Understanding Prototypal Inheritance in JavaScript

The Simple Way to Master a Crucial Concept

Photo by JJ Ying on Unsplash

Prototypal inheritance in JavaScript is a fundamental concept that every developer should understand. It’s the mechanism by which objects inherit properties and methods from other objects, allowing you to create hierarchies of objects that share functionality.

While it may sound complex, grasping prototypal inheritance is crucial for writing efficient and maintainable code.

The Prototype Chain

Every object in JavaScript has an internal property called prototype, which is a reference to another object. This referenced object is known as the prototype of the original object. When you try to access a property or method on an object, JavaScript first looks for it on the object itself.

If it can't find it there, it follows the prototype chain and looks for the property or method on the object's prototype. This process continues until the property or method is found, or until the end of the prototype chain is reached.

Here’s a simple example to illustrate the concept:

// Creating an object literal
const animal = {
  name: 'Leo',
  eat() {
    console.log(`${this.name} is eating.`);
  }
};

// Creating another object and setting…