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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"
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I was curious and sceptical, so I looked it up.
According to both Oxford and Webster's Ninth, it's a real word, but it's got
nothing to do with create: it means "to represent by an instance". Well,
maybe you _create_ the instance, then that instance "represents" whatever
it's supposed to "be representative of". Sounds "virtual" to me...I'd like
to hear the programmer's argument. Is the software generating artificial
life or something? Sounds cool...
