Code cleanup branch

[matthew_i]

You don't always have to do the GetInstance() thing. You can make GetInstance return a reference then use that:

my_type& t = my_type::instance()

t.stuff()

Then it works very much like a global. The thing I like about singletons is they are created on first use *after* main() has started executing. You don't have to initilize them twice like globals. Also they encapsulate data better than globals do, for example, you don't generally access one singleton from another singleton.

Functionally, both globals and singletons serve pretty much the same purpose, but I think singletons are a better, more complete, and more robust solution.