this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2025
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[–] chonglibloodsport 20 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Yes exactly. It’s a reference to the recording industry’s practice of calling the final version of an album the “master” which gets sent for duplication.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's just not true. It originally came from Bitkeeper's terminology, which had a master branch and slave branches.

[–] chonglibloodsport 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not according to pasky, the git contributor who picked the names.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well, he doesn't seem so sure about it himself. From the same link:

(But as noted in a separate thread, it is possible it stems from bitkeeper's master/slave terminology. I hoped to do some historical research but health emergency in my family delayed that.)

[–] chonglibloodsport 3 points 1 day ago

He also said:

the impression words form in the reader is more important than their intent

He didn’t intend for the master/slave connotation. He intended for the recording master connotation. Either way, he regrets using the word master and he’s supportive of the change.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

In alignment with this, we should not replace the master branch with the main branch, we should replace it with the gold branch.

Every time a PR gets approval and it’s time to merge, I could declare that the code has “gone gold” and I am not doing that right now!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

Merged -> gone gold

Deployed -> gone platinum

Gone a week without crashing production -> triple platinum