
On Redis master-slave terminology - kragniz
http://antirez.com/news/122
======
lazzlazzlazz
Good for antirez. We all know what master-slave mean in a computing context
and separate it from distant historical meanings, just as we don't get
offended by `parent.kill(child)`.

Some people get moral enjoyment from finding ways to feign offense... at best,
it is a waste of time to indulge much of these false complaints.

Our goodness and values show in our worldly actions.

~~~
smachiz
I mean, I don't disagree with your premise that very few people are actually
offended, but this is one of those low-effort, doesn't-matter changes so why
not do it?

If it does offend anyone at all, why not change it? If it might offend anyone
at all, why not change it?

It's not like we're redefining the color blue to appease red-ists. There's a
dozen synonyms that convey the same relationship construct as master/slave
without using the word slave.

It's not the hill to die on, or take a stand on.

~~~
Twisol
> this is one of those low-effort, doesn't matter changes

antirez, at least, says otherwise.

> [...] to change the documentation, deprecate the API and add a new one,
> change the INFO fields, [...]

~~~
smachiz
Please - it's a find/replace. The API is a bit stickier, but they can of
course just map the old 'slave' designation to a new call.

~~~
SteveNuts
Feel free to submit a PR, just make sure it passes all the tests!

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atonse
Thank you for saying this. I am pretty strongly socially liberal (mainly a
"live and let live" type mentality), and strongly support the idea of fairness
and equality for all, regardless of race, ethnic group, gender identity, or
sexual orientation.

But I too think this level of extreme political correctness and people getting
mobbed and harassed as a result has really gotten out of hand.

People do NOT have a right to not be offended. Somehow we've forgotten that.

------
xook
Slavery of the human race, whether 1, 10, or 1000 people, transcends race,
culture, and time. It is an issue still going on today due to trafficking, and
to place it squarely as an issue with white v. black (which implies only white
people have ever engaged in the practice) is ignorant. I welcome all inclusive
efforts, but it seems these types of people (activists et al) have forgotten
that those terms are not just confined to colonial America.

(Please correct me if there is an error with this process.)

Edit: I would like to point out that this is not a criticism of the author or
OP. It's an observation. (Also, edited wording.)

~~~
X6S1x6Okd1st
Yeah it feels pretty weird when people act like slavery was a unique thing
that happened in the southern US.

I had a french person talking about how they were oblivious to that dynamic
because they were raised in france where it isn't a problem.

That takes a pretty bad ignorance of colonial french history to say with a
straight face.

------
jonny_eh
I can see the argument for avoiding the terminology for new products going
forward. But trying to shame a project lead for not taking on the extra work
(and user confusion) to change it after the fact is super gross.

~~~
detaro
Fully agreed. It's easy enough to pick differently if you start something, but
it doesn't seem necessarily to warrant effort to change it where it's been
done differently in the past (If a project's maintainers want to do it,
they're of course free to do so!) and the behavior of some advocates for
changing it is horrible.

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asteli
Retroactively changing terminology is a pain, but if you're doing greenfield
development, you can just as easily use "Primary/Replica," which in addition
to being a tasteful use of language, is actually more accurate in the context
of databases.

There are a bunch of goofy alternatives as well, like "Master/Minion" or hell,
why not "Dom/Sub?"

------
umvi
Is this just virtue signalling or are people actually offended by stuff like
this? It reminds me of when Harvard Law tore down their school crest recently
because it was the coat of arms of a family in the early 1800s that owned
slaves.

If you judge historical figures by modern morals and standards you'll find
everyone is a bad person. In that case we should wipe George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson's faces off of our currency because their families owned
slaves too, nevermind their contributions to America.

------
frakkingcylons
I think antirez's initial resistance to changing the terminology is
reasonable, and obviously doesn't warrant the name-calling. Without a doubt
there would be a lot of overhead to change documentation and code.

That said, regardless of the past and ongoing use of master/slave terminology,
we should be trying to steer away from it. It's insensitive and just generally
unpleasant.

~~~
cwkoss
Antirez has said for nearly a decade that if he was rebuilding the system he
would use different terms, but changing the terms would break too many
clients. Redis is backwards compatile to v1 - that's an impressive feat!

Also, they've included a note on the official position of the project about
this in the docs for SLAVEOF
[https://redis.io/commands/slaveof](https://redis.io/commands/slaveof)

------
honkycat
If it was a new product I was writing, I would use different terminology.

But bending over backwards and rewriting and re-documenting a huge part of
your extremely popular application because a subset of a subset of people find
it offensive is... strange.

Also loved the reply: "You call me a fascist, you know, those people who
attacked and killed people over here less than 100 years ago. Maybe YOU should
watch your language." OWNED! HA!

~~~
cwkoss
The irony of calling someone a fascist for using the wrong word... haha

------
teilo
Great response. I will add: Do not give in to these people, even an inch. If
you do, they will never be satisfied, but will find the next hill of offense
to conquer, and eventually your entire project will forget its purpose.

------
teddyh
When this topic (back then it was Drupal, not Redis) was discussed here five
years ago¹, I wrote this:

> _Interestingly, DNS has gone the other way. It used to be that it was called
> “primary” and “secondary” DNS servers, but now the preferred terms are
> “master” and “slave” servers._

You have to look at really old RFCs to see the old terminology, but it’s
there.

1\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6826918#6827140](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6826918#6827140)

------
DoreenMichele
It's unfortunate that this is so poorly written in terms of it being quite
obvious that he speaks English as a second language. I also have mixed
feelings about a few other details.

But, on the whole, I agree with the sentiment.

I'm older than I used to be and this has made me more appreciative of polite
language. But a lot of people who use what I used to somewhat contemptuously
call "polite catch phrases" are often not actually any more respectful of
other people than those that don't. That genuine respect matters far more to
me.

In essence, I think he is correct that what America needs to do is set things
right by its own people instead of telling non-Americans that they need to
jump through hoops over our emotional baggage for relatively minor details of
this sort.

~~~
wang_li
As an American I don’t feel any guilt or emotional baggage. This kind of issue
is brought up by people with severely underdeveloped moral codes who have
latched on to the candy equivalent of morals. Which is to say, unsophisticated
but provides an easy sense of superiority.

~~~
DoreenMichele
As a white American who was born and raised in the Deep South, I can't say I
feel guilt per se, but I do feel the weight of baggage in the culture around
me. I do feel burdened by not knowing how to talk to people of color at times
about some subjects and not knowing what I can do today to help kill this
legacy rather than inadvertently keeping it alive.

In my twenties, my husband spent months going on endlessly about his new best
friend "John." John this. John that. It aggravated the hell out of me. He
gushed about the guy.

Then one day hubby and John arranged for the two families to meet and it
turned out John and his family were black. The surprise showed on my face,
which made for a very awkward meeting.

I didn't care that they were black, but my husband had never once mentioned
that John was black. So I assumed he was white.

In that moment, I realized this was a racist assumption. This assumption that
if he isn't white, my husband will inform me of this fact, was an artifact of
a deeply racist culture. And I was tremendously upset to realize I had drunk
the koolaid when I thought of myself as an idealist and not racist and so
forth.

So I am very uncomfortable with the possibility that I may yet still be
obliviously doing things that help keep racism alive, help keep people of
color oppressed, help keep doors shut in their face without being aware of it.
I don't know the solution to that and I think if you really truly believe in
justice and equality, that should bother you. If it doesn't, then you are
probably part of the problem and just not really wanting to take
responsibility for that fact.

But, yes, nitpicking about a single word (or a couple of words, in this case)
is often a cheap way to lord it over people and act morally superior without
really doing anything of significance. That much, I agree with.

~~~
type0
> I didn't care that they were black, but my husband had never once mentioned
> that John was black. So I assumed he was white.

How can an assumption be racist anyway? If my friend told me about a friend I
might imagine that person tall and slim with brown hair and whatever other
look and if this person turns out to be short and chubby with blond hair - who
cares. Obsessing about skin color like you are doing right now is completely
meaningless, doesn't help anybody and just feeds the segregation even more.
You can't be "subconsciously racist", don't believe those hoax psychologists
that claim it.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_How can an assumption be racist anyway?_

The assumption was rooted in cultural practices of the Deep South.

Studies show that people who disagree with primary racism will still agree
with secondary and tertiary rules that help enforce it. So you may not like
the idea of subconscious bias, but it's quite real.

It is sort of a social "Jim Crow" law. Like when people say they aren't
racist, but they wouldn't hire anyone who "sounds" black (who has the so
called _black accent_ ) because you need to be articulate for the job. My
rebuttal to that back in the day was "George W. Bush." Because if you actually
need to be articulate, then a white man widely mocked for his speech issues
should have never been president. But that's not really it.

------
TAForObvReasons
FWIW other large vendors like Microsoft use terms like primary/replica instead
of master/slave. That one database uses the phrase in 2018 (MySQL) does it
doesn't mean we shouldn't still strive to find more precise language

~~~
meowface
Perhaps more precise language exists, but my understanding is that
master/slave more accurately describes the relationship than primary/replica
does. A replica implies mirroring, but doesn't imply the other key components
that differentiate it from the primary or master node.

~~~
mcphage
> my understanding is that master/slave more accurately describes the
> relationship than primary/replica does

Please, do go on—what else about the master/slave relationship is implied by
the terminology?

~~~
true_religion
Control mostly. Slave processes are controlled by the master totally and do
work on the masters behalf. Parent/child does not work here as child processes
are created by the parent, and do not necessarily follow the parents commands.
A child can do other work, without the parent being aware of the goals.
Replicas on the other hand clone behavior, it has to be identical to the
primary.

------
toomuchtodo
Cheers Salvatore. I appreciate your stance on this ("political bikeshedding",
if that's a thing).

------
Svoka
Term "political correctness" is very loaded, and using it basically flags a
narrative.

No one would argue for "political correctness", only some would argue against
it, because only place it exists in their imaginations.

------
dayjah
Context: I'm in the "source and replica"-camp. I'm English and white passing.

I really appreciate antirez's point on this, "Mark" definitely seems to be a
person with their heart in the right place but lacking tact and being
intolerant to decisions not going his way; especially given the technical work
this change would necessitate the change does not seem appropriate.

That said, I hope that in time the technical world will settle on some
alternative to ensure we can talk freely without distracting or offending
folks.

A few years ago I was in a meeting talking about database options, hitherto I
had used "master/slave" to describe this database topology. In that meeting
was an African American co-worker ("Frank") and as the words left my mouth I
realized that completely irrespective of my intent I brought into the room the
spectre of times past. I've no idea how Frank felt about it - but all of a
sudden I had lost all ability to continue my point. I paused and said
something that amounted to: "you know,... that phrase is fucked up - let's not
use it - what words should we use?" and Frank suggested we look at what terms
Amazon uses; they used "source and read replica" and that's what we went with.
I've never regretted recoding my use of words on that one.

If there's anything that this post-Trump era has really brought into focus for
me: it's that my privileges of being white, able bodied, and male results in
me being least well positioned to say what is offensive or not. If you think
it's offensive, open it up to the rest of the room and establish how to move
forward.

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antimatter
Ah, yes, the widespread cancer of critical theory strikes Redis.

------
spamlord
Good job antirez, do not give into ideologically possessed control freaks and
busybodies that actively seek out offense in everything. You can never fully
satisfy them so don't even bother trying. They do not care about the
'morality' of the master/slave language here, but merely use it as a tool to
control behavior of others and exert unearned power over your project. It's a
pathetic power play, and nothing more.

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mjkunc
Or maybe, you could not write a blog post and just fix your fucking
terminology.

------
minikites
The next time someone uses the phrase "political correctness", replace it in
the sentence with "treating people with dignity" and re-read it.

~~~
meowface
I would if that's what all, or even most, instances of modern political
correctness were. It's also telling that the person trying to bully him into
the change definitely did not treat him with dignity, by falsely accusing him
of being a fascist when his family suffered and died at the hands of fascists
and when his own views are the opposite.

Computer code can't literally enslave other computer code (at least not until
AI improves by a lot). Inanimate objects can't cause or experience suffering
to/from other inanimate objects. Abstract concepts don't have agency. A
master-slave relationship is just an accurate and abstract way of describing
certain kinds of concepts.

------
minikites
>Moreover I don't believe in the right to be offended, because it's a
subjective thing. Different groups may feel offended by different things.

Spoken like someone who has never had to face systemic oppression.

