flyweight-pattern

SKILL.md

Flyweight Pattern

The flyweight pattern is a useful way to conserve memory when we're creating a large number of similar objects.

In our application, we want users to be able to add books. All books have a title, an author, and an isbn number! However, a library usually doesn't have just one copy of a book: it usually has multiple copies of the same book.

When to Use

Use this when creating a huge number of objects that could potentially drain available memory

This is helpful when many objects share the same intrinsic properties (e.g., books with the same ISBN)

When NOT to Use

When the number of objects is small enough that memory is not a concern

When objects have few or no shared intrinsic properties — the separation of intrinsic and extrinsic state adds complexity without savings

When the added lookup/management overhead outweighs the memory benefit

Instructions