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I'm learning javascript.
I see that with an object, I can use .prototype, is it fair to say that, in a class/tree hierarchy I am effectively using the 'parent' (or 'ancestor' perhaps) by doing that? Can a class only have 1 prototype at a time as in Ruby?
Call it Personal Homework that I set myself.
Yes, the prototype property on a given object refers to the parent object, which allows the given object to inherit all its properties and methods. However, the definition of parent probably should be defined here. In a prototype-based language, that means that a single object can be the parent of many other objects. A side effect of this is that a property that changes in the parent is reflected in all child objects, assuming the child objects don't override it. This essentially forms a tree structure of objects that you can traverse. This is different then in a class-based language where the parent refers to the super class, and does not represent a tree of objects. The object also inherits the properties and methods from the parent, but it is all self contained within that one object.
super or something?
Mar 23, 2012 at 18:41
Foo, then you could call the static method bar by saying: Foo.bar(). Static fields and methods are inherited, but cannot be overidden.
prototype property does not inherit. The [[Prototype]] is the parent of any object and determines what is inherited