Is this Factory Method creation pattern?

Question

I have been using factory method creation pattern for awhile now. I was just recently told that this:

public static class ScheduleTypeFactory
{
    public st         


        

Answer 1

Your lead is right (sorry for the formatting, but this answer need some of it in order to be seen between the main line that is stating the lead is a moron): neither by the GOF book nor Head First this a factory method.

GoF :

“Define an interface for creating an object, but let the subclasses decide which class to instantiate. Factory Method lets a class defer instantiation to subclasses.”

In your example, it's not a subclass that is deciding.

Have you implemented it incorrectly all these years? No, you just haven't implemented the factory pattern, but what is sometimes referred to as the 'Simple Factory Pattern', which probably has done the job just fine.