Question

I’ve been using this kind of programming pattern lately in order to group logically related functions:

FruitMethods = {
    url: "some/path/to/something.durk",
    get: function(data) {$.ajax(url, data)},
    delete: function(something) { some more function stuff....}
}

You get the picture right? It doesn’t seem to really meet the definition of a Class… or does it? A Mixin? Something else? Javascript Object Full Of Functions And Maybe A Variable? JOFOFAMAV?

My vote if for JOFOFAMAV.

PS: Feel free to also chime in with your thoughts on whether or not this is a good practice.

Answer 1

Functionally, it’s an object with properties. So, then your question becomes more about what common name would one call it.

Because it has no instance data and doesn’t appear like one will be creating new instances of it (e.g. like a class), then it is most like a namespace which is just a named wrapper for a bunch of properties where properties can be any sort of data or functions.

Namespace objects are useful for a bunch of reasons:

1. Limiting the use of the top level, global namespace thus lowering the chance of a name conflict with other scripts.
2. An organizational structure/convention for collecting a group of related data or functions.
3. A hierarchical scheme that makes it easier for categorizing or organizing methods and/or data and referring to them with a simple scheme of category.method like Fruit.get()