Preface on target audience:
This post is intended for someone who is mostly comfortable with JavaScript and is familiar, at a basic level, with object-oriented-programming principles. If you can create functions and arrays in JavaScript, and know what “this” means in the context of classes, then that should be adequate.
For several months, I had been searching for a good guide on writing JavaScript classes; something that started very basically and used lots of examples. What I found were guides on writing plugins in jQuery, doing inheritance with JavaScript, overly technical articles about the underlying framework behind JavaScript’s prototype method (lots of discussion about the prototype property — which was confusing for a hot minute since there is also a framework named Prototype.)
I know they’re out there, but I’ve had a hard time finding them. All I really wanted was a guide on basic encapsulation to make my code cleaner, but so many of the guides focused instead on the Inheritance aspect (which is arguably flashier / sexier).
With the caveat that I would never claim to be a JavaScript expert, and also that I have only just recently figured this out in detail, I’d like to share my findings and process. My hope is that this can be a stepping stone for some others out there like me. I’m open to feedback on this, but want the focus to be on both encapsulation and keeping it basic.
