Singleton vs. Static methods

[praufet]

I don't really get what the point of a singleton over a class with static properties/methods is? Can anyone explain it to me?

[daryl]

I don't really get what the point of a singleton over a class with static properties/methods is? Can anyone explain it to me?

You can get the same functionality in either a static class and a singleton. There are some subtle differences.

Singletons are better in cases where you want to
- limit the number of resources avail at a time (pooling)
- be able to extend the singleton class
- be sure the class has been initialized, if necessary, via the constructor.

[Tink]

or if its a view item, as you need to create an instance.

[praufet]

Ya I coincidently just read about the difference in Actionscript 3 with Design Patterns.

[Tink]

generally i would only use a static class as a utils class, with method i can pass stuff to and get something back (like the Math class). I generally wouldn't use one in a case where it actually has to store some data.