JavaScript: Constructor Auto-Execution with new Keyword
JavaScript is full of small, interesting facets that can trip you up, make you laugh, or make you cry. This post is about an interesting one. Those of you that have worked with JavaScript functions, and in a way JavaScript "classes" (as you used with MooTools), you're well acquainted with the new keyword. With the new keyword you get the ability to pass arguments with the function call, but did you know that if you have no arguments, you don't need the parens at all?
function MyClass() {
console.log('Initialized!');
//Set a property, as an example
this.dirty = true;
}
var instance = new MyClass;
// >> "Initialized!''
So why am I telling you this? I have no idea. It's just one of those fun tidbits that you can add to your brain. :)
![Convert XML to JSON with JavaScript]()
If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I've been working on a super top secret mobile application using Appcelerator Titanium. The experience has been great: using JavaScript to create easy to write, easy to test, native mobile apps has been fun. My...
![fetch API]()
One of the worst kept secrets about AJAX on the web is that the underlying API for it, XMLHttpRequest, wasn't really made for what we've been using it for. We've done well to create elegant APIs around XHR but we know we can do better. Our effort to...
![Better Pull Quotes with MooTools]()
Chris Coyier authored a post titled Better Pull Quotes: Don't Repeat Markup a while back. In his post he created great-looking pull quotes without repeating any content -- instead he uses jQuery to dynamically create the pull quotes. The following is the...
![How to Create a Twitter Card]()
One of my favorite social APIs was the Open Graph API adopted by Facebook. Adding just a few META tags to each page allowed links to my article to be styled and presented the way I wanted them to, giving me a bit of control...
Amazing how the obvious is sometimes hidden in plain sight. I was going to save the extra () characters but it looks like there’s a micro performance hit in V8.
http://jsperf.com/new-with-and-without-parens
Really? That’s ironic, since Google Closure Compiler actually removes the parentheses when they can be omitted.
That was something I always was curious about but never bothered to ask/look up. I assume the same thing also occurs in php?
I’ll file this next to optional semi-colons and optional closing tags in HTML5: things that are interesting to know, but if I ever see while reviewing someone’s code I might get stabby.