Re: set and class

From:

"osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.c++

Date:

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 11:56:44 -0700

Message-ID:

<58farbF2fpaiaU1@mid.individual.net>

"DBC User" wrties:

I am trying to find the difference between set and class. Could some
one help me? I can understand that a class is like a set. Each subset
could be a inherited class and members are instances. What is the
difference between class and set and if there is any?

I don't think class is a very good term to describe that thing as used in
the computing field - so it's natural to have problems with it. But I don't
know of a much better word, template is about the best I can do. Skeleton?
Apparently the people who coined the term didn't like it too much either.
Note that their native language was Norwegian, but I don't mean to imply
that that was a factor. I knew the first usage goes back to at least Simula
67 so I used this search target on Wikipedia.
<class etymology . class OR classes simula> There are several hits but I
didn't see any that seemed likely to really impress me so I only looked at
the first hit. Here is a link to it. If you want to pursue it that search
target should be useful. Note that Hoare is mentioned, that would be, I
think C A R Hoare who is famous for his contributions to the field of
computing.