- A Different Kind of Duck Typing
- The Template Method Strikes Again
- Parameterized Factory Methods
- Classes Are Just Objects, Too
- Bad News: Your Program Hits the Big Time
- Bundles of Object Creation
- Classes Are Just Objects (Again)
- Leveraging the Name
- Using and Abusing the Factory Patterns
- Factory Patterns in the Wild
- Wrapping Up
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Using and Abusing the Factory Patterns
The best way to go wrong with any of the object creation techniques that we have examined in this chapter is to use them when you don’t need them. Not every object needs to be produced by a factory. In fact, most of the time you will want to create most of your objects with a simple call to MyClass.new. Use the techniques discussed in this chapter when you have a choice of several different, related classes and you need to choose among them.
Remember, chances are You Ain’t Gonna Need It. The YAGNI principle applies with a vengeance to factories. Perhaps I am dealing with only ducks and lilies at the moment, but maybe in the future I might need to cope with tigers and trees. Should I build a factory now to get ready? Probably not. You have to balance the cost of the additional, currently useless factory infrastructure against the likelihood that you will actually need the factory. Factor in the price of back-fitting a factory in later. The answer depends on the details, but engineers do have a tendency to build the Queen Mary (or perhaps the Titanic?) when a canoe will suffice. If you have a choice of exactly one class at the moment, put off adding in a factory.