GitHub’s Silly Master Plan

The kids at GitHub have tested positive for Mad Woke Disease (MWD) – again!

The last outbreak was over codes of conduct this time it’s about naming Git repository master branches! If you’re wondering what’s a Git master branch and why infantile wokesters are acting out I envy you. Perhaps you should stop reading now. MWD is a pathetic mental illness. It robs sufferers of perspective and judgement and often induces inane bouts of vacuous virtue signaling.

Still here – you were warned – let’s dig into the tiresome technicalities.

GitHub is a major website that hosts tens of thousands of Git code repositories. Code repositories are specialized databases that track program component changes. The most commonly tracked components are source code files but other binary components like image files are also tracked. Code repositories make it possible for widely dispersed programmers to collaborate on large projects without irreversibly wreaking each other’s work. Hence, GitHub and it’s competitors, matter to software developers.

So what’s this master branch?

Program code evolves like living organisms and just like relationships between organisms are shown on “tree of life” diagrams program relationships are displayed on repository branch diagrams. Complex programs have pedigrees that look like inbred royal family trees.

If you look closely at the left side of the previous diagram you’ll notice that the line of green dots beside the inbreeding graphic is labeled “master”.

I know what you’re thinking. How did white supremacists infiltrate the woke thinking denizens of GitHub and embed racially loaded terms like “master” in code repositories? Obviously, wherever the word “master” occurs it’s referring to slavery and the brutal suppression of people of color¹ because words have only one meaning and context is always irrelevant. To atone for their terminological sins GitHub is planning to rename the “master” branch something currently innocuous like “main”.

With all the shit plugging global toilets why did GitHub’s plumbers choose this silly turd to flush?

The use of the word “master” is a longstanding Git convention. Unlike other branches the master branch cannot be renamed. This is a minor annoyance and I support efforts to allow other words but having a fixed name for the master branch has advantages. It simplifies automatic program builds as they don’t have to determine what the master branch is called today. If the master branch is forcibly renamed it will break thousands of builds all over the world. Think of it as a digital black lives matter riot.

Here are a few rhetorical questions:

• If the “master” branch is renamed “main” will it fix racism?

• Will renaming the master branch demonstrably improve a single black life?

• What will we call Chess Grandmasters²?

• Must we rename Masters Degrees to Main Degrees?

• What about the Master’s Golf Tournament?

• Or masterclasses?

And, it goes without saying, that we can never master anything, in the sense of high achievement, ever again because because it’s clearly woke racist³.

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1. “People of color” is woke but the transposition “colored people” is not! The improper use of word order or pronouns is now a capital offense. First time offenders will be let off with a Twitter beating but if you persist, like some nagging people of vagina, it’s straight to the burning pyre for you.↩︎

2. Contrary to widespread woke opinion “Grandmaster” is not a KKK rank.↩︎

3. Woke racism should not be confused with real racism.↩︎