posted by BobTabor

posted by Lee Wood

If I said that those object members are "variables", that was a misstatement and I apologize.  They are MEMBERS of an object.  Objects can have properties (attributes) and methods (functionality).  In this case, "status" is a property / attribute, and "rescueBatman" is a method.  Both are members of the whole, of the new object.  We set a reference to that new object using the equals = operator.

Why use a colon : and not an equals = operator? Here are two examples that are functionality equivalent:

var myObject = {
    firstProperty:'some value',
    secondProperty:'some other value'};

.. is functionally the same as:

var myObject = new Object();
myObject.firstProperty = 'some value';
myObject.secondProperty = 'some other value';

You'll see the former syntax (with the colon : ) more often in JavaScript because it is so compact. In fact, as you learn more, you'll that this is the defacto way to pass data between servers and web browser clients using this exact style of syntax, called JSON (IavaScript Object Notation) BECAUSE it is so compact. More about that in an upcoming video.

Hope that helps? Please feel free to follow up ... we'll get to the bottom of this!

posted by BobTabor