What does “self” mean in javascript?

Question

I read here that \"self Refers to the current window or form\".

Self does not seem to refer to the current form in this case:

Answer 1

self is not a reserved keyword or standard type, but has become a defacto standard name when for keeping reference to an object for closures.

Here we create a closure to pass to setTimeout(). When that closure is executed, this will refer to the global object. To keep a reference to the foo object doLater was originally called on, a var named self is used. It could be anything but 'self' has meaningful semantics.

Foo.prototype.doLater = function() {
  var self = this; // current object

  window.setTimeout(function() { self.doSomething(); }, 1000);
}

new Foo().doLater();