What is Python?

[Andrew Kuchling]

francois.granger at free.fr (François Granger) writes:
> I think our Quebec cousins do it better.

Really?  I'm not aware that the Quebec office comes up with terms that
people actually use.  I remember amused columns in newspapers when it
decreed that the proper French for "brownie" was "gateau chocolat a
texture spongieux".  

Although, browsing the Quebec Office de la Langue Francaise's online
dictionary of computer-related terms at
http://www.olf.gouv.qc.ca/ressources/termino/ressling.html#vocint, it
seems to me that they've gotten better at coming up with decent terms.
"freeware" -> "gratuiciel", for example, which is kind of cute, and
"killer app" -> "application phare", which is a good metaphor.
Sometimes they don't even seem to be trying, though: ORB ->
"gestionnaire ORB", and "OO programming" -> "programmation orientée
objet", which is graceless.  And why does "TCP/IP" become "TCP-IP" in
French?

An amusing quote:

    Le terme anglais « Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister », créé
    par Larry Wall, le concepteur du langage Perl, est un terme
    humoristique qu'on pourrait traduire par « énumération de déchets
    pathologiquement éclectiques ».

Python is mentioned in the entry for "langage de script", BTW.
Unfortunately the included terms are mostly Internet-related ones.
There's no entry for "tree" or "binary tree" or "linked list" or
"kernel" or the OS-relating meaning of "thread", for example.  I guess
I'll never know if "arbre binaire" is correct French or not.

> "Deux choses sont en vastes quantité dans l'univers. L'hydrogène et la
> connerie humaine. L'hydrogène est detruit dans le coeur des étoiles."
> - inconnu cité par Noelle Adam

The first sentence is usually attributed to the SF writer Harlan
Ellison; I think the second sentence is from Adam, or from some
intermediate source between Ellison and Adam.)

--amk