where are all the objects?

[John Rose]

FWIW I too am glad you are backing away from that use of “instance”!

> As "instances of a type", I need to think more about what I am trying to
> accomplish with that term, as I have myself just confused it with "values
> of the type".

We don’t want to use already-overloaded terms like “value of a type”, “instance of a type”, “member of a type”, “object of a type” when we are just trying to generically discuss what happens when a “variable of a type” gets filled.

In the interest of painting this teeny bikeshed a bit more, may I suggest, for informal but precise language, more neutral terms like “point within a type” or “individual of a type” or “realization of a type” or something (point, element, member, item) in the “domain of a type”.

Also, FTR, I do see some danger in saying a variable “contains” a value, if we are also talking about other kinds of containment relations, such as in my earlier note about placement.

Language is hard.