> The hierarchy of "parent" and "child", at least, is used for terminology in other fields, e.g. euphemistically in psychology, for relationships that fit a particular behavior pattern, even when the participants aren't actually related.

That's metaphor, but not really euphemism.

> However, if what you say is your firm belief, then you surely wouldn't mind `"dominatrix"-"submissive" databases` or `"torturer"-"victim" databases`?

First, I'd have no problems if they actually communicated useful information by way of metaphor, but I can't immediately see any way those examples would.

Second, do you really want, in the course of arguing that describing a relationship of total control between different programs or other inanimate systems as a master-slave relationship is offensive, to suggest that consensual BDSM relationships are analogous to both actual slavery and torture in the offensiveness of having descriptions of other things refer to them?

"dom-sub" makes a lot of sense, honestly; catch me using that in my next project. I would object to "torturer-victim" because it doesn't properly describe the relationship.

I literally chuckled when I saw your message because I actually thought about using dom/sub when I saw the '"dominatrix"-"submissive"' message, and there's the bonus of it being more symmetrical and less typing than master/slave.

The deal killers being that it's less readable due to the lack of established usage and that it doesn't define the relationship as clearly as master/slave. It feels like "dominant" might imply that it has authority in most cases, but not every case.

No, not "dom", "dominatrix". And is your project a popular open-source project? Or will you be committing to a code base at a large corporation? Feel free to screenshot the pull request when you do, otherwise I'll have to assume you're casually bluffing.

Why would I use "dominatrix" when "dom" is shorter? Seriously though, "dom", and "master" are fairly generic terms. "dominatrix" and "torturer" are needlessly specific to point that they don't accurately describe the relationship anymore.

>And is your project a popular open-source project?

Yeah I'm Linus lol.

If you work on an automatic transmission and quite a few other mechanical devices, you’ll learn that “master-slave” in technical English predates modern computing. It’s useful terminology because it’s instantly comprehensible as a metaphor and accurately describes the “slave’s” total lack of autonomy. There’s no reason to make it political, unless someone is endorsing the concept within the context of human relationships.

I dread the day that "male" and "female", with respect to electrical connectors, become controversial.

> or `"torturer"-"victim" databases`?

Torture-testing. Victim threads. Everything has its use.

> Given that the explicit "master" and "slave" relationship definition lacks any other common meanings in any other technical field of English (that I'm aware of), I'm not quite sure I understand your point.

There are plenty of other uses in technology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master/slave_(technology)

Would "master-servant" make you happier? "master-subordinate"? "master-follower"? All of these also carry negative connotations. Not as bad as "slave", but people will definitely find ways to point out problems with those, too.

I suppose "leader-follower" might be the least offensive of all, but that's also quite cult-like, and we all know the damage caused to society by cults and leader worship.

I'd prefer primary/replica, because it's both more descriptive and, because Microsoft uses it, is already familiar to a huge swath of techies.

Also carries none of the baggage of slavery.

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.

I think leader/follower is just as accurate while carrying less baggage, but I could see people getting offended by those terms, too. Follower implies lack of autonomy, blind devotion as in a cult, a follower of a dictator like Hitler, power centered around a possible demagogue, etc.

If I were working on a new project I would probably not use "master/slave", because at that point it's trivial not to use it, but to ask an established project to change what they're doing for something so petty seems very silly.

Since antirez has said "all capitalism is slavery" would be funny if he changed it to 'master/employee'

For how long has people been pulling the master switch? Seems that "master" has long been used as an alternative form of "primary".

I would guess Master and Secondary is the more common relationship in other technical fields, through I would be surprised if master and slave originated in computer technical documentation.

Why not?

Perhaps this analogy shows better why master-slave could be offensive to some people:

We could mark deleted rows with a "david star" tag and then run the "holocaust" process on the tables to remove them from storage.

or what about saying "castration" instead of "sandboxing".

Surely, people would agree some words are emotionally loaded and using them is unnecessary

> We could mark deleted rows with a "david star" tag and then run the "holocaust" process on the tables to remove them from storage.

That's not really analogous.

Master-slave refers to a power relationship. “David star” (even more clearly your pre-edit “Jew") is a clear reference directly to a specific people, and “holocaust” to specific historical events.

> or what about saying "castration" instead of "sandboxing".

Aside from being a horrible metaphor compared to sandboxing...what about it?

I've seen the term "neutered" used to describe this. Like, "The test environment is a neutered version of production. It won't make POST or PUT calls to our partner databases"