[R] The "--slave" option

[Patrick Connolly]

On Wed, 18-Sep-2019 at 02:58PM -0700, Jeff Newmiller wrote:

|> I think there is no confusion except in the minds of those with
|> nothing better to do. I agree with Antirez, quoted in [1], which
|> nevertheless indicates that perspective lost the debate.

I agree with Jeff.  Automotive hydraulics have used terms such as
'master-cylinders' and 'slave-cylinders' without such an issue for a
century or more.  

If we have nothing else to do, we might want to purge ESS of its
so-called 'inferior processes', but it ain't me, Babe.

BTW: I've used R for 20+ years and never used a --slave option.
Should I get an award?


|> Any accurate alternative notation will have similar connotations
|> because in fact the "slave" side of that relationship is completely
|> subordinate to the "master" side... there is no escaping that
|> fact. It requires a very different and more complicated
|> architecture to achieve a "peer" relationship, which often is not
|> worth the effort or even appropriate.


|> So while Dr Lang may be mollified by a change in notation, someone
|> else is going to find the new words offensive and make the same PC
|> argument since the implications of the architecture have not
|> changed. In fact there should never have been a parallel drawn
|> between the morality of human slavery and computing architectures
|> to begin with.



|> [1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8x7akv/masterslave-terminology-was-removed-from-python-programming-language
|> 
|> On September 18, 2019 11:57:32 AM PDT, "Patrick (Malone Quantitative)" <malone using malonequantitative.com> wrote:
|> >For what it's worth, this is an ongoing conversation in computer
|> >science and engineering. And has been so for decades.
|> >
|> >Not R, but related to this it's only in the past few months that a
|> >fork of the photo-manipulation software GIMP (slur for handicapped)
|> >renames it (GLIMPSE).
|> >
|> >Note, I am not saying this isn't a battle worth fighting.
|> >
|> >On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 1:52 PM Benjamin Lang <benjamin.lang using crg.eu>
|> >wrote:
|> >>
|> >> Dear R project,
|> >>
|> >> I have a very simple question:
|> >>
|> >> How, in late 2019, is there an option called "--slave" to "make R run
|> >as
|> >> quietly as possible"?
|> >>
|> >> Let me reiterate that it is 2019, i.e. "The Future", rather than 1970
|> >when
|> >> R was presumably developed, based on its atrocious syntax,
|> >documentation
|> >> and usability (I think I only need to say "NaN", "NULL", and "NA").
|> >>
|> >> This is a disgrace and it should have been addressed one or two
|> >decades
|> >> ago. Why not just "--quiet"?
|> >>
|> >> Please do not mention "backwards compatibility". For the historically
|> >> inclined, it does not make much of a difference whether the term
|> >evokes the
|> >> Roman, Greek, American or modern kind of slavery for you: it is as
|> >> disgusting as it gets.
|> >>
|> >> Thank you,
|> >> Ben
|> >>
|> >> --
|> >> Benjamin Lang, PhD
|> >> http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6358-8380
|> >>
|> >> Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow (MSCA-IF)
|> >> Gene Function and Evolution (Dr. Gian Tartaglia)
|> >> Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Barcelona, Spain
|> >>
|> >>         [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
|> >>
|> >> ______________________________________________
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|> >> PLEASE do read the posting guide
|> >http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
|> >> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
|> >
|> >______________________________________________
|> >R-help using r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
|> >https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
|> >PLEASE do read the posting guide
|> >http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
|> >and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
|> 
|> -- 
|> Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.
|> 
|> ______________________________________________
|> R-help using r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
|> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
|> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
|> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

-- 
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   ___    Patrick Connolly   
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 _( Y )_  	         Average minds discuss events 
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