Course Title:   "Singleton Design Pattern"

This course describes the Singleton Design Pattern and its uses with a special focus on the requirements imposed in a multi-threaded environment.

The Singleton Design Pattern is often used to avoid global variables.  Avoiding global variables is almost always important for improved readability and maintainability for any program.  However, for multi-threaded applications it is critical.   This course starts by describing the standard Singleton Design Pattern as defined in the Gang-of-Four book.  It then goes on to describe several variations, include the Meyers Singleton and the Phoenix Singleton.  It includes information on using a template to define a Singleton.  The remainder of the course deals with multi-threading issues when implementing a Singleton.

Emphasis is on applying the concepts to large, complex software engineering projects.

Who should take this course?

1. If you ever create global variables, then you should take this course.  Singletons and other object-oriented design patterns make it easy to avoid creating global variables.  The only good reason to use global variables is for reverse compatilibity with large collections of legacy code.
2. If you want to use the singleton design pattern but don't think that it can be made to work in a multi-threaded environment, then you should take this course.  Many of the various choices are described and the trade-offs between the choices are explained.

 Course prerequisites:  Experience with C, C++ or Java. including familiarity with constructors and destructors.

Upon completion of this course, participants will have learned how this design pattern and concepts fit into the software development process, and how they can be leveraged to solve your design problems most efficiently.  All of the examples and case studies will in C++; however, most of the examples could be re-implemented in Java and, with effort, some of them can be implemented in C.

All participants are urged to purchase a copy of the GoF text book (for details see introductory course).

For more information on this and other training course, please contact us.