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  • There definitely are uses for switch blocks, and if you are using one in a factory to decide a class you've already made other serious mistakes. I also find your 2nd to last statement about state machines and discounting switch statements to be rather unexpected. Commented Aug 8, 2017 at 20:31
  • @whatisname If you receive events from an enum based source (e.g. raw win32 messages) then you basically have to have a switch somewhere. It that example, it tends to be part of the platform library, but it is still there Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 7:45
  • @whatsisname Based on my own experience: whenever you have multiple switches for the same thing to do different things - then you are looking at a state machine in disguise. Then you step back and implement that state machine and your switch statements vanish. Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 7:46
  • Switch blocks are sooooo 1970. Use a table-mapping strategy. Map each value of an enum to a method or class, and execute from there. Throw an exception if you don't have one mapping defined. Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 12:44
  • @Machado And I would say: why build this mapping manually? That is where polymorphism kicks in ... Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 12:45