What is the difference between “instantiated” and “initialized”?

Question

I\'ve been hearing these two words used in Microsoft tutorials for VB.NET. What is the difference between these two words when used in reference to variables?

Answer 1

To initialize something is to set it to its initial value. To instantiate something is to create an instance of it.

Often this is the more or less same thing. This:

SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection();

instantiates a SqlConnection object, and initializes the conn variable by setting it to the that instance.

Since an object's constructor also sets the object's properties to their default values, it's often correct to say that instantiating an object initializes it. (Misleading, if the object exposes a method that you have to explictly call to initialize it after it's instantiated, as is sometimes the case.)