Yes they're slightly different in theory, but not in any way that would prohibit mutual understanding. Besides, if you're telling anyone about this library you're most certainly going to spell it out anyways.
I'm American and pronounce Jacques and Jack the way they described. If someone said [ʒak], I would transcribe it as Jacques, and if someone said [dʒæk], I would transcribe it as Jack. It may be a French name, but it's not very foreign. (If I heard [dʒak], I would assume the speaker is British and transcribe it as Jack).
I was confused reading people say that Jacques is pronounced the same as Jack, so it does seem like mutual understanding is inhibited.
It's just like how, even though Johann is a German name (though borrowed from Latin), I know to pronounce it in English not as [dʒoʊhæn] (the naive English pronunciation), but as [joʊhan], which is similar to the German pronunciation, [johan].
You're implying I subconsciously view them the same and pronounce them the same. But I don't. Maybe your dialect of English is different than mine, but I am not you. And it was there for a while because I use Hacker News on my phone and don't check it all the time.
My original sentence repeated the same word twice as a typo. It was this:
> I was confused reading people say that Jacques is pronounced the same as Jacques.
I realized my mistake and edited it to this:
> I was confused reading people say that Jacques is pronounced the same as Jack.
If we'd been discussing the words "chick" and "chic," I might have accidentally written:
> I was originally confused reading people say that chick is pronounced them the same as chick.
Then I'd realize my error and edit it to:
> I was originally confused reading people say that chick is pronounced them the same as chic.
That doesn't mean I actually pronounce "chick" the same way as "chic" and it doesn't make the words interchangeable in the dialect I speak. "Chic" is pronounced like "Sheikh," referring to the Arab leader, or like "Sheik" from the Legend of Zelda. I'll be confused if you say "a baby Sheikh" instead of "a baby chick," and if you say "chick fashion" instead of "chic fashion" I'll be thrown off but realize you meant "chic."
The implication I'm positing is "if you mix up words without notice, they are conceptually interchangeable". You can't disprove it by stating that words you didn't mix up without notice aren't interchangeable.
Sometimes I have accidentally written "chick" when I wrote "chic" due to autocorrect, just not during this conversation.
Regardless, I guess I can't make you believe me when I say what sounds natural to me. Ignore what I say if you really want. The fact that you insist that I say the two names interchangeably does not make it so.
Yes they're slightly different in theory, but not in any way that would prohibit mutual understanding. Besides, if you're telling anyone about this library you're most certainly going to spell it out anyways.