Re:Thunderbird 91.0
by orangepanda on Thursday August 12, 2021 @05:33AM
(#28154059)
"Out of memory: Sacrificing child" does sound vaguely better than "Out of memory: Sacrificing slave"
It's actually a coincidence: see https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2020-June...
In the end it doesn't really matter once the word has gotten tainted. It's still ugly that incorrect deductions spread so quickly and corrections don't.
The master-slave terminology is used outside of CS as well. For example in EE we have master-slave edge-triggered D or JK flip-flops. I don’t feel strongly either way about such word use but I am fine with renaming them too. The fact that such change is so triggering to some people is strange!
It does make one wonder, if there was more diversity in CS when these things were being made whether "master-slave" analogies would have made it in or whether other analogies like "parent-child", "major-minor", "leader-follower" or similar would have made it in.
[0] https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2021/03/10/new-git-default-bra...