The Singleton pattern

The Singleton pattern is a source of some controversy; many have accused it of being an anti-pattern, a pattern that should be avoided, not promoted. In Python, if someone is using the Singleton pattern, they're almost certainly doing something wrong, probably because they're coming from a more restrictive programming language.

So, why discuss it at all? Singleton is useful in overly object-oriented languages and is a vital part of traditional object-oriented programming. More relevantly, the idea behind singleton is useful, even if we implement the concept in a totally different way in Python.

The basic idea behind the Singleton pattern is to allow exactly one instance of a certain object to exist. Typically, this object is a sort of manager class like those we discussed in Chapter 5, When to Use Object-Oriented Programming. Such manager objects often need to be referenced by a wide variety of other objects; passing references...