Peter Williams

While reading Oliver Steele’s article on JavaScript Memoization this bit jumped out at me.

function Angle(radians) {this.setRadians(radians)}
Angle.prototype.setRadians = function(radians) {
  this.radians = radians;
  this.getDegrees.reset();
};
Angle.prototype.getDegrees = function() {
  return this.radians * 180 / Math.PI;
}
memoizeConstantMethod(Angle.prototype, 'getDegrees'); 

The reason that jumped out is that getDegrees is a function that returns a number, but in the above code you see this this.getDegrees.reset(). In other languages that would require a reset method on number objects, but not in JavaScript. In JavaScript methods are objects and, therefore, can have methods of their own¹. This allows you to get the effect of high-order messaging without all the fuss.

1. Is that the exact semantics that allows this functionality in JavaScript?