We can build a complete deck of cards via a factory function. This beats enumerating all 52 cards. In Python, there are two common approaches to factories, as follows:
- We define a function that creates objects of the required classes.
- We define a class that has methods for creating objects. This is the Factory design pattern, as described in books on object-oriented design patterns. In languages such as Java, a factory class hierarchy is required because the language doesn't support standalone functions.
In Python, a class isn't required to create an object factory, but this can be a good idea when there are related factories or factories that are complex. One of the strengths of Python is that we're not forced to use a class hierarchy when a simple function might do just as well.
While this is a book about object-oriented...
