Variables of struct and class types are called objects - discuss

[Mike Parker]

On Sunday, 3 August 2025 at 15:31:34 UTC, Paul Backus wrote:
>
>
> The second one comes from C, where "object" refers to any value 
> stored in memory. This kind of "object" is defined in the 
> ["Object Model" section][2] of the language specification, and 
> is mostly of interest to those writing low-level code that 
> deals directly with memory allocation.

Yes, that's the term of art. It's been a long time since I read 
anything related to C++, but back in the days when I did, 
'object' was commonly used colloquially to refer to class and 
struct instances. Everything else was just a value.

>
> I have never seen any D programmer use "object" to mean "struct 
> or class instance."

Then I guess you missed my post above :-) I've been calling D 
struct and class instances 'objects' since 2003. It's the term I 
picked up from Java and C++ articles, books, and forums in the 
years before I found D.

> The standard term for grouping together structs and classes is 
> ["aggregate,"][4] as in "aggregate type" or "aggregate 
> instance."
>

Classes and structs are aggregates because they group together 
(aggregate) variables and fields. That's got nothing to do with 
instances of either.