Black holes are how I remember which one is which. But I would rather not have to think about it.

I agree, if I was writing new software, I would probably use a more descriptive term if and where possible, e.g. blocklists instead of blacklists, it is a good practice to use descriptive names anyway.

I don't plan to edit and rename things within my existing software as it would add needless churn, risk, and the risk-benefit analysis just doesn't support it for me. Not saying that my analysis is the same for everyone else.

It seems we are using black for bad and white for good in English, which is strange since we had never used them before. Also, I feel like blocking and allowing makes sense when it comes to language, because bad and white mean the same. But when it comes to code, which the rest of the world uses black to mean bad and white to mean good, I don't know if that makes sense.

> we had never used them before

I think that language goes back eons. I think the black/white metaphor is employed in the book of Genesis/B'reshith for instance. People have been scared of the dark for more of human history than not. Nighttime is black, when things putrefy they turn black. Uncorrupted snow is white. The examples from nature are legion. What’s weird is using these terms for people.

Maybe the more sensible way to address the language issue is to stop calling people “black” and “white”. Why don’t we focus the scorching blast of social condemnation in that direction? The colors are silly classifications for people’s heredity or skin tone. Seems like the more elegant fix. Even today using the terms black and white can be “problematic” - some people don’t like being referred to as a black man by the wrong person, many white people consider “white boy” to be a racial epithet. So if we’re doing language surgery, let’s just ditch that part of the language and stop obsessing over the natural metaphors from time immemorial.

There was actually debate about this in the black activist community in the mid-late 60s. The more common term was 'negro' then, you can see it in earlier MLK writings, League of Negro Voters, etc. Stokely Carmichael was a leading voice in advocating for 'black'.

"According to a 1968 Newsweek poll, more than two-thirds of black Americans still preferred Negro, but black had become the majority preference by 1974." https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2010/octo...

The only comment in this entire thread that actually attacks the root of the problem and offers THE solution.

A nonsensical "racial" hierarchy based on nominal colours is the SOURCE of the problem.

For what it's worth, the labels "white" and "black" were NOT chosen randomly by the architects of racial hierarchy (see Bacon's rebellion).

It was a very effective use of symbolism, to assign and label one part of humanity as the untermensch, and thus justify their enslavement and exploitation.

Changing branch names and policing language is akin to bandaid on a festering wound.

I disagree with you on the light metaphor. Black things admit photons. White things reject photons.

Here's some more extensive reading from an earlier article when Maven did this: https://www.adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/no-more-inf...

The key bit:

> It reminded me of an iconic BBC interview with Muhammad Ali in 1971 where he recalled that all the positive things he grew up with were white, from White Cloud tissue paper to the White House, while all the negative things, from the bad luck of a black cat to the term blackmail, were black. Nearly 50 years later, that linguistic measuring stick is alive and well.

He's right. Lots of English therms equate black with bad and white with good. Blacklist and whitelist fit into that pattern, and changing it takes a small step in the other direction.

Blacklist's etymology isn't racist, but if black folks prefer that we use something else, and something as similar as blocklist is there and easy to use, it seems like an easy fix.

> Blacklist's etymology isn't racist, but if black folks prefer that we use something else, and something as similar as blocklist is there and easy to use, it seems like an easy fix.

Which black “folks” prefer the term “blocklist”? Black people are not a monolith. It seems like you’re just injecting an assumption of what certain people prefer.

Having been at now 3 different orgs implementing the [blacklist->blocklist, slave->replica, etc] routine, it’s always done for the same reason: the unquestionable brand of modern identity politics, diversity & inclusion, whatever you want to call it that is infecting pretty much every tech company (and indeed pretty much every company in general).

It’s an ideology that treats races as monolithic and only recognizes a certain set of opinions as valid. Racial blindness is implicit racism, we need to implement affirmative action policies over the dimensions of the 4-tuple (sexuality, cis/trans, rage, gender) - these are the types of beliefs they enforce.

I'm going to be blunt - these types of anecdotes are just plain stupid. It's people picking and choosing examples to support their desired narrative, and just ignoring anything that contradicts it. There are just as many "bad" things in English that are also white - white elephant, white ant, whitewash, white whale. Why didn't he mention those?

The colour comparisons are also dumb, because "black" skin is actually more like dark brown and "white" skin isn't white at all, unless you're albino or incredibly sick (which again, points to how stupid it is to make comparisons like "white==good").

> There are just as many "bad" things in English that are also white

Is that anywhere near true? I'm just guessing, but I'd be surprised if there are 10% as many.

No, of course not. Look at his list. A "white whale" is something you especially DO want. "White washing" is making something bad look good by covering it in white. A white elephant is something so precious that it's inconvenient. The only word on that list that makes a white thing actively bad is obscure Australian political slang: white ant.

Meanwhile, I can just go black sheep, black magic, black market, black mark, blackmail, black hand, blackball, black mood...

> A "white whale" is something you especially DO want. "White washing" is making something bad look good by covering it in white. A white elephant is something so precious that it's inconvenient. The only word on that list that makes a white thing actively bad is obscure Australian political slang: white ant.

The white whale was an aberration, a freak of nature (just like a black sheep). White-washing has indisputably negative connotations. A white elephant is something that is incredibly expensive but fails to deliver any value.

> Meanwhile, I can just go black sheep, black magic, black market, black mark, blackmail, black hand, blackball, black mood...

I can play this game all day, too. "White as a sheet", "deathly white", "bleed someone white", "wave a white flag", "white feather". But again, none of this has any relevance whatsoever because white people aren't literally white and black people aren't literally black. We know racism exists, you don't need to manufacture some supposed linguistic association to prove it.