Yes, the file itself (so the data and inode) is not gone as long as the handles live on. Only the reference is gone. You canstill recover the file. https://superuser.com/questions/283102/how-to-recover-deleted-file-if-it-is-still-opened-by-some-process#600743

Yes colors have a meaning. However, they change ober time and culture. So why not use the word which describes exactly what we mean?

I agree, nowadays blacklist/whitelist has practically nothing to do with skin color. However i do think it is weird to use the same words for describing the appearance of people and good/bad.

Well i would be indifferent to the renaming to primary, because it doesn’t really matter to me what they call their branches, as long as it is descriptive. primary also conveys the meaning. I would probably continue using main/dev because i see no reason to change.
I am not someone who says “You should change this!”. I just say, think of it, there are some reasons to change and the only reason to keep it, os that we did it always like this. I think there are reasons for selecting better words. And I am only annoyed by people who are outraged by things others do, which does not really affects them negatively. I get it that someone wants to continue using blacklist, master, etc. and I am ok with that.

Even ignoring the question of racism, they are still stupid names.

Imagine teaching a child about this and it asks: Why is white allowed and black not? The only answer is, because it is like this for a long time. If we name them allowlist and denylist, it is obvious to all English speaking people. Shouldn’t we strive for descriptive names in programming?

However, if you use names whitelist an blacklist, you need to make the implicit connection white-positive black-negative. Yes obviously this does not make you racist if you do this in programming. But is it good?

Yes that is the point. They made the choice to change their default. You can still make the choice to name your branches, especially the main one, as you like. Setting it for a project is less work than complaining about it.

relevant xkcd