Question

I would like to extend one object in a class alpha.helper to be an instance of the Helper class, with the added difficulty of setting this everytime a alpha.helper function is called because I need to transfer the current value of alpha.imperfect.

var _ = require("underscore");

var Helper = function(imperfect){

    var helper = {};

    helper.use = function(item){
        console.log(item);
        console.log(imperfect);
        return false;
    }

    helper.bar = function(item){
        console.log(item);
        console.log(imperfect);
        return false;
    }

    return helper;

}

var Alpha = function(){

    var alpha = {};

    alpha.imperfect = {}    

    alpha.add = function(item){
        _.extend(alpha.imperfect, item);
    }

    alpha.helper = function(){
        var helper = new Helper(alpha.imperfect);
        return helper;
    };

    return alpha;

}

var alpha = new Alpha();

alpha.add({"name":"thomas"});

alpha.add({"something":"seven"});

alpha.helper.use("foo");

Answer 1

Just use

alpha.helper = new Helper(alpha.imperfect);

with the added difficulty of setting this everytime a alpha.helper function is called because I need to transfer the current value of alpha.imperfect.

No. The helper always has access to the current imperfect value, because it still references the same object.