Sunday, March 1, 2015

OOP in JavaScript

If you are creating a big project, you are going to have problems with the maintenance of your code. It is a common solution to this problem to use OOP methodology. Fortunately, JavaScript gives you the tool to be able to use these concepts.
There are lots of ways to do this, I am going to cover two big techniques to reach your goal: to be OO. First, you have to understand the basic concepts behind the prototypical behaviour of JavaScript.

Prototypal inheritance (object literal)

Let's look at this example
var parent = {
    get: function fn(){
        return this.val;
    },
    val:42
};

var child = Object.create(parent);
child.val = 69;
var grandchild = Object.create(child);

parent.get(); //42
child.get(); //69
grandchild.get(); //69

E.g. what happens at the child.get(); call? The value attribute is set to 69. That's clear. But what will be it's get function? Here comes the cool part. Obviously the child object does not implement any get functions, so the JavaScript engine will seek for it in the prototype chain. It will go back to it's prototype object (an dif there is no implementation of get, it will look at it's prototype, etc.. That's what we call 'prototype chain'.), and call it's get function, however the this keyword is going to reference to the child object. Pretty neat, isn't it?
For more information about Object's create function check out this link.
An important note: polymorphism is also available in JavaScript (just like in e.g. JAVA):
var greatgrandchild = Object.create(grandchild);
greatgrandchild.get = function() {
    return this.val + " is my val."

};
greatgrandchild.get(); //"69 is my val."
Also we can create a contructor in an object:
var MyObject = {
    constructor: function(value) {
        this._val = value;
    },
    get: function() {
        return this._val;
    }
};

MyObject.constructor(42);
MyObject.get(); //42 

Functional inheritance (the "classical" model)

This model is very similar to what we learned before. It has constructor as well, but this time it will point back to the function. So basically the function we create will be the constructor of our class. We can do this by calling the keyword new.
var XXX = function() {
    console.log("Here I am, sitting on a tree.");
};
XXX.prototype.constructor; //function () {console.log("Here I am, sitting on a tree.");}
var x = new XXX(); //"Here I am, sitting on a tree."

So every time we create a function, two objects are created: the function object and the prototype object, who holds a constructor variable, who is pointing back to the function object. A bit weird.
As we see, every function is a contructor in it's own way, however, not every function was meant to be a class.
So how can we do inheritance with this model?
It is very similar to the previous object notation inheritance, but this time we have to give explicitly a value to the object's prototype variable, like the following.

//class Animal
var Animal = function(_feet) {
    this.feet = _feet;
};
Animal.prototype.eat = function() {
    console.log("I am eating, omnomnom..");
};
Animal.prototype.info = function() {
    console.log("I have this amount of feet: " + this.feet);
};

//class Cat extends Animal
var Cat = function(_feet, _miceHaveEaten) {
    Animal.call(this, _feet);
    this.miceHaveEaten = _miceHaveEaten;
    var privateVariable = "This is not available outside the class!";
};
Cat.prototype = new Animal();
Cat.prototype.purr = function() {
    console.log("Purrrrrr.........");
};
//polymorphism
Cat.prototype.info = function() {
    console.log("I have eaten this amount of mice so far: " + this.miceHaveEaten + ", also I have " + this.feet + " feet.");
};

var unicellular = new Animal(0);
unicellular.eat();
unicellular.info();

var cico = new Cat(4, 9001);
cico.eat();
cico.purr();
cico.info();

Important note: if we declare a e.g. function in a class with the keyword this, it is going to be assigned to every instance of the class. Typically we don't want to do this, so we want to assign it only to the class's prototype.
Important note #2: we can declare private variables inside a class as you can see in the declaration of the class Cat. This can be done by easily using the var keyword, not using the reference to the object with the this keyword.
Not so important, but very interesting note: you cant change the value of this with the '=' operator. If you want to do a call like the following: this="this"; , the browser will give a ReferenceError: Invalid left-hand side in assignment. error.
I highly recommend you to try all these code snippets in your browser's console for example to get a more in depth understanding of these concepts.

Exercise

Create a class called "Orc" using the classical model. It has an "ugliness" property which is set in the constructor. This property is a Number between 0 and 100, the default value is 100. This class has a method called "intimidate", which writes to the console "You will fear me cuz my ugliness index is: " plus the object's "ugliness" property.
Create a subclass "UrukHai" which inherits from the class "Orc". It has one other property than "Orc"'s, this is called "strongness", a Number between 0 and 10, the default value is 0. It has a new method called "attack", which writes to the console: "I will crush you cuz my ugliness index is {{ugliness}}, and my strongness is: {{strongness}}".
Also create some instances of the classes showing all the methods of a class.

//class Orc
var Orc = function(_ugliness) {
    if (_ugliness > 0 && _ugliness < 100) {
        this.ugliness = _ugliness;
    } else {
        this.ugliness = 100;
    }
};
Orc.prototype.intimidate = function() {
    console.log("You will fear me cuz my ugliness index is: " + this.ugliness);
};

//class UrukHai extends Orc
var UrukHai = function(_ugliness, _strongness) {
    Orc.call(this, _ugliness);
    if (_strongness > 0 && _strongness < 10) {
        this.strongness = _strongness;
    } else {
        this.strongness = 0;
    }
};
UrukHai.prototype = new Orc();
UrukHai.prototype.attack = function() {
    console.log("I will crush you cuz my ugliness index is " + this.ugliness + ", and my strongness is: " + this.strongness);
};