OOP with Prototypes

Objectives

• Identify the downsides of object literal notation.
• Use constructor pattern to create multiple object instances.
• Understand the basic premises behind object-oriented programming with prototypes in JavaScript.
• Use constructors and prototypes to modularize code and keep code DRY.

Object Oriented Programming

Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which are data structures that contain data, in the form of fields, often known as attributes; and code, in the form of procedures, often known as methods. A distinguishing feature of objects is that an object's procedures can access and often modify the data fields of the object with which they are associated (objects have a notion of "this"). In object-oriented programming, computer programs are designed by making them out of objects that interact with one another. - wiki

We've been encountering examples of object-oriented programming in JavaScript, but there's ways to make objects easier and more efficient to construct. Specifically, we'll be looking at class and extend in order to achieve these goals.

Bear in mind, if you google OOP Javascript, you'll probably come across constructor and prototypes. Those are valid javascript methods to create object before, but it's complicated to understand and the global webdev community is moving towards the new version of javascript now, ES2015.