Don't read _Design Patterns_ as a novice. It will hurt you. Or, if you have to read it, please realize that everything does not need a factory, and you almost

Don't read _Design Patterns_ as a novice. It will hurt you. Or, if you have to read it, please realize that everything does not need a factory, and you almost certainly don't want to have nested and indirect factories (I have three letters for you that should be terrifying: COM), and that not every piece of code you write needs to be from The Book of Patterns, and in fact if you do find yourself leafing through TBoP in search of a pattern to use, you're going about things all wrong and your cow-orkers will hate you and string you up for Pattern Abuse and the best thing that can happen is that you'll look at your code six months from now and say to yourself, "Ewwww, this crap has got to go."