Retiring the Singleton Pattern: Concrete Suggestions for What to use Instead
summary
Shows how to remove hidden singletons by introducing small wrapper types (e.g. comWrapper) passed as parameters with a default obtained via lazy factory like get_default_comms, turning opaque global access into constructor or parameter injection. Uses virtuals or std::function/std::ref to enable mocks, groups many dependencies in a service struct or with templates/type erasure, and preserves ABI by keeping single-parameter dispatchors that forward to two-parameter implementations. Implementation runs at Bloomberg, fixes copy/fork socket bugs, and makes formerly untestable code unit-testable.
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chapters (12)
- 0:00Motivation for retiring
- 4:50Defining the problem
- 6:34Analyzing the singleton pattern
- 11:56Singleton or not: a quiz
- 15:05Refactoring with dependency injection
- 24:30Modern C++ approaches
- 32:11Preserving compatibility
- 34:03Initialization strategies
- 37:53Phased introduction
- 40:57Interdependent dependencies
- 47:10Grouping multiple dependencies
- 54:04Final conclusions and Q&A
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