Python: Master the Art of Design Patterns

Summary

In this chapter, we have seen how to use the Prototype design pattern. Prototype is used for creating exact copies of objects. Creating a copy of an object can actually mean two things:

• Relying on references, which happens when a shallow copy is created
• Duplicating everything, which happens when a deep copy is created

In the first case, we want to focus on improving the performance and the memory usage of our application by introducing data sharing between objects. But we need to be careful about modifying data, because all modifications are visible to all copies. Shallow copies were not introduced in this chapter, but you might want to experiment with them.

In the second case, we want to be able to make modifications to one copy without affecting ...