One of the advantages of the static factory methods with private constructor(object creation must have been restricted for external classes to ensure instances are not created externally) is that you can create instance-controlled classes. And instance-controlled classes guarantee that no two equal distinct instances exist(a.equals(b) if and only if a==b) during your program is running that means you can check equality of objects with == operator instead of equals method, according to Effective java.

The ability of static factory methods to return the same object from repeated invocations allows classes to maintain strict control over what instances exist at any time. Classes that do this are said to be instance-controlled. There are several reasons to write instance-controlled classes. Instance control allows a class to guarantee that it is a singleton (Item 3) or noninstantiable (Item 4). Also, it allows an immutable class (Item 15) to make the guarantee that no two equal instances exist: a.equals(b) if and only if a==b. If a class makes this guarantee, then its clients can use the == operator instead of the equals(Object) method, which may result in improved performance. Enum types (Item 30) provide this guarantee.

摘自Effective Java, Joshua Bloch(第1项，第6页)

这一切都归结为可维护性。最好的方式是，无论何时使用new关键字创建对象，都是将所编写的代码耦合到实现中。

The factory pattern lets you separate how you create an object from what you do with the object. When you create all of your objects using constructors, you are essentially hard-wiring the code that uses the object to that implementation. The code that uses your object is "dependent on" that object. This may not seem like a big deal on the surface, but when the object changes (think of changing the signature of the constructor, or subclassing the object) you have to go back and rewire things everywhere.

如今，由于依赖注入需要大量的样板代码，而这些代码本身维护起来有点困难，工厂在很大程度上被忽略了。依赖注入基本上等同于工厂，但允许你以声明的方式(通过配置或注释)指定你的对象如何连接在一起。

可读性可以通过静态工厂方法来提高:

比较

public class Foo{
  public Foo(boolean withBar){
    //...
  }
}

//...

// What exactly does this mean?
Foo foo = new Foo(true);
// You have to lookup the documentation to be sure.
// Even if you remember that the boolean has something to do with a Bar
// you might not remember whether it specified withBar or withoutBar.

to

public class Foo{
  public static Foo createWithBar(){
    //...
  }

  public static Foo createWithoutBar(){
    //...
  }
}

// ...

// This is much easier to read!
Foo foo = Foo.createWithBar();

我们避免提供对数据库连接的直接访问，因为它们是资源密集型的。因此，我们使用一个静态工厂方法getDbConnection，它在低于限制时创建一个连接。否则，它将尝试提供一个“备用”连接，如果没有则会出现异常而失败。

public class DbConnection{
   private static final int MAX_CONNS = 100;
   private static int totalConnections = 0;

   private static Set<DbConnection> availableConnections = new HashSet<DbConnection>();

   private DbConnection(){
     // ...
     totalConnections++;
   }

   public static DbConnection getDbConnection(){

     if(totalConnections < MAX_CONNS){
       return new DbConnection();

     }else if(availableConnections.size() > 0){
         DbConnection dbc = availableConnections.iterator().next();
         availableConnections.remove(dbc);
         return dbc;

     }else {
         throw new NoDbConnections();
     }
   }

   public static void returnDbConnection(DbConnection dbc){
     availableConnections.add(dbc);
     //...
   }
}

我想我会在这篇文章中添加一些我所知道的东西。我们在最近的android项目中广泛使用了这种技术。除了使用new操作符创建对象，您还可以使用静态方法来实例化一个类。代码清单:

//instantiating a class using constructor
Vinoth vin = new Vinoth(); 

//instantiating the class using static method
Class Vinoth{
  private Vinoth(){
  }
  // factory method to instantiate the class
  public static Vinoth getInstance(){
    if(someCondition)
        return new Vinoth();
  }
}

静态方法支持有条件的对象创建:每次调用构造函数都会创建一个对象，但您可能不希望这样。假设你想检查一些条件，然后你想创建一个新对象。除非满足条件，否则不会每次都创建一个新的Vinoth实例。

另一个例子来自Effective Java。

public static Boolean valueOf(boolean b) {
        return (b ? TRUE : FALSE);
}

此方法将布尔原语值转换为布尔对象引用。boolean . valueof (boolean)方法说明了我们，它从不创建对象。静态工厂方法从重复调用中返回相同对象的能力允许类在任何时候对存在的实例保持严格控制。

与构造函数不同的是，静态工厂方法可以返回返回类型的任何子类型的对象。这种灵活性的一个应用是API可以返回对象，而不需要将它们的类设为公共。以这种方式隐藏实现类可以得到一个非常紧凑的API。

Calendar.getInstance()是一个很好的例子，它根据地区创建一个佛教日历，日本帝国日历或默认的格鲁吉亚日历。

另一个例子，我认为是单例模式，你使你的构造函数私有创建一个自己的getInstance方法，你确保，总是有一个实例可用。

public class Singleton{
    //initailzed during class loading
    private static final Singleton INSTANCE = new Singleton();

    //to prevent creating another instance of Singleton
    private Singleton(){}

    public static Singleton getSingleton(){
        return INSTANCE;
    }
}

工厂方法:将对象的实例化抽象出来的方法。一般来说，当你知道你需要一个实现接口的类的新实例，但你不知道实现类时，工厂是有用的。

这在处理相关类的层次结构时非常有用，GUI工具包就是一个很好的例子。您可以简单地对每个小部件的具体实现的构造函数进行硬编码调用，但是如果您想要将一个工具包交换为另一个工具包，那么您将有很多地方需要更改。通过使用工厂，您可以减少需要更改的代码数量。