the supporters of this new term indicated it was perfectly clear to them, so obviously must be clear to everyone.  It was one of the oddest conversations I've had on the Internet.  

-- 

Rick C.

+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209