in reply to Abstract Factory
In the GoF the Factory and Abstract Factory are two different patterns. A Factory is another object that creates objects for you; an Abstract Factory creates other Factories (which create objects for you). And FWIW, the Class::Factory module on CPAN takes care of the Factory part of that and it's got pretty extensive docs which might help you learn more about this. (I say that as the author of those docs...)
Chris
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