Episode 2: Prototypes

My interest was piqued by prototypes, but I still don’t get the point! I now know how to use them, but don’t understand the reasons/benefits/costs involved relative to class-based code.

Sean

If nothing else, understanding how prototypes work is a key step in the path to metaprogramming mastery.

But every now and then, you’ll find that they’re a great technique to use in your code. The more I code, the less I use traditional class-based design techniques.

Now I’m really interested! Would you give an example of a situation you came across where prototypes provided clear value?!

Thanks!

Every time you define a singleton method on an object, you’re effectively doing prototype-based subclassing. Take it a step further—rather then use statically defined classes with constructors, how often could you instead write a factory method that returns a specialized instance of an object? That’s the pattern I use a lot.

Would you prefer the factory method pattern in general, or are there specific cases where it’s beneficial?

Factories are appropriate when you want specific (and perhaps varied) construction semantics. I find I use them a lot. If an object has a natural constructor, and I’m using a class, I’ll just use initialize(). But I hate code with overloaded constructors so I use factories. Sometimes those factories don’t call the underlying constructor, and instead clone objects.

My recommendation: look for opportunities to experiment. These kinds of things are best experienced, rather than discussed.

Great, thanks for the ideas!