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Why JavaScript is a Prototype-based OOP

Emmanuel Fordjour Kumah on March 30, 2023

In object-oriented programming, we can distinguish between two types of languages. Class-based and prototype-based languages. Class-based language...
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Sharmila kannan

Very useful and detailed! Thank you

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byby

I found the explanations and examples you provided to be very clear and helpful. It's great to have a better understanding of how the language works. Keep up the good work!

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ucheetah

soooo well explained thank you

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goatscrub

Thanks for this great explanations, for me it's more clear now.
I think it's really important to understand all these concepts, and your article helps me a lot.

Sorry if I am wrong, there is a mistake example just before section «Dimming Properties» with toUpperCase function.

I think the explanation is wrong, JS engine don't lookup to user object searching for toUpperCase method, because before that, string primitive was converted into String object ("boxing"), and on that object engine found toUpperCase method.

If toUpperCase method is created on user object, we can call it with user.toUpperCase() and not with user.name.toUpperCase().

Again, thanks, great explanations :)

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Emmanuel Fordjour Kumah

Thanks for the clarifcation. I will relook at that section

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Manuel Artero Anguita 🟨

Extremely deep post! congrats! Clicked here because I'm a nerd of class vs. prototype and I love this topic. I wrote one about the same topic (but considerably shorter 😅)
great work!

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Emmanuel Fordjour Kumah • Edited

Thanks Manuel, I will take a look at yours too.

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fruntend

Сongratulations 🥳! Your article hit the top posts for the week - dev.to/fruntend/top-10-posts-for-f...
Keep it up 👍

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Emmanuel Fordjour Kumah

Yaaaay, thank you all for your valuable feedbacks and reads

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aduonye

Your explanation was clear.
If I may summarize, there are two approaches to Object Oriented Programming(OOP) which are: 1. Classical Approach and 2. Prototype Approach.

The Prototype approach is the default standard for creating OOP in JavaScript.

The Prototype Approach has two methods to achieve OOP viz Using Object.create() method or Using constructor function method.

In all these, using classes for OOP in JavaScript is like a sweetener to writing OOp in JavaScript.

Thanks for your time and clear examples. I have bookmarked this piece and would refer techies to it. Well-done!

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Emmanuel Fordjour Kumah

Thanks for your feedback. Appreciate it

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tonnerkiller

Great article that will help me understand OOP in JS better.
One thing still seems strange: If I understand correctly, there are two syntactical approaches in JS that cannot be mixed, one being the proto approach of the objects and the other being the prototype property of functions.
So my objects would be either classes or functions, but I should not mix. Right?

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JoelBonetR 🥇

Quite illustrative, thank you for sharing! 😄

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Emmanuel Fordjour Kumah

Welcome Joel, please do share on your social handles. It might be of help to others

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artydev

Thank you

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prodbyola

This is awesome bro! Never seen JavaScript this way till reading this article. Thanks for sharing.

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Vinay

Neat