Status: IN
Abstract Factory is notable among creational patterns for the breadth of its specification: it defines three implementation techniques (factory methods in subclasses, prototype-based cloning, and class-as-factory in languages with first-class classes), three initialization strategies (compile-time construction, environment variable or string lookup, and registry-based selection), and four explicitly enumerated consequences (concrete class isolation, easy family switching, product consistency enforcement, and difficulty adding new product types).
Three orthogonal specification dimensions make Abstract Factory the most completely specified creational pattern
Depends on (SL): abstract-factory-three-implementation-techniques, abstract-factory-initialization-three-strategies, abstract-factory-four-consequences