title: Singletons: good design or a crutch?
body: <p>Singletons are a hotly debated design pattern, so I am interested in what the Stack Overflow community thought about them.</p>
  
  <p>Please provide reasons for your opinions, not just "Singletons are for lazy programmers!"</p>
  
  <p>Here is a fairly good article on the issue, although it is against the use of Singletons:
  <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090303174418/http://scientificninja.com/advice/performant-singletons" rel="nofollow noreferrer">scientificninja.com: performant-singletons</a>.</p>
  
  <p>Does anyone have any other good articles on them? Maybe in support of Singletons?</p>