A replacement involves changing one thing for another.
A replacement is a substitution , a change , a release or an exchange . The term can refer to a person, a thing, or something symbolic depending on the context, so its application is quite broad. Regarding its spelling, it is worth mentioning that the forms replacement and replacement are accepted, although the first is the original and the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ) refers to it when searching for the second.
For example: “The Ecuadorian striker entered fifteen minutes into the second half to replace Smith” , “Tell Benítez that I'm not coming to work tomorrow, so he will have to call someone to replace me” , “The replacement of the windows “Destroyed by the storm, it cost more than 5,000 pesos.”
Different types of replacements
Everything that, in one way or another, can be replaced by something similar , is susceptible to replacement. The notion is common in sports , when a player leaves the playing field and another enters to replace him. This situation occurs in football , basketball , rugby and many other disciplines.
Replacements are sometimes required due to breakage, damage or malfunctions . When a light bulb or electric lamp burns out and stops lighting, its replacement is essential. In a similar sense, if a lock breaks, it must be replaced so that the door in question can close properly again.
It should be noted that, in certain cases, the replacements are only symbolic. If someone comments something like “Santiago has replaced María with Luciana” , they could be referring to the fact that Santiago ended a romantic relationship with María and has started a new relationship with Luciana . This does not mean that María and Luciana are equal or that people are replaceable in their essence or individuality.
When a car tire goes flat, it needs to be replaced.
The term in computing
In the field of computer programming, the action of replacing values occurs constantly, in different cases. First of all, it is worth mentioning that to run software (which includes an application, a video game or an operating system, depending on your point of view) processors need to store it in main memory; There, they randomly assign spaces for each of its components, with the variables being the smallest.
A variable is nothing more than a space in memory to which a name is assigned (certain rules must be followed but, broadly speaking, it can be any word or phrase that helps the developer remember the reason why he declared it), a type (which can be an integer, text string or logical, among others) and a value (depending on the case, this will be fixed during execution or will change as many times as desired). Each value change that is made to a variable is, in reality, a replacement of the data in memory.
For text string variables (known as string ), programming languages usually have different specific functions that help manipulate them and perform actions such as chaining them, extracting a part of them or replacing one or more characters with others (for example: if you have a list of terms that are separated by commas, thanks to this function it would be possible to replace the commas with line breaks, so that the list would appear more readable).
Replacement Theory
The Replacement Theory is a theological concept that refers to an interpretation of the New Testament according to which God replaced the bond he formerly had with the Jewish people with the one he currently maintains with the Christian people.
It is worth mentioning that, depending on the reading of each theologian, different replacement theories can be recognized, such as punitive and structural .