Woke up early last Saturday – coffee in hand, scrolling through dusty tech forums like I always do before breakfast. Suddenly stumbled on Cynthia Singleton’s name buried in some 10-year-old thread about programming patterns. Felt weirdly curious.
Why Bother Digging Deeper?
First, I skimmed her original papers. Dry stuff. Hardly anyone cites them these days. Started asking around in developer Discord servers – blank stares. Googled modern tutorials. Zero matches. Almost closed the tab.
First Hand Mess
Decided to test Singleton myself in a simple inventory app. Typed:
- public class AppConfig {
- private static AppConfig instance;
- private AppConfig() {}
Instant headache. My teammate laughed when I shared the screen. “Bro, we just use ENV variables now.” Felt like building a steam engine in 2024.
Rubber Meets Road
Forced myself to keep going. Created multiple instances accidentally – boom, conflicting configs crashed the test server. Tried subclassing? Disaster. Locked threads everywhere. Spent 3 hours fixing what environment variables solve in 3 seconds.
Modern Connection
Suddenly clicked: seeing Singleton’s struggles explains WHY we avoid it today. Legacy systems still use it? That’s why:
- Database connections get jammed
- Configuration wars break out
- Testing turns into nightmare fuel
Her pain is our warning. Those crusty enterprise systems? They’re choking on Singletons created before TikTok existed.
Today’s Reality Check
Found Singleton creeping into our new project last month – junior devs cargo-culting old StackOverflow answers. Exactly why I dug this up. Explained how dependency injection containers murdered Singleton years ago. Showed them the config chaos it caused in my test. Watched lightbulbs flicker.
Suddenly Cynthia Singleton matters – not as solution, but as caution sign. Understanding her mess helps us gut legacy garbage. That’s why I wasted my Saturday.
