Java 'Prototype' pattern - new vs clone vs class.newInstance
- by Guillaume
In my project there are some 'Prototype' factories that create instances by cloning a final private instance.
The author of those factories says that this pattern provides better performance than calling 'new' operator.
Using google to get some clues about that, I've found nothing really relevant about that.
Here is a small excerpt found in a javdoc from an unknown project 
javdoc from an unknown project
  Sadly, clone() is rather slower than
  calling new. However it is a lot
  faster than calling
  java.lang.Class.newInstance(), and
  somewhat faster than rolling our own
  "cloner" method.
For me it's looking like an old best practice of the java 1.1 time. 
Does someone know more about this ? Is this a good practice to use that with 'modern' jvm ?