I usually use it when I’m at a midpoint that I’ll be using for several objects. How about a oversimplified example just to illustrate the point? If I’m programming a ********* story and have all my characters as objects (bear with me here)... I might start with an “animal” class for the reindeer, set up the specific properties that make it a reindeer (legs = 4, horns = true, etc), and then clone it for each of Santa’s reindeer before setting the particulars like the specific name (Rudolph, Blitzen, etc)... The alternative is to start over from my animal class, or from scratch, and loop through to set the same properties. Cloning would be more efficient, and usually easier to follow. In the real world I might use this for something like an XML object. I’ll start with the base, set the particulars of a formatted request that I’ll be reusing, and then clone the XML object before filling in the particulars.