back to article VMware to stop describing hardware as ‘male’ and ‘female’ in new terminology guide

VMware has joined the ranks of companies issuing style guides that remove discriminatory language – though it went further than some of its peers by addressing gendered terms for hardware and virtualization-specific language. A message about the IT giant's “Offensive Terminology Effort,” sighted by The Register, recommends …

  1. sanmigueelbeer Silver badge

    The company hopes that “she” and “he” will be replaced bythey them" or "it”.

    There, FTFY.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @sanmigueelbeer - That's a new low

      This is what I call side effect of human reproduction. Giving birth to children and raising them only to see them turning into this kind of individuals.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "It" is the n word equivalent pronoun. Shirley by now with all the advances in AI we should be asking computers what their preferred pronoun is?

      1. logicalextreme

        I'd hope an advanced intelligence would tell you to fuck off in response to that.

        1. tomachi

          I couldn't agree more. Also, I very much enjoy to 'killall', love the direct and immediate feeling 'abort' has over a pathetic 'stop' command or some such. I doubt the music industry will cease calling our cables male and female, after it very succintly describes whats going on.

      2. aqk
        Paris Hilton

        Sure!

        But.....

        Please don't call me "Shirley".

    3. NightFox

      Shirley 'them' would be the replacement for her/him: the replacement for she/he is 'they' as stated?

      1. Mike 137 Silver badge

        Who is Shirley? did you and the previous poster mean "surely"?

        1. Jimmy2Cows Silver badge
          1. This post has been deleted by its author

          2. logicalextreme

            Actually…silver badge, this may have been a tongue-in-cheek way of suggesting that the traditionally-female name "Shirley" needs to be replaced with the gender-neutral word "surely".

            1. EVP

              Wouldn't it become Themley, then?

              None of my* business, though. Except that this is soooo fcucked up this whole thing that my head starts to spin in CCW and will explode in 3 seconds. Beware of shrapnels!***

              *Ooops, I** used something else than them/their.

              **Oh nooo, again!

              ***Except you New Speak guys, you can ignore any shrapnels. No need to duck and cover. Honestly!

              1. Kernel

                So many personal pronouns in one short comment - lucky you're not an Auditor then, as we known what happens to them if they make that mistake.*

                * If you don't, then you need to spend some time perusing the works of Sir Pterry.

            2. Lunatic Looking For Asylum

              Give my greetings to the new brunette

              Shirley Crabtree ?

              Wikipedia has a page of Shirley's, admittedly there are more Shirley (F) than Shirley (M) but Shirley (M) is not that uncommon.

              John Wayne was a Marion.

              Point is, even with the new names, they are going to upset somebody somewhere - it's just that those they upset won't be the ones they are upsetting now.

              In a few years time, we will be having them change the stuff because we're all woke to Shirley's plight :-(

              1. jake Silver badge

                Re: Give my greetings to the new brunette

                Thank you, Karen.

                1. Lunatic Looking For Asylum

                  Re: Give my greetings to the new brunette

                  I forgot about Karen - have a beer - if that's your thing - if it offends your puritannical self, let me know and I'll drink it myself :-)

                  1. jake Silver badge
                    Pint

                    Re: Give my greetings to the new brunette

                    I am completely offended that you would think that beer offends me. I demand a full retraction (in triplicate) and an oath to never do it again delivered from the top of the Campanile in Berkeley while waving a rubber chicken. Or you could just have another beer (this last option is loads easier ... the Campanile's closed, because Covid).

            3. aqk
              Paris Hilton

              Shirley? A traditionally "female" name?

              Shirley was a male name until that annoying little Hollywood starlet appropriated it.

              Same thing with Vivian - the male equivalent of Vivienne.

              What next? "Charlie" becomes a girly name? "Bill"? "Steve"? "Ralph" ? "Chester"?

        2. Spacedinvader
          Stop

          You can't be serious, Shirley?

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          blimey, get a life, or go and look it up.

        4. eromana
          Boffin

          Mike137, I have no a clue either, judging from the responses we must be Mallory Valdemort, but Shirley and Ashley are probably some rightpondian for Alice and Bob.

          1. Wellyboot Silver badge
            Pint

            Shirley you jest.

            Ok, I'll bite.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmJiZ8VcfD4

        5. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          At least Shirley is gender neutral, as is Carol and Marion. Or did I just imagine that?

          1. aqk
            Facepalm

            Gender-neutral?

            Yep. You imagined that.

            "Carol" is the male version of "Carole". And "Marion' is MALE. The female is "Marianne".

            Got a problem with this, Pilgrim? Why don't you discuss it with the Duke? - His Hollywood stage name was "John Wayne".

        6. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Not a film buff?

          Obviously haven't seen "Airplane"!

    4. swm
    5. fidodogbreath

      Inny and outy?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Virtue-signalling wankery

    I'm getting pretty sick of all this virtue-signalling newspeak wankery.

    Funny, I made this precise comment on a Linux-related post a couple of weeks back...

    1. Steve Button Silver badge

      Re: Virtue-signalling wankery

      Totally. I mean "eviction" ? How is that offensive? Perhaps "mv" (move) could be changed to "rename" in Linux because last time I moved house I found it quite stressful. And it has the added bonus of putting us Linux beardos back in line with the correct Windows way of thinking.

      1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

        Re: Virtue-signalling wankery

        rename is often a perl script with behaviour very unlike mv.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Virtue-signalling wankery

          two letters or a half written novel per command... you know what actually. I'm offended by rename.

          Names are so goddam discriminatory. A name singles you out from a crowd. That's specificist.

          End.Names.Now. All Nouns in fact. Any label. Out!

        2. jake Silver badge

          Re: Virtue-signalling wankery

          rename is included in the Linux Kernel Organization's util-linux package. Might come in handy if you think that mucking about with perl is difficult for some reason.

      2. logicalextreme

        Re: Virtue-signalling wankery

        There's a joke about unpacking here somewhere.

      3. Paper

        Re: Virtue-signalling wankery

        Not to mention "memory leaks". Triggering to those suffering from dementia, at least for a moment!

    2. Steve Channell
      Facepalm

      Time to abend some terminology

      I once read an article in BYTE (decades ago) that described a C function that took void* parameters as a slut-interface.. there has always been terminology that was wrong.

      Kill and spawn always seemed a bit juvenile but banning "abort" is plain stupid (abortion is medically termination because we now know that a sperm is not a seed)..will signal terminate be banned?

      "class" is elitist, but we'll save that PK change for April-1st

      1. RM Myers
        FAIL

        Re: Time to abend some terminology

        When I worked in a hospital many, many moons ago, the medical term for a miscarriage was a spontaneous abortion, that is, the word abortion doesn't imply intent. I realize this is not the way most laypeople use the term. And yes, I live on the left side of pond.

        1. Yes Me Silver badge

          Re: Time to abend some terminology

          "I live on the left side of pond"

          That's not acceptable. "Left" is an insult to those who live on that side. Not as bad as "down under" of course.

          I suggest that in future all words be replaced by "blah". Blah blah blah BLAH!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Re: Virtue-signalling wankery

      I do hope these companies realise that rewriting all their documentation isn't a one-off expense, but just the first month's rent on a shiny new euphemism treadmill.

    4. Elledan

      Re: Virtue-signalling wankery

      I'm still waiting for someone to address the unashamed use of 'master' and 'slave' by the BDSM community, including literal master/mistress-slave play.

      That at least would seem to have some relevance to addressing the actual matter, instead of playing kick-the-IT-guy.

    5. SuccessCase

      Re: Virtue-signalling wankery

      I’ve noticed Sockets are terrible at driving. They have no spatial awareness whatsoever.

      1. Lunatic Looking For Asylum

        Re: Virtue-signalling wankery

        Get Impact sockets - they drive and undrive much better :-)

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_wrench#Impact_sockets_and_drivers

  3. Mark Exclamation

    I am totally offended by all their alternative words. They must change them immediately. We cannot have *anyone* offended!

    1. Phil Kingston

      Your use of an exclamation mark, Mark has sent me into an anxious panic. Cease.

      1. Natalie Gritpants Jr

        Your use of the word cease upsets me and reminds me of my deceased ancestors.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Childcatcher

          Your name is *pants and that sounds masculocentric. ... Natalie!

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            The word "address" offends me as it contains the word "dress", and as a sufferer of gender dysphoria, it brings up bad memories...

      2. Flywheel

        The entity known as mark really should have put a trigger warning at the start of that post.

        1. IGotOut Silver badge

          Please remove trigger, it gives me PTSD from having to watch reruns of Only Fools and Horses.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Please remove trigger, it gives me PTSD from having to watch reruns of Only Fools and Horses.

            Awright then, Dave ...

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            If you remove Trigger, how will Roy catch the bad socially underprivileged persons?

    2. Yes Me Silver badge
      Black Helicopters

      It's snowing outside

      You must be some sort of snowflake, except I'm no longer allowed to say "snowflake".

  4. aberglas

    You had better take these seriously

    If you work for those companies, and even if you do not.

    If someone does not like you, especially in HR, then letting them call you racist or sexist is giving them a free kick up your arse and possibly out the door.

    Google Damore Google Memo if you have any doubts.

    There is nothing nice about people making these changes. They are about power, the power to inflict change on others, and to root out non-conformists.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @aberglas - Re: You had better take these seriously

      This reminds me about the building of Communism in my native country about 75 years ago. I always wanted to believe this kind of scenario will remain buried in the past.

      1. Khaptain Silver badge

        Re: @aberglas - You had better take these seriously

        This is the coming of the NeoMarxists and we all know how well the Marxist countries are doing..

        I am seriously considering emigrating again in order to avoid the total clusterfuck that this is going to bring.

        1. Mike 137 Silver badge

          Re: @aberglas - You had better take these seriously

          They don't have to be Marxists. What we're dealing with is authoritarianism regardless of lateral positioning. It's a burgeoning force worldwide right now and it's darned dangerous - see this for example.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @Khaptain - Re: @aberglas - You had better take these seriously

          It is not the ideology that's coming back to haunt us. It's the use of the same weapons to bend the will of people. The politically correctness, demolishing the statues and erasing the past, use of a specific, approved vocabulary, direct threats to personal life of the non-compliant and so on. Add to this the required/imposed desire to show adherence by your own free will to the party line, this was very important.

          What troubles me now is that I can't pinpoint the origin and the final purpose of all this. In the past it was the propaganda bureau of the communist party that was planning and implementing all measures to build a new character, the communist person (in case you ask, it was gender-neutral like the use of comrade instead of Mr/Mrs). Those political servants had a face, a name and (don't laugh) they could be held accountable which forced them to obey some checks and balances.

          Back to the present, I wonder who's driving all this and where are we being taken ? What are the rules and guidelines, who's writing them ? If every herd has a leader, who's ours ?

          1. Khaptain Silver badge

            Re: @Khaptain - @aberglas - You had better take these seriously

            I believe that one of the unintentional driving forces is Social Media..

            There is a psychological effect that pushes the users to become evermore PC in order to portray themselves as being even more holier than though, this attracts attention, and "likes" and creates an infinite drive factor. Let's not forget who many o these people are, et's say that they are definately not the amongst the leaders of this world.... It doesn't take much to fuel a shitstorm on Social Media, a few well placed words aimed at the correct group...an bang...

            The tendency truly started in the 60s, it just wasn't very ingrained at the time. It grew slowly up until a point where Whiteness and Wokeness have become studies within universities and subsequently some of the those students have now entered the workforce where they are now practising their new Wokeness skills. It has become a skill by which one an bully others whilst retaining the moral high ground, ( this is actually false but it what they believe)

            At the end of the day it's the new found greed for power, governed by the ignorant and pushed and goaded further by the extreme left. The extreme left , Antifa etc have realised how useful this Wokeness crowd can be and have jumped onto the band wagon in order to use them as a driving force for their own Hard/Extreme Leftist agendas.

            Industry is scared of bad media attention and are therefore bowing down in front of our new Neo-Religious friends, this will be something that they will come to regret.

            And during all of this volatile period what improvements are we actually seeing for those that the White Knights are supposedly supporting, absolutely nothing... It's business as usual for those on ground level..

            ( Except for the very quiet few that now have access to 100s of millions of dollars in donations, strange how we don't hear about how those funds are "actually" being used).....

            It's my rant ...... I am happy either way, if you agree or if you don't....

            1. cshore

              Re: @Khaptain - @aberglas - You had better take these seriously

              'Tis a well-known phenomenon. Look up "group polarisation". Social media turbocharges this kind of thing...

            2. DWRandolph

              Re: @Khaptain - @aberglas - You had better take these seriously

              One of the many takes on this a few years ago was episode "Majority Rule" from The Orville. So easy for anonymous social media to spiral down into hate for anything "not my tribe".

              https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6845666/

          2. EVP

            Re: @Khaptain - @aberglas - You had better take these seriously

            ” What troubles me now is that I can't pinpoint the origin and the final purpose of all this. In”

            Shit*, what you say is both seriously interesting and scaring. It’s probably the lack of apparent origin that makes the whole phenomenon so disturbing. I cannot think of any other purpose than signalling one’s high moral grounds to the world. After a while, this signalling must be done by default, otherwise you are a racist, communist and thread to the whole mankind.

            Thanks!

            *Used to upset the conformists.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @aberglas - You had better take these seriously

          I'm still think Groucho is underrated.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @aberglas - You had better take these seriously

        "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime." -- Beria

        Somehow, I don't think they will revise this as a PC version:

        "Show me the person ...."

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @AC - Re: @aberglas - You had better take these seriously

          I don't speak Russian but in my native language, words "to show the man" speak nothing about the gender.

          And don't be so sure about revision:

          https://despair.com/collections/posters/products/idiocy

          1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

            Re: @AC - @aberglas - You had better take these seriously

            Russian is a language where you can't say you are having a friend round to dinner without disclosing the sex of the friend.

            With some truth, it has been said that grammar dictates what you cannot avoid saying, rather than what you can say.

            1. TRT Silver badge

              Re: @AC - @aberglas - You had better take these seriously

              Whereas in English, if you say you are having a friend around for dinner, it discloses

              your social class.

              1. Wellyboot Silver badge
                Coat

                Re: @AC - @aberglas - You had better take these seriously

                Or your name is Hannibal

                The one with the cage...

                1. TRT Silver badge

                  Re: @AC - @aberglas - You had better take these seriously

                  Obligatory video clip

    2. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
      WTF?

      Re: You had better take these seriously

      I have *never* seen HR in my EE lab.

      And I will continue to refer to contacts as male and female. Because you can easily have a female contact in a plug and a male contact in the corresponding socket.

      CSB: I once worked with a very attractive and highly competent female EE. We were in the lab, and she confided that she could never keep the male and female thing straight. Long pause, while I considered the consequences of my possible answers. I wish I remembered what I finally said, but I think it was something along the lines of "the male contact is the pin and the female one is the receptacle".

      She left us, alas, and I last heard she had moved into sales. Pity, because she was an absolute natural EE, and a genuinely nice person.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. Dunstan Vavasour

      Re: You had better take these seriously

      ^

      |

      This.

      It's about power, about weilding that power and about subjugating those who don't comply. Get the big lie over in the title: "Inclusive Language" is about excluding those who won't play. We have devised Big Brother outside the state: we have Newspeak, we have thought police and we see groups engaged in the two minutes' hate, directed at the bête noire (oops) of the day.

      Sometimes it seems like a parlour game ("Am I still allowed to say <insert word or phrase>") until the mob turns nasty, and you are deemed an enemy of tolerance. And unless it is constantly pushed back against, they advance through their own constant micro-aggressions.

  5. Phil Kingston

    Yeah, good luck going through all code, manuals, KBs, training materials etc and changing those.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Phil Kingston - Those people are hell bent

      on imposing their vision, either you want to accept it or not.

    2. jake Silver badge

      It gets better ...

      .... Presumably, their new rules force them to not translate their documentation into any language that mandates grammatical gender. That's roughly a quarter of all human languages. They will also no longer be doing business in any country that uses such languages. That would include most of Europe.

      Or, more likely, none of the above will happen, because VMware is run by a bunch of hypocrites looking to score brownie points with North American hand-wringer and namby-pamby loudmouths, who seem to get off on being offended on the behalf of others and enjoy forcing everybody else to march in lock-step with their self-imposed offendedness.

      Only English will be singled out for this mistreatment, and only English speakers will be harassed for using the language as she is spoke.. What do you call harassing someone based purely on the language he speaks?

      Giving in to crybabys throwing a tantrum only reinforces the notion that tantrums work. It's basic animal training, innit. Well done, VMware, well done. Fucking idiots.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    While we're on the subject…

    … what does one call the part of the internet with the drug dealers and bomb manuals in now? The lowlit web?

    1. AndrewCappo

      Re: While we're on the subject…

      the dork web

    2. Frederic Bloggs

      Re: While we're on the subject…

      The "Dim Web"?

      1. Lunatic Looking For Asylum

        Re: While we're on the subject…

        I don't suppose we can call it the black market anymore - or the black economy either for that matter.

        And those naughty people can't be blaggards either.

    3. jason_derp

      Re: While we're on the subject…

      "… what does one call the part of the internet with the drug dealers and bomb manuals in now? The lowlit web?"

      I call it home.

  7. jake Silver badge

    Last time I checked ...

    ... the terms "kill" and "abort" have two different technical meanings. Yet we are supposed to replace them both with a single word, "stop", which already has a third meaning entirely?

    Now THAT will go a long way to make things better, won't it ... Fucking dumbasses.

    1. alain williams Silver badge

      Re: Last time I checked ...

      If something is stopped then I expect to be able to restart it. I do not expect that if it is killed.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Gimp

        Re: Last time I checked ...

        # killall -KILL

        ... is terminally fatal

        # killall -HUP

        ... isn't

        # killall -WINCH

        ... is taking the piss.

        1. Dunstan Vavasour

          Re: Last time I checked ...

          Will I still be allowed to use kill -9 ?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Linux

            Re: Last time I checked ...

            -9 is SIGKILL. See the output of kill -l. According to my laptop, there are 64 signals but 32 and 33 are missing. I have no idea what SIGWINCH does but I already have several rabbit holes to explore ...

    2. 45RPM Silver badge

      Re: Last time I checked ...

      They could use ‘Stop’ and ‘Terminate’ I suppose.

      1. Joe W Silver badge
        Gimp

        Re: Last time I checked ...

        Ter-mi-nate

        I welcome our Dalek overlords...

        (yeah, the general idea is maybe not bad, well intentions et c. - but we know about those - and it's not really thought through)

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Last time I checked ...

        How about euthanize, unless the Germans have a longer word for it. (let me google that) yep: einschläfern

        good luck typing that new command on a non-german keyboard you fucking fuckers.

        I'm going to log into RedHat's Bugzilla and demand that they get rid of root because its a slang word for penis. Fuck the fucking fuckers.

        Then I'll demand they get rid of /var/log because log is a slang for shit. Again, fuck the fucking fuckers.

        Then I'll demand that they stop using binary because that relates to male/female and we can't offend the non-binaries...

        When will it fucking end? Will we have to stop calling them PCs because PC isn't PC?

        Bye bye troubleshooting, because that promotes violence.

        1. Korev Silver badge

          Re: Last time I checked ...

          How about euthanize[sic], unless the Germans have a longer word for it. (let me google that) yep: einschläfern

          good luck typing that new command on a non-german keyboard you fucking fuckers.

          It's easy on a Mac, you just press the key down for a bit and then you can press the number matching the àçčêñt you want...

          1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

            Re: typing accents

            In Linux you have to find what key has the compose function (or select a key to have that function). Once you know þé pr¤blæṁ iß ŝœłvẽđ.

          2. EVP

            Re: Last time I checked ...

            ”matching the àçčêñt you want...”

            Can’t help it, but your ’àçčêñt’ makes me to imagine that ’accent’ went to places it should not have gone and managed to catch gonorrhoea.

        2. donk1

          Re: Last time I checked ...

          So log mean sh*t?

          You going to "log into RedHat's Bugzilla"?

          So that means you are going to "sj*t into RedHat's Bugzilla"?? Er how? Ewwww!

    3. AndrewCappo

      Re: Last time I checked ...

      with all due respect, Jake, what are you even nattering about?

      the REAL injury is the usage of Stop instead of the clearly more fun word, Halt.

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: Last time I checked ...

        END is shorter and saves a byte. Useful for those of us who still code in assembler :-)

        Oh, SHIT! I said ASS! No doubt I'll get ostracized and banned from ever being hired by VMware. Fuck me. Whatever will I do.

        1. PerlyKing
          Joke

          Re: Whatever will I do

          Move to Scunthorpe?

          1. rtharrison

            Re: Whatever will I do

            ...or Clitheroe, or Penistone.

        2. This post has been deleted by its author

        3. jason_derp
          Meh

          Re: Last time I checked ...

          "No doubt I'll get ostracized and banned from ever being hired by VMware."

          Definitely the only reason though.

      2. TRT Silver badge

        Re: Last time I checked ...

        I prefer replacing all the negative words with a more positive outlook. Init 0, for example.

      3. harmjschoonhoven

        Re: Last time I checked ...

        the REAL injury is the usage of Stop instead of the clearly more fun word, Halt halt. FTFY

        1. Lunatic Looking For Asylum

          Re: Last time I checked ...

          Careful - you may offend case' sensitivities...

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Last time I checked ...

      > Yet we are supposed to replace them both with a single word [ ... ]

      Calm down. No-one is forcing you to replace anything. VMWare is throwing a tantrum over some certain specific words. You're throwing a counter-tantrum over VMWare's original tantrum. I'm not sure that an impartial observer can tell the difference between the two.

      - abort(3C) is in the Standard C Library.

      - kill(2) is in POSIX.1-1998

      - Most of the common commands in /usr/bin are either in the Single Unix Specification, or in POSIX.

      So, none of these can be renamed. Commercial UNIX can't rename them because they'd no longer be SUS Compliant. Linux won't rename them because Linux is mostly SUS/POSIX compliant - they just don't care about getting an official certification.

      There's also the practical aspect of breaking every single program or shell script ever written.

      Just because someone at VMWare lives in a fantasy-land it doesn't mean that whatever newspeak directive they wrote is going to become reality anytime soon. Or ever. VMWare doesn't even write or publish an operating system to begin with.

      1. mego

        Re: Last time I checked ...

        "can't rename them because they'd no longer be SUS Compliant"

        You think the idiots that make these demands care? To them the compliance requirement is the problem, and they're hell-bent on making the change. If Canada can make laws forcing compliance on gender pronounces, you can bet these people can and will change or outright challenge the compliance itself.

        The moment you hear "be kind" or "common sense", exit the area with all possible haste. It's about to become a massacre.

        This is literally a case of terrorism.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Devil

          Re: Last time I checked ...

          > This is literally a case of terrorism.

          WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

          Could we please get the totally over-the-top version now? Sometimes being so understated and measured gets in the way of getting your point across.

          1. mego

            Re: Last time I checked ...

            Ironically, this is now happening...

      2. jake Silver badge

        Re: Last time I checked ...

        First they came for kill and Abort in VWware, and I did not speak out ...

        ... Because I was not using VMware.

      3. jake Silver badge

        Re: Last time I checked ...

        Neither myself, nor VMware is throwing a tantrum.

        I am merely voicing an opinion.

        VMware, however, is responding to the tantrum throwers (who remain anonymous, imagine that!) by forcing the quite subjective, and some would say capricious, moral objections of the tantrum throwers on the rest of us.

        In the words of many before me, Fuck That.

      4. stiine Silver badge

        Re: Last time I checked ...

        You are too naive...

      5. rnturn

        Re: Last time I checked ...

        ``There's also the practical aspect of breaking every single program or shell script ever written.''

        Think Y2K was a hugely expensive disruption to businesses? Wait until someone tries to force this to be done... to every piece of software running the Internet. And you just know that some people will make it their life's work to track down every piece of "non-compliant" software.

  8. Keythong
    Facepalm

    This PC subversion only idiotically makes things harder and more confusing for competent people

    Plugs/jacks and sockets are not interchangeable with male and female for connectors e.g. IEC, Kettle, clover, '8' mains connectors, have plugs with recessed (female) power contacts to prevent mains shock from a live lead, before plugging it in a (male) socket on the equipment to be powered.

    This is yet more deliberate and progressive sabotage of the fundamental "like-a"/analogy conceptual part language, which hobbles language and the ability to as easily communicate, this behaviour is the same as warned of in the fiction book "1984" by George Orwell.

    1. Mr Dogshit

      Re: This PC subversion only idiotically makes things harder and more confusing for competent people

      Are you suggesting that two male connectors (or indeed two female connectors) should not be allowed to mate? Despicable.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This PC subversion only idiotically makes things harder and more confusing for competent people

        Absolutely not: for that, there are "lesbo adapters"

        1. TRT Silver badge

          Re: This PC subversion only idiotically makes things harder and more confusing for competent people

          I did get a funny look the other day when someone presented me with serial cable connector incompatibility issue and I said that I was sure I had a gender bender somewhere under the desk.

        2. swm

          Re: This PC subversion only idiotically makes things harder and more confusing for competent people

          Absolutely not: for that, there are "lesbo adapters"

          There are hermaphroditic connectors.

          1. TRT Silver badge

            Re: This PC subversion only idiotically makes things harder and more confusing for competent people

            Those would be port savers.

        3. Lunatic Looking For Asylum

          Re: This PC subversion only idiotically makes things harder and more confusing for competent people

          We could always steal 'bastard' from engineering. If we can't think of a nice friendly name for something we can just call them bastards. So we have a bastard mating with a bastard, or a bastard calling a bastard.

          That should clear up all confusion :-)

    2. Wade Burchette
      Childcatcher

      Re: This PC subversion only idiotically makes things harder and more confusing for competent people

      We have to change the name of adapters, and fast. Putting a male adapter into a female adapter is akin to rape because the female adapter has no choice but to accept any male adapter that the master chooses to insert. We must change the names of these adapters otherwise people would think of the exploitation of women! I propose we change the name of the male adapter to "outie" and the name of the female adapter to "innie".

      1. Voltaire Voltaire

        Re: This PC subversion only idiotically makes things harder and more confusing for competent people

        Seriously?

        Using the word ‘rape’ as though it’s a figure of fun?

        I’m scrolled through these comments and I’m appalled at some of the posts. I haven’t noticed many readers, that have called these types of comments out.

        VMWare is at least attempting to correct some horrendous terminology. Whether I am personally bothered by the current terms used, is beside the point. Some obviously are. And I doubt the ones that are offended, are going to come on this website just to say this. Given, my guess is that the majority of the readership here is probably white and male. In fact, I would go further and state, this exactly why the terminology should be looked at and replaced. In 20 years time, the substituted vocabulary will become the norm. I’m sure then you can all remiss how in the good old days, it was so much better.

        Get a grip guys. And stop trying to make a joke out of horrible ordeals, like rape.

        1. Khaptain Silver badge

          Re: This PC subversion only idiotically makes things harder and more confusing for competent people

          @Voltaire Voltaire

          It appears as though you have been bitten by the Wokeness Mosquito.

          Here is a little quote that might provide you with some thought for the day

          Frederic Wilhelm Nietzsche :

          "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."

        2. jake Silver badge

          Re: This PC subversion only idiotically makes things harder and more confusing for competent people

          First of all, I agree that the rape simile is completely unwarranted. That kind of so-called "humo(u)r" has no place in this conversation. Knock it off, all y'all. We're better than that.

          However ...

          "some horrendous terminology."

          That word "horrendous", I do not think it means what you think it means. Unless you were going for horrendous hyperbole, of course.

          "Whether I am personally bothered by the current terms used, is beside the point. Some obviously are."

          Translation: I personally don't give a fuck, but I can't help but put my tuppence worth in anyway, because I'm a natural-born busy body.

          "And I doubt the ones that are offended, are going to come on this website just to say this."

          Translation: The poor, downtrodden, persecuted people need MY super-human powers to correct this obviously horrible state of affairs that I already mentioned I don't really give a fuck about.

          "Given, my guess is that the majority of the readership here is probably white and male."

          Translation: All white men should be taken out behind the barn and shot.

          One can be a part of the repair, or one can be a part of the problem. You, sir or madam, are a part of the problem.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @Voltaire Voltaire - Re: This PC subversion only idiotically makes things harder...

          So it really bothers you that I am a white male ? What am I supposed to do, put on a black face ? Give up my genitals ? Aren't you a little bit intolerant ? Oh, and bringing the word rape into this discussion is lame.

        4. Rattus

          Re: This PC subversion only idiotically makes things harder and more confusing for competent people

          +1

          well said

          To everyone else, please stop and think for a moment.

          I recognise that there is a lot of humour and mickey take going on in here, but please consider how what you say may affect others before you say it.

    3. My other car WAS an IAV Stryker

      Re: This PC subversion only idiotically makes things harder and more confusing for competent people

      I'm currently doing some RF analysis with mainly N-type cable interconnects.

      I was just thinking yesterday how what is usually called a jack/receptacle ("female" socket contact) has outer ("male") threads like a bolt, and the plug ("male" pin contact) has the inner ("female") threads like a nut (often with a hex-shaped body for wrenching, also like said nuts). Thus, both ends are, in a sense, bisexual, but still in opposing ways.

      Thinking larger, the whole socket/outer-thread vs. pin/inner-thread is pretty common across not just RF (TNC, SMA), but other US Mil-spec connectors, including threaded, bayonet, and reverse-bayonet. Must be because it technically is a good system or something, despite the (perceived) language difficulties.

  9. stiine Silver badge
    Facepalm

    I use type-N connectors

    The those jackasses have a new term for those?

    1. Fred Dibnah
      WTF?

      Re: I use type-N connectors

      Male or female N-type? Plug or socket? :-)

      If we stop using the male/female analogy for connectors, I predict the volume of returns to parts suppliers is going to rocket. It's bad enough already: this is a current listing title on a popular tat bazaar: 'SMA-N adapter connector RP-SMA Female (male pin) to N Type Jack straight'

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. stiine Silver badge

        Re: I use type-N connectors

        FYI, type-N connectors are all of one design. Also, not only is there no male/female, there's no right-side-up/up-side-down.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    Good luck removing 'abort' from Unixes everywhere...

    Sigh.

    1. Macha Morrigan

      Re: Good luck removing 'abort' from Unixes everywhere...

      One Unix. Several Unices. Shirley?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    So sad

    VMware have gone way beyond the desire to use more inclusive language and have given free rein to idiots who think technical terms are just easily replaced words. 'Where will it end?' we all ask, knowing that the answer is 'Never', or not until constraints on expression (and therefore on thought) are so limiting that the ability of people to develop anything even remotely sophisticated has been so reduced as to end meaningful progress.

    I've been around a long time and seen this industry rise from simple beginnings to really amazing (compared to 50 years ago) technology. It is so sad to see it in its terminal decline.

    1. My other car WAS an IAV Stryker

      Re: So sad

      I just wrote another post, and realized I used the following words (which I call the Offensive Language Analysis):

      "Nut" - slang for private body parts

      "bayonet" - implies violence/warfare

      "hex" - implies witchcraft

      "witch" (line above, not the other post) - brings up negative stereotypes and discriminatory to women...

      And I came to the same conclusion as you: If we start policing language as closely as many companies now desire, there is no end to the hole of "'X' reminds me of [completely unrelated non-technical meaning/association] and offends me." The only end to that path is to ban the dictionary and use Orwell's Newspeak because there will be nothing left.

  12. StewartWhite
    Joke

    Surely replacing female with jack should be unacceptable to these morons as Jack is a male name?

    1. Dave K

      Unless short for Jacqueline?

      Not saying I don't agree however, it is getting rather silly now...

    2. cornetman Silver badge

      It might be a familiar term more commonly used in the US, but I'm not sure that many other people would understand "jack" to be equivalent to "female". I have certainly come across the term ("jacking" in) but it would be singularly unhelpful to me in this respect. It also sounds distinctly slangy.

      1. Fred Dibnah

        Jacking off is a leisure activity for males.

    3. EVP

      I believe you should say ”... as Jack is a _plug_ name”

      1. Teiwaz

        I believe you should say ”... as Jack is a _plug_ name”

        Can we call the socket for a Jack, a Jill then?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          > Can we call the socket for a Jack, a Jill then?

          Box. As in Jack-in-the-Box.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      J*** off?

  13. This post has been deleted by its author

  14. AlJahom

    This was inevitable

    For quite a few years now, VMware has been under the control of people who gargle their own balls.

    Corporate Cancer by Vox Day will provide the diagnosis and the cure.

    It's almost as if vSphere 4 got done, and then everyone with real engineering genius buggered off to do something else, leaving behind only the marketing douchebags who set about making sure each new VMware product (a) solved the problems created by the last version and (b) invented a whole new load of problems to be solved by the next version.

    The whole VMware organisation could have drawn a line and gone home 7 or 8 years ago. Everything since has been total nonsense.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Pint

      Re: This was inevitable

      "...VMware has been under the control of people who gargle their own balls..."

      Presumably they'd have to be virtual balls as access to the physical hardware in this way would be somewhat challenging.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This was inevitable

        Maximum Delfango,

        ""...VMware has been under the control of people who gargle their own balls..."

        Presumably they'd have to be virtual balls as access to the physical hardware in this way would be somewhat challenging."

        Not so sure ...... Never doubt what true dedication and intent can do !!! :)

        [It is not confirmed that 'removal' was *not* involved !!!]

        Mind Bleach is available from the same store selling COVID Cures ...... FYI :)

  15. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

    More sarcasm

    I used to toss an executive decision maker to select between "he" and "she" for example people. I did not realise how sexist coins are, with the sides named heads and tails. I will switch to flipping reversi disks until coins have been reissued with pictures that prevent turning women into sex objects. Alice and Bob are clearly problematic but behindthename.com tells me that Abimbola and Balwinder are suitably gender ambiguous. Charlie can become Chikumbutso.

    Restrict should be fun as it is a key word in C. The good news is that transforming a ghetto into a slum does not show any collisions (checked with grep slum -r /usr/include ). For taint, how about miscegenate? Good people fought wars to make that legal.

    1. PerlyKing
      Alert

      Re: Reversi disks

      I hope you're not planning on using racist Reversi disks which are black on one side and white on the other!

  16. You aint sin me, roit
    Trollface

    White board good, black board bad?

    What kind of example is that to set for the children?

    1. mego

      Re: White board good, black board bad?

      Exactly.

      1. Teiwaz

        Re: White board good, black board bad?

        IME:

        Black board, chalky,

        White board, ruined by use of permanent marker by some numpty.

        1. GrumpenKraut
          Megaphone

          Re: White board good, black board bad?

          > White board, ruined by use of permanent marker by some numpty.

          Blame the fuckers who leave permanent markers right under the white board. I recall three occasions where this happened to me. By now a check all markers every time and move the permanents as far away as possible.

  17. Shady

    Kill the orphans!

    I once wrote a method that tracked and removed orphaned workflow tasks.

    Understandably, I called it KillAllTheOrphans()

    I was mildly annoyed when the local Code Nazi renamed it in a later commit to TidyWorkflow()

    1. GrumpenKraut
      Pirate

      Re: Kill the orphans!

      He replaced a name that said exactly what is done by something that is unclear to say the least. I'd have killed him. Twice, just to be sure.

      1. DavCrav

        Re: Kill the orphans!

        "I'd have killed him."

        You mean you would have tidied him, surely.

        1. TRT Silver badge

          Re: Kill the orphans!

          Linguistic positivism, please. You'd have initiated a life-functional state of zero.

    2. donk1

      Re: Kill the orphans!

      I once wrote some code with the comment

      /* If Child does not respond kill it */

      If kill is replaced by stop how does that work SIGKILL vs SIGSTOP becomes SIGSTOP vs SIGSTOP??

  18. Anonymal coward

    Purity Spiral

    See here: https://unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a-purity-spiral/

    1. GrumpenKraut

      Re: Purity Spiral

      Holy fuck, that is a worthwhile read.

      Interesting line (near end) of the article: " ... you can pretend to be socialising the private realm, when in effect you’re privatising the social realm for your own status gain."

    2. jelabarre59

      Re: Purity Spiral

      Reminds me of the Babylon5 episode "Infection". There was a world where the religious and military extremists created a bioweapon to kill anything not a "pure Ikarran". But being based on extremist ideals, it ends up wiping out the entire Ikarran population as well. https://babylon5.fandom.com/wiki/Infection

      I just look forward to these people to get their own personal Robespierre Moment

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Re: Purity Spiral

      Thanks for the link. I had previously read about the knitting world's troubles and it was pleasing to see that one of its victims, who had been pushed to a near suicidal nervous breakdown had recovered enough to rebuild his lost business.

      Nice to see that the gits don't always win

    4. Graham 32

      Re: Purity Spiral

      Some good points there but... wow that's a hard read. To pick one example: "A purity spiral propagates itself through the tipping points of preference falsification". It's as if the author is trying to show off their prog rock lyric writing skills. Probably a fan of Fish-era Marillion.

  19. Arthur the cat Silver badge

    Taint

    Obviously t'aint is too negative and we should use t'is.

  20. mrfill
    Unhappy

    Disappointed...

    I was hoping that, to remove the offending 'male' and 'female' descriptions, the words 'penis' and 'vagina' would be used instead.

  21. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
    Joke

    Bugger. Just got a memo from HR

    "Please stop executing binaries".

  22. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

    Does this mean ...

    ... they will be bringing back the Boy George connector?

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lets hope...

    that the internet trolls don't decide to pick on common terms to elevate onto the naughty list like they did with the OK symbol...

  24. HTDutchy
    Flame

    Only our AI overlords will gain from this.

    Taking the thesaurus and burning it, going trough every word in the dictionary to remove any secondary meaning is NOT the answer.

    Better start getting used to reading everything like Thing Explainer because we're only gonna end up with 1000 acceptable words for daily use outside of the ancient history departments of universities.

    AI's will now finally be able to understand us as there is no possible way that we could mean something else that isn't bad.

    All tech Q&A sites will be marked as terrorist organizations because they are constantly talking about mass murder and how to execu... perform it.

    Any time from now on that someone mentions a slave it's definitely about the horrible practices we did decades ago (and some might still do today) and definitely not my sweet little python subprocess that has to shoot itself in the foot when I ask it to because I made a typo.

    I furiously hate where this is going, I get that words can have bad meanings but that's what context is for.

    Obviously some words only have one terrible meaning and I'm sensitive enough to not bind 'holocaust' to 'killall5 -9'.

    But I'm not gonna let anyone take away my 'fuck' command for correcting typo's

  25. jelabarre59

    Meanwhile in China

    And in a similar story, the Chinese Communist Party has declared new terminology for source code to use from now on:

    "kill" is to be replaced with "falun-gong"

    "Abort" is to be replaced with "uyighur"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @jelabarre59 - Re: Meanwhile in China

      and Hong Kong with Opium Wars

  26. Somewhere8867

    Here we go

    Well if thats the case we need to stop using the extention. EXE because it execute and that is another term for kill,

    And .COM because its unfair to command something

    Dont use terms such as hard and floppy drive and penetrate as they can be interpreted in a sexual manner,

    Dont use the term drone as it implys a slave,

    Dont use term slave and master drive

    This is a load of bs

    1. Adrian 4

      Re: Here we go

      Nice idea. I frankly don't care much about whether I use 'master' and 'slave'. If it truly hurts someone I'm happy to stop. If it's just being offended on behalf of someone who isn't offended I'm less impressed.

      The problem is, 'master' and 'slave' describe an architecture. If those aren't acceptable any more, we need a new euphemism for 'entity that gives orders' and 'entity that obeys orders'. It's the nature of euphemisms to propagate offensiveness downstream, so I don't see that they help much.

      But on the offchance that a change of words rather than concept makes everybody happy, I really like the idea of calling workers drones. And by extension, the supervisor should be called Queen. There's a certain amount of karma in the replacement for master being female.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Here we go

      I thought it was short for communist....

      Well you learn something every day.......

  27. gnasher729 Silver badge

    In 1987 or so we sold some software to an American company. Among many other things it had a command "Abort" which would stop an ongoing operation. We were asked to change the name of the command to something different. We may have used "Stop". Not "Cancel", because it was MacOS software and by definition "Cancel" should act as if the operation had never happened - you can't "Cancel" a 100 page printout once the first page is printed. Not "Interrupt" because "Interrupt" means that you can continue the operation.

    1. jake Silver badge

      A Yank perspective.

      In the mid-late '80s I was a Yank working in a Yank company. Our software had an Abort command, and another Yank company asked us to change the name. We told them to fuck off.

      No, really, our CEO called their CEO and asked if they were kidding about renaming abort. Their CEO indicated they were serious. Our CEO told him to fuck off. In those words. Their CEO sputtered and blustered. Our CEO asked him what part of "fuck off" did he misunderstand? Theirs sputtered and blustered some more. Our CEO laughed at him. Theirs finally hung up. Ours said "I was wondering how long I could keep the shithead on the line." Best conference call I ever sat in on :-)

      1. zankai

        Re: A Yank perspective.

        Instead of being offended like a child, grow up. You're worse than outrage culture, because you're incoherent. I have better things to care about tbh; not sure what you're problem is, heh.

        1. jake Silver badge

          Re: A Yank perspective.

          Me? Offended? About something that happened ~35 years ago? Hardly. The word you were looking for is "amused".

          Incoherent? Are you sure that word means what you think it means? You seem to be having troubles with English words. Perhaps English is your second language? If so, stick around. We can use differing perspectives.

          If you have better things to do with you time, why did you take the time to create an ElReg account just to make this post, and one other similar post?

          That should be "Not sure what your problem is." The word your is a possessive case of you, used as an attributive adjective, while you're is a contraction meaning "you are".

          Hope this helps your ongoing English studies, and that you're having a good day.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Abandon instead of abort?

      1. razorfishsl

        it means EVERY GUI that uses such terms will need to be checked and re-spaced.....

  28. katrinab Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Stop could be confusing

    Does it mean

    'Please send the "poweroff" or "shutdown /p" command to the guest operating system and wait for it to do its thing'

    or:

    'Do the equivalent of removing power from the machine (in a machine that doesn't have a battery)'

  29. mego

    Oh yeah...

    Lets stop celebrating our differences and just become homogeneous blobs that aren't male, female, Indian, English, etc. - I'm sure that's healthy. Cthulhu's sake, this is going beyond stupid into the insane.

  30. dc_m

    Has anybody else realised that plugs or sockets, either male or female do not have feelings, therefore they cannot be offended?

    This is getting silly now

    1. short

      Hah, there's already electronics embedded in some cables, and I'm currently working on more. In a decade or so, most cables will have an attitude. Think Talky Toaster, but with the inherent annoyance of trying to rotate a USB cable three times widdershins while hoping your coupling license is up to date.

      Oh, how I relish the future.

      Just think, cables that can count insertion cycles, Super. Doubly so if they know the date.

  31. IGotOut Silver badge

    I find it offensive...

    ...that we are forced to use (American) English in programming. I demand that all programming is availble in all written languages and are fully interchangable, depending on personal preferences.

    1. jelabarre59

      Re: I find it offensive...

      ...that we are forced to use (American) English in programming. I demand that all programming is availble in all written languages and are fully interchangable, depending on personal preferences.

      We need to re-write all source code in some form of hypertext unicode, so it can be dynamically re-rendered to the particular preferences of the person coding or reading it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I find it offensive...

        > We need to re-write all source code in some form of hypertext unicode, so it can be dynamically re-rendered to the particular preferences of the person coding or reading it.

        I refer you to AppleScript which (at one time) was multi-lingual - meaning that I could write in French but you would see it in English. Sadly Apple abandoned that feature a few years back, before more or less abandoning AppleScript altogether. :-(

    2. alexlawriewood

      Re: I find it offensive...

      I was surprised to find that Excel does exactly this with its function names. My girlfriend's (Belgian Dutch) version of Office calls 'ERFC.PRECISE' 'FOUT.COMPLEMENT.NAUWKEURIG', for example.

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    replacing “kill” with “stop”

    as in: our drone strike stopped the terrorists. Dead.

  33. Claverhouse Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Wokesters Gotta Woke

    Is 'Prats' OK ?

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Insulting and patronising

    Don't they realise how patronising and insulting this is to black people?

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    My proposal:

    Let's call our dicks and cunts "plug" and "socket" from now on.

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Re: My proposal:

      Hinge and Bracket?

  36. dovla091

    True clown world

    Well come to the future, welcome to the clown world

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Back in the day when we used rs-232 cables with various combinations of plugs, sockets and crossovers in the connections we had completely understandable terminology for the various types of cable so it wasn't unusual to ask in a loud voice if anyone had a "twisted female gender bender" that you could use ... I assume its lucky we don't have much use for RS-232 any more!

    1. Dwarf

      What will the snowflakes make of this ?

      I've got a 9 way gender bender - male to male and female to female, although they have not been used in years and are probably quite tight now. It will probably need a good wiggle to get it in and out until it loosens up.

      I've even got a 25 way gender bender in both male to make and female to female. If you are lucky, there are no bent pins.

      Perhaps they should get out more and stop trying to over-think things and making things up as they have boring lives.

      Personally, I'm just laughing at this BS and saying nope, I'm still going to call things by their proper names as its embedded after decades and won't change any time soon. If they don't like it then tough, there are bigger issues to worry about in the world..

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: What will the snowflakes make of this ?

        > If you are lucky, there are no bent pins.

        Nor drooping.

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I really need to grow up

    Proposed dating website names 2021

    "PlugandSocket" - romance

    "JackandPlug" -

    "SocketKernels" -

    "ShamelessPlug" - casual hookups

    "BakeliteSockets" - Over 50s

  39. harmjschoonhoven

    VMware

    War is peace

    Freedom is slavery

    Ignorance is strength

    1. Wellyboot Silver badge
      Big Brother

      Re: VMware

      Plusgood citizen, Victory at 19 o'clock?

  40. razorfishsl

    Gosh... how very WOKE of them......

    We will be cutting the pins of plugs soon becasue they are forcefully penetrating sockets.....

  41. YetAnotherJoeBlow
    WTF?

    Some perspective

    I have a driver I maintain for a specific piece of hardware (QOS and routing) that I share with others (customers and associates.) Near the end of last year I got a pull request to update some terminology in it. Briefly the following PM, PS, SM, SS, TM, TS, QM, QS, ...(primary, secondary, ..., master, slave - egress lanes.) At first I thought it was a joke - it was not. They were not my customer but my friends. Briefly, I said no. Customer told me that was unacceptable. I told the customer to stop using the driver then. Customer again told me that was unacceptable. I almost revoked the customers license, but I did not. The customer then told me he was going to get me fired (I'm freelance.) I told my friend to deal with it. The next day the pull request was rescinded.

    I was going to change PM to primary/master etc. but I did not, I just let it go.

    What the hell is the matter here? Things are very broken. Thank God I'm so very close to retiring. I can just imagine what it would be like just starting out. What is being taught in the Universities?

    1. You aint sin me, roit
      Coat

      A pull request?!

      That's disgusting!

      Mine's the one with holes in the pockets....

  42. Securitymoose
    Joke

    My name is Jack Socket

    I take umbrage to all this renaming nonsense. Stone me, I'm going to pull down a statue!

  43. Lunatic Looking For Asylum

    I blame Dick Emery.

    From 1980.

    About 10:45 in ...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63oUjjIVqVI

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cool, cool.

    So we've got rid of sexism and racism in technical naming conventions but unwittingly added ageism because it'll become really obvious on a phone interview how old an applicant is based on the terminology they naturally use.

    This is going to far. It's getting far too woke and it's painful to watch because nobody asked for it.

  45. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Carrying on

    My code is so full of (relevant and descriptive) blacklist, whitelist, master, slave, kill, abort, etc etc, if the newspeak nazis got hold of it I'd be in the gulag.

    Needless to say this state of affairs will continue because I'm writing code and not describing people, and I can tell the difference between the two.

  46. steviebuk Silver badge

    Sometimes its just easier to understand

    When you describe things as male or female. Like in Process Explorer, you have the "Parent" process, then all the "Child" processes that were run from the "Parent". You also have "Orphan" processes where the "Parent" process ended/closed and the "Child" process is left behind.

    For me, this makes understanding it in my head so much easier.

  47. x 7

    What about "hardware and software"?

    Hard and soft are offensive terms in a sexual sense and are also offensive and discriminatory to men with erectile disfunction

    1. Paper

      Re: What about "hardware and software"?

      Floppy disk is so emasculating

  48. jake Silver badge

    VMware using a male slur WITH PRIDE in press release!

    Such blatant hypocrisy! See the shocking story on ElReg!

    https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/24/vmware_continuous_beta/

  49. Glen 1

    Even for me...

    "“female” should be replaced by “jack” or “socket” while “plug” should be used instead of “male”"

    As one of the resident Woke/SJW brigade who sees the renaming of stuff as generally a good thing....

    In this case, even *I* am like "why?" There was never any good/bad connotation attached to male/female *connectors*

    slave can be argued as bad

    black having negative connotations can be argued as bad.

    male/female? Wheres the implication one is bad?

    1. Paper

      Re: Even for me...

      We should have called them green and red lists (traffic light system).

  50. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Political correctness

    Can we also remove the offensive phrases Left and Right?

  51. Rattus
    Thumb Up

    Whilst I wouldn't have have called for a lot of the changes being called for / made, it really doesn't hurt me to change the terminology that I use to make it less offensive to others. If by making these small changes we can make the whole industry even a little bit more inclusive and less hurtful that can only be a good thing.

    From time to time I will make errors in naming, and whilst any offence will be unintentional I would hope that someone will point out my error so that I am able to correct it. As the FLOSS community says "patches welcome" :-)

    /Rattus

    1. jake Silver badge

      "If by making these small changes we can make the whole industry even a little bit more inclusive and less hurtful that can only be a good thing."

      Small changes? SMALL changes?

      Are you going to pony up the cost or replacing textbooks world-wide, Rattus? And presumably, you are volunteering the rest of the time you have left on this dampish rock, re-writing technical documentation for ... well, for pretty much everything technical.

      Thank you for volunteering! Most magnanimous of you.

      1. zankai

        Are you offended, bro? You're over-reaction is _such_ hysteria.

        1. jake Silver badge

          Not hysteria. Hyperbole. Hope this helps your ongoing English studies.

    2. Paper

      It's silly though, I don't just change my behaviour just because it offends someone. There has to be sensible reason that what I'm saying is actually causing harm. Using terms like blacklist and whitelist don't have connotations of race, I never thought about any connection.

  52. HurdImpropriety

    "SCIENCE !!"

    "SCIENCE !!!" ... except for DNA

  53. IGnatius T Foobar !

    Orwell was right.

    The elimination of "wrongthink" words by the cancel culture mob is no accident. George Orwell correctly pointed out that "if thought can control language, language can control thought." The mob (or more accurately, the masterminds controlling the mob) are removing words to *literally* make it impossible to say things that don't match their preferred agenda.

    As an open source developer I will continue to use technical jargon as technical jargon, irrespective of what someone in the cancel mob thinks it means.

  54. holmegm

    "Male" for the thing that sticks out, and "female" for the thing it goes in, are perfectly logical terms. Also very conducive to clear communication, and safe execution of steps in procedures.

  55. Paper
    Trollface

    DEFUND THE SECURITY PROTOCOLS!

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