Static member functions

Question

After reading sbi and Eli Bendersky\'s answers in this question I started to wondering what static member functions are for.

A class\' friend free function shouldn\'

Answer 1

Some people are wary of using static functions because it's often used by those who come from a procedural background and don't understand OO.

However there are many design patterns that make sense to be implemented using static member functions

For example. Singleton and Factory patterns to name a couple of the top my head, in fact most structural patterns that require object creation would require static member functions.