Ben Coman <btc@openinworld.com> writes:
I'll revisit my previous suggestion. In real life...
* a "sample" is a real object you can hold. You ask a supplier to "send you a sample" of their product so you can inspect it before you buy lots. In an industrial factory, you "take a sample" to take an item from the process stream to the lab to analyse. Both of these are real objects you can hold. In addition, Digital Signal Processing does sampling, it doesn't do exampling.
* an "example" is one step removed from real life objects. The maths teacher works through an example. Someone's behaviour can set a good example. A programming script can provide an example of how to do something. People say "for example, how about my hypothetical** situation". None of these refer to a real object. Now you can use "example" to refer to real objects, but usually second hand when you are describing a general characteristic. It doesn't have the same concrete semantic of a real object as "sample".
I like this vocabulary. -- Damien Cassou http://damiencassou.seasidehosting.st "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another without losing enthusiasm." --Winston Churchill