Has Github/Microsoft rolled back the master to main switch?

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It's just a word at the end of the day. To me "main" is literally a shorter word that means the same thing in my brain. It could be "trunk" or "release" or whatever else you'd like. "master" makes some people uneasy, so it seems like a simple solution to pick a different word.

The development community talked, informally settled in main, and here we are. Anecdotally it took me more time to write this than to switch most of my projects over. I use GitHub actions and a simple find/replace for a word not otherwise commonly used was the ticket.

I really don't care what other people use at the end of the day. Discussing version control and branching strategies drains my life away. If it is difficult to switch, don't, but if you start a new repo it is worth thinking about for a moment.

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it's just a word

I don't care

you should think about using it in new repos

so which is it?

if it's just a word then it shouldn't matter if "master" is used.

if you don't care, then keeping "master" in use won't bother you.

why should I think about it? you said it doesn't matter and you don't care.

regardless, I'll keep using master because its a master record. not a trunk, not a main, and why would anyone call their branch a "release"? wouldn't that get confusing when you do actual releases or tagging?

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You seem like a delightful person to work with. I'm just saying be pragmatic and maybe try not to be a dick about it?

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Again, you’re conflating your own stubbornness with correctness and that just ain’t how it goes. Branch names are frivolous. So much so that changing the strategy or retargeting a branch one time shouldn’t be such a nightmare for your pipelines that you have to pretend like you’re the big dick on campus spouting accomplishments when someone mildly suggests there’s a mistake in your thinking. Look inward if you’re so upset by this that you have to make up irrelevant insults in a vague attempt to protect your own ego, then go fix your pipelines to make it easier to do for the next person after you’re gone.

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If something is common enough to be a standard it's a standard.

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And yet not everyone used to use master, so scripts kept breaking for no good reason.

Either make it a standard, or stop assuming it's a standard. De-facto isn't good enough.

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Having a magical standard fairy waive a wand isn't going to fix scripts, or stop them from breaking.

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It’s always eye raising when someone takes umbrage with using main over master.

Like … awfully weird hill to die on, you’re kind telling on yourself some.

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I am a horrible person to work with because I demand from others what I demand of myself.

if it takes me an average of 60 minutes to update each of my 73 repos, rules, and pipelines, and accounting for 25% more time in post pipeline issues; a "simple branch rename change" would cost me an estimated 92 hours of effort. just over 11 days of work.

is it worth the efforts? I think not. would my boss allow me to do it? not only would they not let me do it, they would laugh me out of the building and take my key card.

should I change how things are done from this day forward? let's ask a different way.

what harm could be done by segmenting standard pipeline configurations? new documentation would be needed, then maintained.

then the question becomes what's the best way to maintain two branching strategies? when new devs start, will they understand the nuances between strategy A vs B? what happens when they open PRs for main on a master repo?

so now...a simple name change becomes far FAR more complex when you look past the initial change request.

Also, I'm not a dick. I'm just pragmatic.

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What? If there's an actual standard, it will stop scripts from breaking, because the assumption that master is the main branch will always be true.

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I'm not confused but you seem to be. you were the one coming out swinging.

The only statement in your ridiculous rant that has any validity is that of your legacy pipeline configurations.

that was you, yes? you seemed mad. some advice, don't go pissing on people if you don't want to get pissed on.

if branch names are frivolous then why change them at all? why not keep it as master if it doesn't matter? you seem to be conflating two conflicting streams of thought, are you ok?

I'll show the math from another comment I posted just to show the true cost of a "simple change".

if it takes me an average of 60 minutes to update each of my 73 repos, rules, and pipelines, and accounting for 25% more time in post pipeline issues; a "simple branch rename change" would cost me an estimated 92 hours of effort. just over 11 days of work.

btw, that's dedicated work. no other projects get done in those hours.

then we have blowback. things like, updating documentation, training the rest of the team on using main over master, correctly attributing PRs to main over master, updating local scripts that may be referencing master, updating local repos that have master set as origin, etc...

how many hours will a company allot for tech debt? in theory, 10% of the sprint. in practice, 1%.

so now because of a "simple branch rename" we've reduced output, delayed delivery, increased error rates, increased confusion, increased stress. all for what?

a frivolous name of a branch, was it?

I think I'll keep master around. you want to lose your job because you want to waste your time, go for it!

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what exactly am I telling on myself with?

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I prefer main simply because it faster to type. I propose main branches be renamed to "m"

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I don't think that's a good idea it's not descriptive enough in my opinion.

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The posts you are replying to ha e been deleted. I'm really currious what they said because we have one vendor who claims to be/is locked into usung "master". This either requires us to write CI that merges main -> master and mirrors master back to main or use master. This can confuse junior devs once or twice, but it is really not an issue. The ONLY time I felt compelled to use master because of this vendor was when working with a group using GitLab. GitLab has a feature called Pull Mirroring that is MUCH more reliable than a pull/mirror action in GitHub that does the same thing, but to use that the branch names had to be the same.

I see both sides of this argument. The master/slave relationship in tech is NOT like masterworks or mastering a craft. It is based on one "owning" the other, but I don't think that allowing technology to work that way is violating its rights. Obviously changing the name doesn't change the behavior and isn't it really only when that behavior is applied to people that we have a problem with it?

I never fully supported the effort required to change, but I've also never written anything in a way it would be difficult to change. I recognize that it could be considered a micro aggression, but it's not like we are going to stop ants or bees from treating other classes as forced labor. Slavery exists. It is bad when applied to people. It accurately describes tech. Changing the name of the master db or branch did NOT free the slaves.

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I demand trunk because https://trunkbaseddevelopment.com/ is a great branching strategy guide that anyone should read. It also explains how to release code or fix it in a good way.

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It defaults to master if your account existed before the change I believe.

At least I had to manually change it.

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I'll find something else to screw up and cause it to break, don't worry.

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My main branch is called HEAD.

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master/slave relationship in tech

Wait, this is a thread about branch names in git. The "master" in question would be more akin to a "master recording" from music, not master/slave software or system architecture.

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Has Github/Microsoft rolled back the master to main switch?