I'm new to the design patterns field and I'm trying to get the hang of things. I've heard multiple times about "factory" or "factory pattern" that people use but when I started learning about design patterns (currently I'm reading the GoF book) I've learned that there's actually no such thing as a "factory design pattern". The GoF book describes two patterns related to factories: "abstract factory" and "factory method".
So my question is this - when people say just "factory" (without adding anything else) which design pattern do they actually mean?
I've found 2 sources touching this matter:
However, I'm still not sure what the answer is. Is one specific design pattern referred to as "factory" or should I always ask somebody to specify what they mean?
The "factory pattern" is a generic concept of construction that includes both GoF "Abstract Factory" and "Factory Method" as well as a few other types of factories like "Simple Factory".
In general when discussing code and it is mentioned that it uses the "factory pattern", it doesn't really matter which type of factory is being used, the important thing is that somekind of factory is being used.