Design Guidelines Update: Factories vs. Constructors

re: Design Guidelines Digest

Krzysztof Cwalina — Tue, 12 Oct 2004 03:36:00 GMT

re: Design Guidelines Update: Factories vs. Constructors

Karl — Tue, 12 Oct 2004 05:56:00 GMT

That's really great (really)...thanks!

re: Design Guidelines Update: Factories vs. Constructors

thomas woelfer — Tue, 12 Oct 2004 12:05:00 GMT

Krzysztof,

WM_THX
thomas woelfer

re: Design Guidelines Update: Factories vs. Constructors

Andy Neilson — Tue, 12 Oct 2004 16:49:00 GMT

One reason for prefering constructors over factory methods is if you want to take advantage of the automatic disposal pattern in C++/CLI (similar to "using" in C#):

{
MyRefClass x;
// Do something with x here
} // x is Disposed of here

The alternative is to use a more verbose try/finally with an explicit delete in the finally, which is much less concise.

This is a nice feature of C++/CLI, but it only possible if you have constructors available. If you can only instantiate MyRefClass through factory methods, you are out of luck.

re: Design Guidelines Update: Factories vs. Constructors

Omer van Kloeten — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 00:06:00 GMT

"Do use a Factory if an operation requires parameter information which _feels unnatural_ to pass to a constructor"

We're doomed. :P

But really now, this is one of the last phrases I would expect from a Microsoft guideline.
I know all too many people who have horrible hunches. If you have good hunches, you don't need these guidelines.
Please consider revising it.

re: Design Guidelines Update: Factories vs. Constructors

Joe Duffy — Thu, 14 Oct 2004 21:17:00 GMT

Ugh, thanks for pointing that out Omer. You're entirely correct: we need unambiguous guidance, and that particular sentence is up for way too much interpretation. I'm going to update the wording and will let you know what the result is.

Thanks for the feedback -- keep it coming!

Factory vs. Constructor Guidelines

Alex Hoffman Weblog — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 03:33:00 GMT

An update to the Factory vs Constructor design guidelines ...

Factory vs. Constructor Guidelines

Alex Hoffman Weblog — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 03:36:00 GMT

An update to the Factory vs Constructor design guidelines ...

All The News That Is Fit To Print (Oct 19, 2004)

OdeToCode Link Blog — Wed, 20 Oct 2004 05:48:00 GMT

.NET Application Development Guidelines - Factories vs. Constructors

David Hayden - Sarasota Web Design Development - F — Mon, 25 Oct 2004 02:05:00 GMT

Readings for 10.27.2004

The Diffracted Developer — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 20:34:00 GMT

Readings for 10.27.2004

The Diffracted Developer — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 01:24:00 GMT

Interesting Findings this morning

Jason Haley — Sat, 30 Oct 2004 20:37:00 GMT

Interesting Findings this morning

re: Design Guidelines Update: Factories vs. Constructors

Justin Sayne — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:10:34 GMT

Guid.Parse() and Guid.TryParse() are brilliant. David Hayden didn't say alot.