I understand the idea is to stop needing to implement the singleton pattern on every class we want to be a singleton, but is there any other reason to implement this code? Can I just continue to implement singleton everytime or would I be missing something by doing that?
You can roll your own Singletons if you wish. Stephen is just teaching a sort of “cool trick” with Singletons, that is all.
Yup, I have been using this type of singleton for years. It certainly beats having to type all the same code over and over. Once it exists, it’s simply a matter of inheriting from the Singleton and, if you need the Awake, override it and call base. I’ve extended it to Singleton and SingletonPersistent (with the DontDestroyOnLoad only existing in the SingletonPersistent) so that I could have singletons that are only in the scene I’m currently in. I don’t often use this ‘non-persistent’ version, but it’s there
I try to use as few Singletons as possible in my own projects, but when I do, it’s a Singleton<T>. One important bit that I don’t remember if Stephen covered in the Singleton class… clearing the Instance value in OnDestroy(), and if you’re using options like not reloading the domain, also clearing it in OnApplication Quit.