Question

A question spurred by curiosity, if I have the following code, what’s the benefit (beyond just the simplicity) of calling a property via this instead of user in the show_name method?

var user = {

    name : 'John Doe',

    show_name : function(){

        alert(this.name);

        // OR

        alert(user.name);
    }
};

Answer 1

The difference becomes obvious, if you have a look at this example. It creates a second object and sets the prototype accordingly.

var user = {

    name : 'John Doe',

    show_name : function(){

        alert(this.name);

        // OR

        alert(user.name);
    }
};

user2 = Object.create( user );
user2.name = "someone else";

user2.show_name();

Here this.name refers to the current object’s name property, whereas user.name always refers to the original name property.