Demystifying Constructors and Prototypes in JavaScript: A Practical Guide

Learn the fundamentals of object-oriented programming in JavaScript with clear examples

Max N
4 min readMar 14, 2024

If you’re new to JavaScript or transitioning from another programming language, you might have encountered terms like “constructors” and “prototypes” and wondered what they’re all about. These concepts are essential for understanding object-oriented programming (OOP) in JavaScript, but they can seem a bit confusing at first.

In this article, we’ll break them down into simple, easy-to-understand terms with practical examples.

Constructors: Creating Objects from a Blueprint

A constructor is a special function that creates and initializes an object instance. It serves as a blueprint for creating objects with predefined properties and methods. When you call a constructor with the new keyword, JavaScript creates a new object based on the blueprint defined in the constructor function.

Here’s a basic example of a constructor function for creating Person objects:

function Person(name, age) {
this.name = name;
this.age = age;
}

// Creating new instances of Person
const john = new Person('John', 30);
const jane = new…

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Max N

A writer that writes about JavaScript and Python to beginners. If you find my articles helpful, feel free to follow.