Difference
The main difference lies in the initialization process:
- Creating new objects involves invoking constructors and performing initialization steps from scratch.
- Cloning involves copying the state of an existing object, thereby bypassing the need for re-initialization.
Cloning is less expensive
- It avoids costly initialization steps by replicating the state of existing objects.
- Cloning is typically a shallow operation, especially in the context of the prototype pattern, where only the immediate properties of the object are copied. Deep cloning, which involves copying nested objects, can be more expensive but still generally less so than creating objects from scratch.
In short, cloning is advantageous when object creation is costly or when objects share similar states, allowing for efficient reuse of existing object instances.
