[cap-talk] Singleton discussion (was: Re: object-oriented-security.org)

[Kenton Varda]

On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 9:48 AM, Jed Donnelley <capability at webstart.com>wrote:

> For anybody else who might not have been following the "singleton"
> discussion, these references were useful for me:
>
> http://www.oodesign.com/singleton-pattern.html
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singleton_pattern
>
> I assume that's what the discussion is about?
>

Yes.  The wikipedia link even mentions some of the (non-security-related)
reasons why singletons are now considered harmful.

Note that only mutable singletons are a problem.  No one minds constant
singletons.


> Is there anywhere I can find a review of how different programming
> languages "deal" with this singleton pattern?
>

What do you mean?


> From the wikipedia reference above it appears that there are many languages
> where the singleton pattern can be programmed.  Perhaps it would be
> worthwhile to note (e.g. on the above Wikipedia page) which capability
> oriented languages "ban" them, how, and the consequences?
>

Yes, I think discussing the security problems of singletons, and mentioning
languages that ban them, on the Wikipedia page would be great.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.eros-os.org/pipermail/cap-talk/attachments/20100309/0fbb11eb/attachment.html