From: "David A. Black" <dblack@...>
Date: 2004-11-15T23:04:49+09:00
Subject: Re: Kernel#singleton_class

Hi --

On Mon, 15 Nov 2004, trans.  (T. Onoma) wrote:

> On Monday 15 November 2004 08:45 am, David A. Black wrote:
> |
> | Yeah, as long as he doesn't choose 'virtual' :-)
> 
> He he. Seems like all the readily floated possibilities have poor 
> connotations. I've heard complaints about all three: 'virtual', 'meta', and 
> of course, 'singleton'. So what do others think of 'instance' class? Or more 
> to the point 'special' class -- a specialton ;)

In thinking about such things my mind always jumps to the question:
how easy (or not) will it be to explain to people?  I think instance
class might be fairly good in that regard, but I'm not sure it's
logical.  Why not "object class", since above all everything that has
one is an object?  Which also means it's an instance, but why choose
that as its main identity?  (Not that I like "object class"; I'm just
not sure that I'm seeing the reasoning behind "instance class".)

I'd also thought of "own class", as in:

  obj.class
  obj.own_class

(I'd actually prefer #class to be deprecated in favor of #birth_class,
so as to make a clearer pairing of, and distinction between, an
object's two classes.  but I do not expect that to happen :-)


David

-- 
David A. Black
dblack@wobblini.net