Inheritance in Ruby, Python and JavaScript
OOP in three languages 
Ruby is a class-based language, thus it is straightforward to create objects in classes for inheritance as described in my previous posts. However, it takes some steps to mimic classes in JavaScript, which is a prototype-based language. Let's do some comparison. Here is how we do inheritance in Ruby:
Welcome to IRB. You are using ruby 2.0.0p576 (2014-09-19) [i386-cygwin]. Have fun ;)
>> class Supermen
def fast_moving
"Shuuooo ..........you just moved!"
end
>> end
>> class Incredibles < Supermen
def wear_uniform
"The red and black looked so nice!"
end
>> end
# note: inheritance can also be done when initiating a new instance of Class
# Incredibles = Class.new(Supermen)
>> clark = Superman.new
>> clark.fast_moving #=> "Shuuooo ..........you just moved!"
>> clark.wear_uniform #=> NoMethodError.
>> rob = Incredibles.new
>> rob.fast_moving #=> "Shuuooo ..........you just moved!"
>> rob.wear_uniform #=> "The red and black looked so nice!"In Python, we can create instance by defining custom factory function. If a class is defined, you can create an instance by instance = Class() . Python interpreter will actually call Class().method(instance) and execute method defined in that class. Don't forget to include self in the definition of methods so Python knows which instance to pass for executing the method.
Python 2.7.9 shell
>>> class Supermen:
... def fast_moving(self):
... return "Shuuooo ..........you just moved!"
...
>>> clark = Supermen()
>>> clark.fast_moving()
'Shuuooo ..........you just moved!'
>>> class Incredibles(Supermen):
... def wear_uniform(self):
... return "The red and black looked so nice!"
...
>>> rob = Incredibles()
>>> rob.wear_uniform()
'The red and black looked so nice!'
>>> rob.fast_moving()
'Shuuooo ..........you just moved!'
In JavaScript a popular way to mimic class is through constructor functions and use new functions to create instances, and inherit such "classes" by the prototype assignment:
node v0.10.13 console
> function Superman(){
this.fast_moving = "Shuuooo ..........you just moved!";
}
> function Incredibles(){
this.wear_uniform = "The red and black looked so nice!";
}
> Incredibles.prototype = new Superman();
> var clark = new Superman();
> clark.fast_moving;
'Shuuooo ..........you just moved!'
> clark.wear_uniform;
undefined
> var rob = new Incredibles();
> rob.fast_moving;
'Shuuooo ..........you just moved!'
> rob.wear_uniform;
'The red and black looked so nice!'Functions in JavaScript are special and can be used as classes sometimes. In the above example we start two functions by constructors, and assign prototype to inherit. Therefore Rob can use Superman's methods by such assignment without pre-definition.
However such prototype assignment will result wrong instanceof results. For example, in the above case the return values of rob instanceof Superman and rob instanceof Incredibles would be both true, because the constructor of the Incredibles points to Superman after the prototype assignment. Some people suggest to use Incredibles.prototype.constructor = Incredibles after the prototype assignment to correct the wrong chaining.