The best explanation I've ever heard for "this" in JavaScript: > The word "this" refers to whatever was on the left of the period when the function was called. If nothing was, it refers to the global scope.
Obviously this is a bit simplified because it doesn't take into account Function#call/apply, but it is sufficient to explain the concept most of the time. So, yes, "this" can be very useful if you know what is going to be to the left of the period. It's also especially useful in functions that are members of another function's prototype. -- Michael Jackson @mjackson On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 1:46 PM, spqr <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm writing a fairly unusual type of node program that manages and runs > JavaScript objects that the master program loads at start-up. > I don't want to go into more detail than that, but I do want to make one > comment. It seems to me that "this" as it is defined in > JavaScript, is close to useless. Because I load my objects dynamically and > call their functions via eval(), when they need to run, > "this" never has a useful value. Sure, I worked around it by getting a > reference to the object I really want and passing it in to the > function as an argument (annoying and ugly, but workable). I'm just > curious if anyone really thinks 'this" is useful. I've seen the > construct where you set a var in the object itself that is a reference to > the object... honestly, that looks pretty "off" itself, but also > doesn't work when eval() is involved. > > Is "this" in JavaScript really useful for anything? > > -- > Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ > Posting guidelines: > https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "nodejs" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs?hl=en?hl=en > -- Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ Posting guidelines: https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nodejs" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs?hl=en?hl=en
