In other posts on this blog I can write with authority rooted in deep experience. Lately, I have been revisiting JavaScript and cannot write on this topic with such confidence but I am keen to master web development. So I begin a new series called JavaScript Notes and Queries and the first topic is prototypical inheritance...
TypeScript, harbinger of change
I cannot write about all the previous versions of JavaScript nor give key milestones, I can only write as to my previous encounters. Decades ago, I remember JavaScript being the language used in web pages to handle mouse clicks etc. and little more. At my clients (Banks etc.) nobody was writing large scale projects in JavaScript. But Microsoft were and they found it wanting, so Microsoft invented TypeScript. Here's John Papa, Principal Developer Advocate with Microsoft ...
TypeScript is a language for application-scale JavaScript development. It’s a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript and was originally created out of a need for a more robust tooling experience to complement JavaScript language developers.
So, Microsoft concluded that ordinary JavaScript couldn't cope with large scale projects. The TypeScript tooling, specifically the online transpilers, that arose could be used to compare and contrast syntax patterns between TypeScript and JavaScript, of most interest to me was classes and inheritance.
TypeScript transpilers reveal JavaScript prototypical equivalence of TypeScript classes
Typescript 'transpiles' to plain JavaScript, and you can find tools on line to demonstrate such as TypeScript playground. I find this to be the best tool because you can change the target version of JavaScript. When I first encountered these JavaScript was still at ECMAScript 5, i.e. before the class keyword had arrived. We can play a game of time travel and restrict the target language to ECMAScript 5 by using the options menu. Then, we can write a TyepScript class and see the old school JavaScript equivalent.
Below is a simple class in Typescript (on the left) and its transpiled into old school JavaScript, specifically ECMAScript 5 (because ECMAScript 6 has its own class keyword) equivalent (on the right). Here is the link which you must paste in full because the source code is encoded in the url.
name: string;
constructor(theName: string) {
this.name = theName;
}
move(distanceInMeters: number = 0) {
console.log(`${this.name} moved ${distanceInMeters}m.`);
}
}
var Animal = /** @class */ (function () {
function Animal(theName) {
this.name = theName;
}
Animal.prototype.move = function (distanceInMeters) {
if (distanceInMeters === void 0) { distanceInMeters = 0; }
console.log(this.name + " moved " + distanceInMeters + "m.");
};
return Animal;
}());
The JavaScript on the right is cryptic compared to the Typescript on the left but if you play around (add some more methods etc.) you'll discover the syntax pattern. The pattern is that methods are appended to the prototype property of the Animal object, this means all instances of Animal created will get a move() method, just like it was a class. Other lines in the JavaScript implement the contructor function. A class's modularity is reproduced in JavaScript by using the 'module pattern', this is established with an IIFE (Immediately Invoked Function Expression).
JavaScript's Prototypical Inheritance is simpler than TypeScript implies
So far so good. Now that we know how to append methods to the prototype we could just skip the Transcript and write the JavaScript directly. But what about inheritance? In Typescript you use the extends keyword. I've given a code listing example below and this link will take you again to Typescript playground but brace yourself for the transpiled equivalent for it is very, very scary.
class Animal {
name: string;
constructor(theName: string) {
this.name = theName;
}
move(distanceInMeters: number = 0) {
console.log(`${this.name} moved ${distanceInMeters}m.`);
}
}
class Dog extends Animal {
bark() {
console.log("Woof! Woof!");
}
}So the transpiled listing is given below in all its scariness. Don't forget, we're deliberately choosing to target a version of JavaScript before the class keyword arrived. We're doing this in the name of investigation! All the really scary code is in the top code block which defines the __extends function.
"use strict";
var __extends = (this && this.__extends) || (function () {
var extendStatics = function (d, b) {
extendStatics = Object.setPrototypeOf ||
({ __proto__: [] } instanceof Array && function (d, b) { d.__proto__ = b; }) ||
function (d, b) { for (var p in b) if (b.hasOwnProperty(p)) d[p] = b[p]; };
return extendStatics(d, b);
};
return function (d, b) {
extendStatics(d, b);
function __() { this.constructor = d; }
d.prototype = b === null ? Object.create(b) : (__.prototype = b.prototype, new __());
};
})();
var Animal = /** @class */ (function () {
function Animal(theName) {
this.name = theName;
}
Animal.prototype.move = function (distanceInMeters) {
if (distanceInMeters === void 0) { distanceInMeters = 0; }
console.log(this.name + " moved " + distanceInMeters + "m.");
};
return Animal;
}());
var Dog = /** @class */ (function (_super) {
__extends(Dog, _super);
function Dog() {
return _super !== null && _super.apply(this, arguments) || this;
}
Dog.prototype.bark = function () {
console.log("Woof! Woof!");
};
return Dog;
}(Animal));
I took this code and then I started to remove lines to see what breaks, you might like to do the same as an exercise. I believe the variable b stands for base, d stands for derived and p stands for property. Much of this code is 'polyfill' code which acts to retofit modern features, so a lot could be removed.
My classes are simpler than others and so I could remove loads of code. My classes hold no state which is my preference these days. Without state, my classes have parameterless constructors and the need to call base class constructors is obviated; this also simplified matters.
I had thought that I had completely boiled down the __extends function to one line that uses the Object.create method ...
Dog.prototype = Object.create(Animal.prototype);An alternative line of code is to the use
Object.setPrototypeOf( Animal.prototype, Creature.prototype )I asked a pertinent Stack Overflow question while constructing a deeper class hierarchy. That question links to other relevant SO questions.
All this means we can arrive at a much less scary code listing below.
var Animal = (function () {
function Animal() {
return this;
}
Animal.prototype.move = function (distanceInMeters) {
if (distanceInMeters === void 0) {
distanceInMeters = 0;
}
console.log("Animal moved " + distanceInMeters + "m.");
};
return Animal;
}());
var Dog = (function () {
Object.setPrototypeOf( Dog.prototype, Animal.prototype )
function Dog() {
return this;
}
Dog.prototype.bark = function () {
console.log("Woof! Woof!");
};
return Dog;
}());
var dog = new Dog();
dog.bark();
dog.move(10);
dog.bark();If we look in the Console in the Chrome Developer Tools then we can see out program's output. If we also type console.info(dog) and expand the nodes then we can see our desired inheritance tree ...
Speed Warning
Unfortunately that is not the end of the story because during my research I cam across this MDN article which says that the Object.setPrototypeOf technique is ...
Ill-performing. Should be deprecated. Many browsers optimize the prototype and try to guess the location of the method in memory when calling an instance in advance; but setting the prototype dynamically disrupts all those optimizations. It might cause some browsers to recompile your code for de-optimization, to make it work according to the specs.
Clearly, I need to do more research. I will return to this topic...
Links
Other links that maybe useful...
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