Yeah, "primary"/"secondary" is common. For hard drives "master"/"slave" isn't even an accurate metaphor, since both are driven by the host computer, it's only that the secondary is physically wired to the primary and can't use the communications channel when the primary is in operation. The primary doesn't send commands to the secondary or anything.

See also this comment I wrote a couple days ago re ZFS avoiding the use of "slave" (which was used in a different sense from "slave" hard drives, and both of which are different senses from the "master" boot record): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23521392

In general I think it's good that people are picking more meaningful terms.

Would you please stop using HN for ideological flamewar? You've been doing it a lot, it's not what this site is for, and we ban such accounts.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Master/slave is a model of asymmetric communication or control where one device or process controls one or more other devices or processes and serves as their communication hub.

Exactly. That's why it's a bad choice of name for IDE controllers and for the main boot record, where the master does not control the slave.

> inb4 we can sacrifice accuracy over feeling

Firmly agree that we should not sacrifice accuracy over feeling. I have no sympathy for people whose feelings are hurt because they're told that "master"/"slave" terminology is inaccurate. Facts don't care about your feelings.

Actually it makes sense because the slave always ask the master whether they're currently communicating with the controller. Master boot record also, because the program from the record controls the boot process of associated partitions.

Oh, sorry, you're right - when a slave wants to go talk to someone, he can do so at any time as long as the master isn't currently talking to someone. And the slave gets no orders from the master, both the master and the slave get orders from someone else.

And yes, the master makes no decisions on his own, the master simply sees which of the slaves has indicated that he wishes to be passed control, and then the master passes all control onto that slave and leaves.

I completely forgot what slavery means. I thought that slavery meant that masters controlled the slaves and the slaves didn't have freedom. Thanks for correcting my misunderstanding.

Would you please stop posting flamewar comments to HN? You do it often enough that I wince when I see your username in threads like this, even though you're generally a good HN contributor.

Comments like this do not help, regardless of how right you are on the underlying issues.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Ask that same question again after we have self-aware machines/software.

Inherent in the negative concept of slavery is the removal or limitation of self-determination. If the components don't have free will, this isn't an imposition.

However, in the larger context, there are very much thinking, feeling entities that are negatively impacted by the use of this terminology.

In contrast, it costs next to nothing to update the terminology to use similar terms that don't cause psychological harm to a significant portion of the populace.

Very likely in response to awareness of systemic racism in our culture.

Frankly, if it makes this field and career path more welcoming to people I am absolutely fine with it.

The MBR isn't racist, nor your Master's Degree or your master bedroom.

Keep your "woke" attitude outside of IT please

Agreed.

Given the downvotes I’m getting I think this industry is a lot more racist than I thought.

No, it has nothing to do with race. It has to do with introducing politics, racism, and your personal social commentary into a field or topic area in which that has no relevance, and in which everyone is getting along just fine.

It's looking at hard drives and calling everyone who has used terminology you think might offend someone racist through passive voice.

Paint with broad strokes, and you should not be surprised to get blowback. Walk in and start calling everyone around you closet racists without any real justification other than word choice, and to be frank, you should be thankful you don't get a worse response than you do.

I don't think it's exactly racism in many of these cases, so much as a lack of empathy. If you're not personally affected by these terms, and you're not able to empathize with those that are, I can see why, without being overtly racist against any particular group of people, you could be against these changes.

Our inability to empathize, or "put ourselves in someone else's shoes" is at the root of so many of our problems...

The response to this is actually making me not want to even be a member of this site anymore. Amazing. What a sad group of people.

Unfortunately, I can't understand why people who downvote and don't agree with you are considered racist. They just have different opinion and they probably affected by the rename in the same way as someone may be affected by word "Master" for example.

The first I heard about it 17 years ago, in news articles about "a black employee of the county’s Probation Department filed a discrimination complaint with the Office of Affirmative Action Compliance after spotting “master” and “slave” labels on a videotape machine." - https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/masterslave/ .

Projects started changing terminology at least 6 years ago, like Django at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7801646 .