Classical Vs prototypal inheritance

Question

After reading about both, I just have curiosity, how programming community uses this? In what situation which?

Answer 1

Prototype-based inheritance is more flexible. Any existing object can become a class from which additional objects will be spawned. This is handy where your objects offer several sets of services and/or they undergo a lot of state transformation before your program arrives at the point where the inheritance is needed.

A broad-spectrum discussion of modeling approaches is available here: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/10/universal-design-pattern.html

Answer 2

Since Javascript doesn't support "Classic" inheritance as most would understand (and you haven't given any references to what you've been reading) I'll assume you mean inheritance handled like this:-

 function base() {
    var myVar;
    this.someBaseFunc = function() { }
 }


 function derived() {
    base.call(this);
    var someOtherVar;
    this.SomeOtherFunc = function() { }
 }

My general rule of thumb is:

• If the Classes are complex and the instances are few use a "classical" approach. This allows the classes to expose publicly only those features that should be made public.
• If the Class are simple and the instances are many use a prototypal approach. This limits the overhead of defining and storing references to functions over and over again as instances are created.