Analysis
Compare patterns
Evaluate design patterns side by side across intent, tradeoffs, languages, and integration fit.
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Analysis
Pattern comparison
Reviewing 3 patterns.
| Criteria | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Basics | |||
| Category | behavioral | creational | behavioral |
| Summary | Pass a request through a sequence of handlers until one handles it or the chain ends. | — | — |
| Intent | Pass requests along a chain of handlers until one of them handles the request or the request reaches the end of the chain. | Ensure a class has only one instance and provide a global access point to it. | Separate an algorithm from the object structure it operates on by moving behavior into visitor objects. |
| Decision factors | |||
| Problem | A request must pass through multiple possible handlers, but the sender should not need to know which handler will process it. | A system needs exactly one shared instance of a class, and that instance must be globally accessible without allowing uncontrolled duplication. | You need to perform operations across a set of different object types without stuffing all the logic into the objects themselves. |
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| Integration notes | Chain of Responsibility is useful for validation pipelines, support routing, approval flows, and any system where requests may be processed by different handlers in sequence. | Singleton is useful for centralized services like configuration, logging, caching, and shared application state. | Visitor is useful for AST processing, reporting, cart calculations, and exporting object structures to alternate formats. |