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Subject:Re: more peeves From:"Arlen P. Walker" <Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- CORE -dot- CORP -dot- JCI -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 22 Aug 1994 13:34:19 -0500
> instantiate - I had a long debate with one of our programmers over
> the validity of this word. He admits that it's not
> in any dictionary, but insists that it has a
> subtlety of meaning that differentiates it from "create"
I know what you mean, Matt. It looks ugly to me, too, but I've never found
an alternate that was acceptable to all. As I understand it (which is
probably imperfectly) the meaning is actually "to create an instance of."
I've run into it in Object-Oriented discussions. It seems "classes" are
created, and an "object" is an "instance" of a class. Not quite
class=theory and object=practice; more like the Platonic model: class=ideal
and object=real. I think. Any ideas?
Have Fun,
Arlen
Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- jci -dot- com
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