When to use activator and when to use factory method?
<p>I have learnt the factory method design pattern, and at the same time, I have come across the Activator object and how to use it, from reading a tutorial (I have come across this object in intellisense a lot thougha).</p>

<p>Activator allows late binding, which can be extremely useful. But this is because we don't know what class we want to instantiate. Likewise, the factory method deals with the same problem in software engineering.</p>

<p>At a simple level, a bunch of ifs or a case statement and then instantiating an object based on the if condition is an implementation of the factory method, right?</p>

<p>On on a related topic, I have read that polymorphism can reduce coupling between objects by eliminating case statements. Is there an example of this?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>
