The following post got removed from the user contributions for the "OOP Patterns" page of the php manual.
anonymous at world4ch dot org
16-Jul-2007 08:37
A singleton is the "enterprise professional scalable business solution" version of a global variable. It'd be a good idea if this were the IOCCC, but since it isn't, it's better to simply say:
global $lol;
It's also faster and more maintainable, and has the same advantages and disadvantages.
Also, I'll advise against all "enterprise object-oriented industry-standard design patterns". Some of these patterns are correct, but their existence is not. Programming is not about copypasta. It's about thinking, abstracting and combinating. If you can't think of these patterns for yourself when you need them — and in the case of needing them, manage to abstract them so that your code doesn't become a copypasta fest, then you shouldn't be programming in the first place.
Furthermore, the existence of software patterns is a proof of the object-oriented model shortcomings. You shouldn't ever need to do any copypasta in your code. If something is done two or more times, you abstract it. And the language should support a way for you to. There's no reason for a "design pattern" to exist more than once, and since they are trivial (they better be trivial to you, if you are programming), you don't need to study them.
The best advice I can give you is that instead of reading "design patterns", you read Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP), a book freely available from MIT where you will learn what you need to program properly in any programming language.
update
See also PHP, the Enterprise, and copypasta?
