If you have read first part of the series, Defining Classes in JavaScript, you are probably comfortable with the basic constructs of object orientation in JavaScript. The next important feature of object-oriented programming is the inheritance. Inheritance allows to create new classes which reuse, extend and modify the logic defined in other classes. It could give you lots of control and flexibility over your code. As discussed in the previous post, function has prototype property and when this function is invoked using new keyword, it creates an object which contains all methods of the prototype.

You, probably just like me prefer to organize your JavaScript code in the class structure. JavaScript does not provide class construct, nor it is necessary to organize your code in classes like C#. However, if you are coming from class-based, strongly typed object-oriented languages like C# or Java, it makes perfect sense to organize your client side code as well in classes. JavaScript code could quickly turn into big ball of spaghetti if you don’t structure it well.

Have you ever found yourself wishing you could debug CoffeeScript in the browser? In fact, this was one of the argument against CoffeeScript - it makes hard to debug, as generated JavaScript isn’t very readable. It was never an issue for me. However, it would be nice if we could debug CoffeeScript in the browser. CoffeeScript version 1.6.1 introduced support for Source Maps. Source Map provides line-mapping between your CoffeeScript code and generated JavaScript.

Once in a while I come across an innovative mobile app, which has the potential to improve the way I do day-to-day tasks. One such app I use is MightyText. It allows to send SMS from computer using a Chrome extension. Also, it notifies about incoming calls. I like the ease of typing text messages from the comfort of a real keyboard and knowing who is calling when the phone is not around, and it rings.

JavaScript could feel like a ‘pain’ to deal with at first if you are coming from more ‘traditional’ object oriented languages like C#. However, it’s no longer possible to ignore JavaScript as a glue or toy language. Microsoft is adopting it as a first class language with JavaScript and HTML5 as the primary application development tools for Windows 8. Microsoft is even supporting the Nodejs development efforts, which is a platform built on Google’s V8 JavaScript engine.