Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [PATCH] CodingStyle: Inclusive Terminology

Matthew Wilcox
2020-07-05T00:10:51Z

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Erm, red-black trees don't have a derivation from gambling terminology
either. The wikipedia article says:

In a 1978 paper, "A Dichromatic Framework for Balanced Trees",[6] Leonidas
J. Guibas and Robert Sedgewick derived the red-black tree from the
symmetric binary B-tree.[7] The color "red" was chosen because it was the
best-looking color produced by the color laser printer available to the
authors while working at Xerox PARC.[8] Another response from Guibas states
that it was because of the red and black pens available to them to draw the
trees.[9]

Left-right tree makes no sense. It doesn't distinguish the rbtree from its
predecessor the avl tree. I don't think it's helpful to rename a standard
piece of computing terminology unless it's actually hurting us to have it.
Obviously if it were called a "master-slave" tree, I would be in favour of
renaming it.

On Sat., Jul. 4, 2020, 19:42 Dave Airlie, <airlied@gmail.com> wrote:

> '. Colors to represent a policy requires an indirection. The
> >
> > how about:
> > Using colors to represent a policy requires an indirection.
>
> I'd totally submit that red/black trees while in no way racist, are a
> horrible indirection, as it means nothing if you've never interacted
> with gambling culture, (and maybe James Bond movies).
>
> left/right trees make naturally more sense and translate into more
> languages, so yes I think removal of color naming is a good thing even
> for non-racist reasonings.
>
> Dave.
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