I think it would be a good idea to not export the new() constructor and instead use a class method that returns the (only) instance of the class, initializing it if necessary (in OO programming, this is called a Singleton, although I don't know much about design patterns and may well miss something here). While not changing the way the code itself works, calling something like getInstance() instead of new() would make it much more clear to the programmer using the module that he is actually always working with the *same* object - to me, a new() constructor carries the out-of-band information (so to speak) that I actually do create an entirely new object when calling it instead of getting a reference to an existing one.

It might not make the code safer as such, but I think it might well prevent some bugs from happening.

--
mowgli

In reply to Re: Never letting package objects to go out of scope by mowgli
in thread Never letting package objects to go out of scope by EvdB

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