C++ Truths

Modern C++ library design is heavily based on templates. Highly reusable, flexible and extensible classes can be built using policy based class design techniques. (See "Modern C++ Design" by Andrei Alexandrescu.) Sometimes, the host class of the policies need to make an exact replica of one of its policies but instantiated with different type parameter. Unfortunately, the writer of the host class template does not know the template name to instantiate beforehand. This situation is quite analogous to the situation in the Factory Method (GoF) pattern where type of the object to be created is not known apriori and therefore, the object creation is simply delegated to the derived object. In the world of templates, although the problem is conceptually is quite similar, the mechanism to solve it is a different because we are interested in a "clone" type and not an object. The Policy Clone idiom comes handy here. A member template struct (called rebind) is used to pass a

Singleton pattern appears to be very easy to understand because in its simplest form it can be implemented in minutes with the help of well defined language idioms. But in fact, it is one of the most complex patterns I have ever read about! If you dig around a little bit, there is a whole slew of information/articles available on this nifty pattern talking about its limitations and their solutions. Here is a collection of some of the amazing articles. The Singleton pattern - Gamma et al. To kill a Singleton - John Vlissides The Monostate pattern (The Power of One (More C++ Gems) - Steve Ball and John Crawford) Implementing Singletons (Chapter 6, Modern C++ Design) - Andrei Alexandrescu Double Checked Locking Pattern (DCLP) - Doug Schmidt C++ and the perils of DCLP - Scott Meyers, Andrei Alexandrescu DCLP is broken in Java - Bacon et al. Object Lifetime Manager pattern - Levine, Gill, and Doug Schmidt