Concatenative Inheritance

Prototypal inheritance, the cornerstone of JavaScript's object-oriented programming paradigm, is fundamentally rooted in concatenative inheritance. This concept entails merging properties from one object into another, creating a new composite object. Unlike class inheritance, where parent-child relationships dictate the inheritance hierarchy, concatenative inheritance offers greater flexibility and independence.

To illustrate this concept, consider the following code snippet:

1const wheels = { wheels: 4 };
2const color = { color: "black" };
3
4const Car = () => {
5  return Object.assign({}, wheels, color);
6};
7
8const car = Car();
9console.log(car);

In this example, we define two objects, wheels and color, encapsulating the essential characteristics of a car. The Car function utilizes the Object.assign() method to create a new object, car, by combining the properties of wheels and color. This process exemplifies concatenative inheritance in action.

Now, let's envision a scenario where we want to create a black truck with enhanced power and wheels. We can leverage the existing color object and introduce new properties, such as power and wheels, specifically tailored to the truck:

1const power = { power: "3000 BHP" };
2const truckWheels = { wheels: 6 };
3
4const Truck = () => {
5  return Object.assign({}, color, power, truckWheels);
6};
7
8const truck = Truck();
9console.log(truck);

The Truck function employs the same concatenative approach, combining the color object with the newly defined power and truckWheels objects. This demonstrates the flexibility of concatenative inheritance, allowing us to create new objects without inheriting any unwanted properties from previous creations.

Concatenative inheritance offers a distinct advantage over class inheritance, providing a more granular approach to object composition. It empowers developers to selectively inherit properties, tailoring objects to specific requirements. This flexibility is particularly valuable in JavaScript, where the lack of class-based inheritance constraints necessitates alternative strategies for object creation.

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let power = { power: "8000 BHP" }

const Truck = () => {

    return Object.assign({}, power, color, wheels);

}

let blackTruck = Truck();

blackTruck["wheels"] = 6;

console.log(blackTruck);