Confusing JavaScript statement: “var x = new this();”

Question

I thought I understood the concept of the JavaScript prototype object, as well as [[proto]] until I saw a few posts regarding class inheritance.

Firstly, \"JavaScript OO

Answer 1

AJS.Class effectively* translates this:

var Person = new AJS.Class({
    init: function(name) {
        this.name = name;
        Person.count++;
    },
    getName: function() {
        return this.name;
    }
});
Person.count = 0;

into this:

var Person = function (name) {
    this.name = name;
    Person.count++;
};

Person.prototype = {
    getName: function() {
        return this.name;
    }
};

Person.extend = AJS.Class.prototype.extend;
Person.implement = AJS.Class.prototype.implement;

Person.count = 0;

Therefore, in this case, this in AJS.Class.prototype.extend refers to Person, because:

Person.extend(...);
// is the same as
Person.extend.call(Person, ...);
// is the same as
AJS.Class.prototype.extend.call(Person, ...);

* There are a lot of cases I don't go over; this rewrite is for simplicity in understanding the problem.