[Haskell-beginners] Re: some terminology

[Maurí­cio CA]

> I was looking at some code, saw a variable x, and said to myself, "Ah 
> that variable is a monad." Then I realized "Monad" is the name of a type 
> class. So maybe x should be called "an instance of a Monad." I think the 
> word "instance" in this case is OO-like; but in Haskell "instance" 
> refers to a type that is an instance of a type class. [...]

In general, it helps to know that the current "de facto" Haskell standard
actually accepts classes and instances built on top of many types:

class SomeClass a b c where
   someF :: a -> b -> c
   anotherF :: b -> c -> a

instance SomeClass T1 T2 T3 where
   someF = ...
   anotherF = ...


This way it becomes clear that saying that some type "is of" or
"instantiate" some class isn't apropriate.

Best,
Maurício