Alternative terms for master and slave

On 12/15/2020 9:07 AM, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:

>> 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.

In the trade, the opposite of "Generic" is "Ethical".  Interesting
choice of word!

On 15/12/2020 17:34, Rick C wrote:
> 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.
> 
Fortunately, I choose not to be offended by these terms :-)

> 
> 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.
> 

That's it.  Master/slave, and other such "non-PC" terms do a perfectly
good job.  They are a lot better than Alice and Bob - those are terms
from cryptography, rather than SPI buses.

> 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.
> 

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

> That's it.  Master/slave, and other such "non-PC" terms do a perfectly
> good job.  They are a lot better than Alice and Bob - those are terms
> from cryptography, rather than SPI buses.

I assumed that the whole Alice/Bob thing was a joke...

--
Grant

On 2020-12-15 18:34, Rick C wrote:
> 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.
"Pin" and "socket" should be clear and offend no-one.

On 15/12/20 19:28, Niklas Holsti wrote:
> On 2020-12-15 18:34, Rick C wrote:
>> 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.
> "Pin" and "socket" should be clear and offend no-one.

Male and female and hermaphroditic connectors.

Male jack plugs, female jack sockets.

Trigger words are everywhere.

Am 15.12.2020 um 14:30 schrieb Don Y:
> Then we can have Pat-Chris Flip Flops!  (and whatever innuendo attaches,
> there!)

Of course we can't.  Flip-flops are banned from any sane workplace 
because of safety regulations.  Shoes have to be firmly attached to feet 
and have to offer at least a modicum of protection against falling tools.

On Tue, 15 Dec 2020 11:57:02 +0200, Niklas Holsti
<niklas.holsti@tidorum.invalid> wrote:

>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 :-)

For some in the US, the word "boss" has the same negative connotations
as does "master".

YMMV,
George

On Tuesday, December 15, 2020 at 5:38:43 PM UTC-5, George Neuner wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Dec 2020 11:57:02 +0200, Niklas Holsti 
> <niklas...@tidorum.invalid> wrote: 
> 
> >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 :-)
> For some in the US, the word "boss" has the same negative connotations 
> as does "master". 

Yes, boss.  

There's a Chinese restaurant I eat at when I charge the car.  The lady at the counter calls me "boss".  I guess that's a polite formality.  I should tell her to call me Rick. 

-- 

Rick C.

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

On 15/12/2020 20:13, Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2020-12-15, David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
> 
>> That's it.  Master/slave, and other such "non-PC" terms do a perfectly
>> good job.  They are a lot better than Alice and Bob - those are terms
>> from cryptography, rather than SPI buses.
> 
> I assumed that the whole Alice/Bob thing was a joke...
> 

I assume so too (though these names /are/ used in cryptography), but
they are fine examples of what you get when you try to pick terms that
have no connotations of one thing controlling other things.  And
unfortunately it is no joke that some people and companies are trying to
change terms like master/slave in technical usage.

On 15/12/2020 16:55, Rick C wrote:
> 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.
> 
Perhaps people like using sex based terms for things because everyone 
can understand the metaphor and a lot of us think about it a lot.

In the 60s it looked as if we might all get a bit more relaxed about 
stuff - but now we seem to be going backwards.

For what it's worth I use Controller and Device rather than Master and 
Slave - it won't work - in the UK several terms for people with brain 
function problems have been tried - but they typically take no more than 
a year or two of common use to become derogatory.

I wonder if people who sign have the same problem ......

MK