10. Glossary
- class
- A class can also be thought of as a template, or blueprint, for the objects that are instances of it. It contains both the attributes and the methods that each instance of it will have.
- constructor
- The constructor is a “factory” for making new instances of the class. It is called by the same name as the class (e.g., for the Turtle class you call
Turtle() to create a new instance). You can customize the constructor by using an initializer method to set up the attributes (i.e. the state) of the new object.
- initializer method
- A special method in Python (
__init__) that is invoked automatically to set a newly-created object’s attributes to its initial (factory-default) state.
- instance
- An object that belongs to a class. The terms instance and object are used interchangeably.
- instantiate
- To create an instance of a class, and to run its initializer.
- method
- A function that is defined inside a class definition and is invoked on instances of that class.
- object
- A compound data type that is often used to model a thing or concept in the real world. It bundles together data (attributes) and operations on that data (methods).
- object-oriented programming
- A powerful style of programming in which data and the operations that manipulate it are organized into classes with attributes and methods.
- object-oriented language
- A language that provides features, such as user-defined classes and inheritance, that facilitate object-oriented programming.