JavaScript Patterns

Being a client side language usually heavily tied to the UI, JavaScript code sometimes suffers from a lack of core programming concepts that can make the code hard to reuse and maintain. Here are a few patterns that can help:

Prototype

Benefits include:

• Variables taken out of global namespace
• Methods loaded once into memory and reused by each instance
• Methods can be overridden by developers using your code

Module

Benefits include:

• Variables taken out of global namespace
• Public and private members

Cons:

• Methods get loaded into memory for each instance
• Not easy to override methods
• Debugging can be trickier as private members can be hidden

And the winner is… Revealing Prototype

Benefits include:

• Variables taken out of global namespace
• Public and private members
• Easy to override methods