From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2003-03-26T09:59:31+09:00
Subject: Re: [EG] multiton design pattern

ara howard wrote:
> i did this so many times i decided to put it in one place.  i've found
> it to be more usefull that true singletons - which it can still be
> used as.

Like a multiton truck? ;)

Actually, this is kind of a nice way to explain things like Fixnums, 
Floats, and Symbols, which have no #new class method, but you can still 
get instances. "Why can't I call Float.new?" "It's a multiton."

Also a nice way to handle geometric objects (points, etc.) assuming that 
you want to operate on them in a non-mutable way. (I guess the #instance 
method would freeze the object in those cases.)