Recommendations and guidelines
The policy-based design allows for exceptional flexibility in the creation of finely customizable classes. Sometimes, this flexibility and power become the enemy of a good design. In this section, we will review the strengths and weaknesses of the policy-based design and come up with some general recommendations.
Strengths of the policy-based design
The main advantages of the policy-based design are flexibility and extensibility of the design. At a high level, these are the same benefits the Strategy pattern offers, only realized at compile-time. The policy-based design allows the programmer to select, at compile time, one of several algorithms for each specific task or operation performed by the system. Since the only constraints on the algorithms are the requirements on the interface that binds them into the rest of the system, it is equally possible to extend the system by writing new policies for the customizable operations.
At a high level...
