understanding the javascript global namespace and closures

Question

I\'m trying to improve my understanding of the global namespace in javascript and I\'m curious about a few things:

1. is there a \"GOD\" (i.e. a parent) object

Answer 1

1. Yes, in a browser environment the "god object" is window. It's typically called the global object, not god object though ;) In non-browser environments such as nodejs, the global object may use some other name than window.

2. If you put everything as globals, you risk running into colliding names. There is also the matter of encapsulation - in other words, by putting variables into only the scope where it's needed, your code is usually better off.

3. Yep, this is pretty much the preferred approach. You can also use IIFE's