Understanding the Factory pattern
In object-oriented programming, the term factory means a class that is responsible for creating objects of other types. Typically, the class that acts as a factory has an object and methods associated with it. The client calls this method with certain parameters; objects of desired types are created in turn and returned to the client by the factory.
So the question here really is, why do we need a factory when the client can directly create an object? The answer is, a factory provides certain advantages that are listed here:
- The first advantage is loose coupling in which object creation can be independent of the class implementation.
- The client need not be aware of the class that creates the object which, in turn, is utilized by the client. It is only necessary to know the interface, methods, and parameters that need to be passed to create objects of the desired type. This simplifies implementations for the client.
- Adding another class to the factory to create...
