This article presents an overview of classes in JavaScript. A class can be seen as blueprints or templates for creating objects. Classes are a way to bundle the properties and the methods that act on those properties (encapsulation). Constructors are used to initialize the properties of the class when you create a new object. Inheritance is a way to create a class hierarchy and reuse (extend) code. You can also override methods and customize your classes while using inheritance.
In the last article,
we introduced some basic concepts of object-oriented programming (OOP),
and discussed an example where we used OOP principles to model
professors and students in a school.
We also talked about how it's possible to use prototypes and constructors to implement a model like this, and that JavaScript also provides features that map more closely to classical OOP concepts.
In this article, we'll go through these features. It's worth keeping in mind that the features described here are not a new way of combining objects: under the hood, they still use prototypes. They're just a way to make it easier to set up a prototype chain.
| Prerequisites: | Basic computer literacy, a basic understanding of HTML and CSS, familiarity with JavaScript basics (see First steps and Building blocks) and OOJS basics (see Introduction to objects, Object prototypes, and Object-oriented programming). |
|---|---|
| Objective: | To understand how to use the features JavaScript provides to implement "classical" object-oriented programs. |
Source: Mozilla, https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/JavaScript/Objects/Classes_in_JavaScript#constructors_and_object_instances
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