Comparing Creational Design Patterns: Use Cases, Pros, and Cons

In my comprehensive series on Creational Design Patterns, I explored the realm of object creation and initialization, with a specific focus on the Gang of Four (GoF) classification in Java. Now, let's delve deeper and compare these Creational Design Patterns, examining their use cases, advantages, and disadvantages. By understanding the distinctive features of each pattern, we can make informed decisions when it comes to designing and implementing object creation processes in our Java projects.

• Singleton Design Pattern:

  • Use case: When you need to ensure that only one instance of a class exists throughout the application.

  • Pros :

    ✅Provides a single point of access to the instance.

    ✅Guarantees the existence of only one instance.

    ✅Lazy initialization can be implemented to improve performance.

  • Cons:

    ❌Can make code less modular and more tightly coupled.

    ❌Can be challenging to implement thread safety.

• Factory Method Design Pattern:

  • Use case: When you want to delegate the responsibility of object creation to subclasses.

  • Pros :

    ✅Provides a way to encapsulate object creation in subclasses.

    ✅Allows flexibility in adding new types of objects without modifying existing code.

    ✅Promotes loose coupling between classes.

  • Cons:

    ❌Requires the creation of subclasses for each product type, which can lead to a class explosion.

    ❌Clients are dependent on the concrete factory class.

• Abstract Factory Design Pattern:

  • Use case: When you need to create families of related or dependent objects.

  • Pros:

    ✅Supports the creation of families of objects that are designed to work together.

    ✅Hides the implementation details of the created objects.

    ✅Allows for easy substitution of different concrete factory implementations.

  • Cons:

    ❌Adding new product types requires modifying the abstract factory interface and all its subclasses.

    ❌Can become complex when dealing with multiple product families.

• Builder Design Pattern:

  • Use case: When you want to create complex objects step by step, allow different configurations.

  • Pros:

    ✅Provides a flexible and readable way to construct complex objects.

    ✅Allows the creation of different object representations using the same construction process.

    ✅Supports the creation of immutable objects.

  • Cons:

    ❌Can introduce a lot of boilerplate code, especially for objects with many attributes.

    ❌Requires the client to be aware of the builder class and construction process.

• Prototype Design Pattern:

  • Use case: When you want to create new objects by cloning existing ones.

    • Pros:

      ✅Provides a way to create new objects without invoking their constructors.

      ✅Allows dynamic object creation at runtime.

      ✅Offers flexibility in creating objects with different configurations or states.

    • Cons:

      ❌Cloning complex objects can be challenging, especially when dealing with deep object hierarchies or non-cloneable components.

      ❌Requires careful management of prototype objects and potential impacts on memory usage.

  • Conclusion:

    Each creational design pattern serves a specific purpose and has its pros and cons. Choosing the right pattern depends on the specific requirements and constraints of your application. It's important to consider factors such as object creation flexibility, code reusability, maintainability, performance, and the complexity of the construction process when deciding which pattern to use.