Em 11 de abril de 2013, Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti escreveu:

On Wed, 10 Apr 2013, Henrique Andrade wrote:

Dear Allin and Jack,

What do you think about naming the new window with the words "session"
instead of "example"? In fact, in my interpretation, when we open a new
window that is independent from the others, we're starting a new "session".
Aren't we?

Ahhh, I think I see your problem now, sorry for not having thought about before: in English the word "instance" can be used as a synonym of "example", (especially in the "for instance" phrase) but doesn't have to. Especially in the technical jargon, it is very much used as a vague synonym of "copy" or "repetition", as in "another thing which is distinct from the preceeding ones, but it's basically the same thing repeated one more time". That's why we say "n instances of gretl". In this sense, it's not a synonym of "example" at all.

In Italian, the word "istanza" is not a synonym of "example" either (you just don't say "per istanza" as you would say "per esempio"), though it retains its technical meaning (it is also a common word in the law jargon, but it doesn't matter).

>From what you say, I guess that in (Brazilian, perhaps?) Portuguese, the association instance/example is much stronger than what I perceive, so you're right, we should look for another word... in Portuguese!

(...)