Class Methods
Up to now we've been rather vaguely referring to the methods of classes, but we should start being more precise now. A class has two kinds of methods: instance methods and class methods. Most of the methods we've seen have been instance methods, because they are applied to objects, which are instances of a class. But one method we've used quite frequently is a class method. Think about what happens here:
x = Philosopher.new x.allocate_chopsticks(2)
When we wrote a dining philosopher class back on Day 5, we defined allocate_chopsticks as an instance method, something that was to be applied to individual philosophers. new is also a method, but when it is called, its receiver is the Philosopher class itself, so new must be a class ...
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