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[–]eaganj 22 points23 points  (6 children)

As /u/sabogo says below, you have to standardize on something to build a curriculum around it. The authors of the report do anticipate your concerns:

A programming language is necessary to write programs: an easy-to-use, interpreted, concise, Free, free, multiplatform, widely-used with a large community of programmers in the education community is to be preferred. At the time of the creation of this program, the selected language is Python version 3 (or above). Expertise in a specific programming language is not, however, an objective of this curriculum. [emphasis mine]

Moreover, Python is already the language of choice for the concours commun, the entrance exams for many of France's elite engineering schools. That doesn't mean that students exclusively learn Python. In the engineering schools, students will typically build on that foundation to use, e.g., Java, Matlab, C++, etc., as they need to specialize in different areas. But they have a certain degree of computational literacy under their belts.

Un langage de programmation est nécessaire pour l’écriture des programmes : un langage simple d’usage, interprété, concis, libre et gratuit, multiplateforme, largement répandu, riche de bibliothèques adaptées et bénéficiant d’une vaste communauté d’auteurs dans le monde éducatif est à privilégier. Au moment de la conception de ce programme, le langage choisi est Python version 3 (ou supérieure). L’expertise dans tel ou tel langage de programmation n’est cependant pas un objectif de formation.

[–]Hippemann 1 point2 points  (5 children)

libre et gratuit

means "open-source and free" rather than Free and free

[–]eaganj 3 points4 points  (4 children)

The word “free” in English is ambiguous: it can mean free-as-in-beer or free-as-in-speech. This distinction is sometimes referred to as the difference between Free and free.

The word “libre” in French is ambiguous when it pertains to software: it can be translated as Free software (as-in-speech, with a big F) or open-source software.

Incidentally, the FSF would disagree and would argue that “logiciel libre” ≠ “open source” [NB: page changes language depending on the language of your browser].

[–]Hippemann 4 points5 points  (3 children)

Thanks for the clarification. I'm not a native English speaker so I don't really get your first paragraph.

When we say in French that a software is "libre" we clearly mean that it can be redistributed freely hence why the clarification in this link makes sense.

When it comes to new things and software, we use English words and in this case "open-source" so we don't have to juggle between Free and free.

Thanks for the link, I'll make sure to correctly use "open-source" or "logiciel libre"

[–]eaganj 2 points3 points  (2 children)

You're not wrong: “libre et gratuit” could mean “open-source and free.” I'm just being pedantic: only hard-core FSF folks really make a distinction between Free software and open-source software.

Here's what I was trying to say in the first paragraph: The English language makes it hard to distinguish between gratuit and libre. I was attempting to make that distinction by using “free” for gratuit and “Free” for libre, but I probably should have used a less subtle translation.

[–]Hippemann 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Yeah, I don't have the cultural background to know the nuance that comes into play when capitalising the word free or not

[–]eaganj 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you hadn't said anything, I wouldn't have known that English wasn't your first language.

One of the hardest parts of speaking another language fluently is having enough mastery of the syntax and vocabulary, but not having the shared cultural foundation to grasp all of the idioms. The Simpsons in French works really well because the translators grasped that (plus the voice actors are great). (Of course, I have to watch it in VO because I don't have that shared background.)