On 5/7/05, Ilias Lazaridis <ilias / lazaridis.com> wrote:
[...]
>   * It cannot be instantiated.
[..]
> but Talker is an instance of class "Class".
> the MetaClass "Class:Talker" has no instances.

Regarding SCs (heh, one acronym fits your terminology and the current
terminology) not having instances, while not present in Ruby their is
the idea of the <a
href="http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AbstractClass">abstract class</a>, (seen
only in C++ AFAIK, although Java's interfaces are similiar in some
respects) which has no instances. This doesn't (debately) make it less
of a class however. Plus one can consider an instance to be some state
(represented by instance variables) and a pointer to the instatiated
classes method lookup table (not sure of the right terminology here).
Then one would would have to consider the instance to be the object
that the SC is an SC of.