Are there any viable alternatives to the GOF Singleton Pattern?

Question

Let\'s face it. The Singleton Pattern is highly controversial topic with hordes programmers on both sides of the fence. There are those who feel like the Singleto

Answer 1

Actually if you design right from scratch on avoiding Singeltons, you may not have to work around not using Singletons by using static variables. When using static variables, you are also creating a Singleton more or less, the only difference is you are creating different object instances, however internally they all behave as if they were using a Singleton.

Can you maybe give a detailed example where you use a Singleton or where a Singleton is currently used and you are trying to avoid using it? This could help people to find a more fancy solution how the situation could be handled without a Singleton at all.

BTW, I personally have no problems with Singletons and I can't understand the problems other people have regarding Singletons. I see nothing bad about them. That is, if you are not abusing them. Every useful technique can be abused and if being abused, it will lead to negative results. Another technique that is commonly misused is inheritance. Still nobody would say inheritance is something bad just because some people horribly abuse it.