An object is an instance (or not)?

[Chris Angelico]

On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 8:16 PM, Steven D'Aprano
<steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:
> Or perhaps that should be a sad face smiley :-( How much time we would all
> save if academics and language designers would only stick to a single
> consistent terminology across all languages.

That's like wishing that every human spoke the same language, instead
of having English, French, Italian, Polish, Serbian, Korean, and a
host of others. The problem isn't the languages; the variety of
languages reflects a variety of concepts being communicated, and to
unify the languages spoken would entail dispensing with that variety.

The terminology isn't consistent because there are myriad variations
between the concepts. Is it useful to talk about "multiple
inheritance" as a concept? I believe I've yet to meet two distinct
languages that have identical MI semantics. Does each language need
its own word for that term so we don't have any sort of
inconsistencies? Or do all languages have to implement the exact same
functionality?

ChrisA