Highlights from Git 2.28

Re:Highlights from Git 2.28 by Twisol on Monday July 27, 2020 @04:55PM (#23969274)

I can appreciate that "canon" is used in religious contexts, but its meaning and origin go back further than that. Wiktionary (hardly the best source, I know) lists three secular meanings before the religious ones begin. The most relevant is this one:

> A group of literary works that are generally accepted as representing a field.

Also, the coinage "fanon" (as in derivative works by a fanbase) comes directly from the treatment of the source material as "canonical". (Frankly, "canonical" is the best argument I can make for "canon".)

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Re:Highlights from Git 2.28 by romanoderoma on Monday July 27, 2020 @06:00PM (#23969906)

> but its meaning and origin go back further than that

master/slave goes back to Mesopotamia, 4 thousands years ago and was used to describe the relationship between men and gods

> Man was believed to have been created to serve the gods, or perhaps wait on them: the god is lord or master (belu) and man is servant or slave (ardu)

I guess being that old is not good enough nowadays

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Re:Highlights from Git 2.28 by franga2000 on Tuesday July 28, 2020 @03:09AM (#23973126)

But git doesn't use master/slave (noun). It uses master as an adjective ("master branch"). Think cassettes and vinyl records or "master boot record". It means being the definitive source of truth and has been used in that form for centuries [citation needed, but I don't remember where I read it].

This isn't just an instance of "not old enough", it's an instance of it not even being the same word, so I guess you just can't win this...

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Re:Highlights from Git 2.28 by romanoderoma on Tuesday July 28, 2020 @05:53AM (#23974062)

Yep

I made the same point here

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23970140

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