In the early nineties, a thing called object-oriented programming stirred up the software industry. Most of the ideas behind it were not really new at the time, but they had finally gained enough momentum to start rolling, to become fashionable. Books were being written, courses given, programming languages developed. All of a sudden, everybody was extolling the virtues of object-orientation, enthusiastically applying it to every problem, convincing themselves they had finally found the right way to write programs.

These things happen a lot. When a process is hard and confusing, people are always on the lookout for a magic solution. When something looking like such a solution presents itself, they are prepared to become devoted followers. For many programmers, even today, object-orientation (or their view of it) is the gospel. When a program is not 'truly object-oriented', whatever that means, it is considered decidedly inferior.

Few fads have managed to stay popular for as long as this one, though. Object-orientation's longevity can largely be explained by the fact that the ideas at its core are very solid and useful. In this chapter, we will discuss these ideas, along with JavaScript's (rather eccentric) take on them. The above paragraphs are by no means meant to discredit these ideas. What I want to do is warn the reader against developing an unhealthy attachment to them.