Question

Why is the Borg pattern better than the Singleton pattern?

I ask because I don’t see them resulting in anything different.

Borg:

class Borg:
  __shared_state = {}
  # init internal state variables here
  __register = {}
  def __init__(self):
    self.__dict__ = self.__shared_state
    if not self.__register:
      self._init_default_register()

Singleton:

class Singleton:
  def __init__(self):
    # init internal state variables here
    self.__register = {}
    self._init_default_register()

# singleton mechanics external to class, for example this in the module
Singleton = Singleton()

What I want to display here is that the service object, whether implemented as Borg or Singleton, has a nontrivial internal state (it provides some service based on it) (I mean it has to be something useful it’s not a Singleton/Borg just for fun).

And this state has to be inited. Here the Singleton implementation is more straightforward, since we treat init as the set-up of the global state. I find it awkward that the Borg object has to query its internal state to see if it should update itself.

It becomes worse the more internal state you have. For example, if the object has to listen to the Application’s teardown signal to save its register to disk, that registration should only be done once as well, and this is easier with a Singleton.

Answer 1

The real reason that borg is different comes down to subclassing.

If you subclass a borg, the subclass’ objects have the same state as their parents classes objects, unless you explicitly override the shared state in that subclass. Each subclass of the singleton pattern has its own state and therefore will produce different objects.

Also in the singleton pattern the objects are actually the same, not just the state (even though the state is the only thing that really matters).