Why are't Object related methods inside the Object prototype?

Question

There are methods like Object.values fo Object.keys, but why aren't these methods inside the object's prototype? Is there a good reason for this?

Example:

const user = { name: 'John', role: 'admin' };
const keys = user.keys() // instead of Object.keys(user);
const values = user.values() // instead of Object.values(user);

Because that would conflict with `const user = {keys: function(){}}; user.keys()`. — str, Jul 14 '19 at 08:23
IMO, to keep the `prototype` object as clean as possible as not every object is going to use them. — Mohammad Usman, Jul 14 '19 at 08:24

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 14 '19 at 08:24

Because everything is an object in JavaScript. If you add a method to the Object's prototype, it would be inherited to everything, it can't (or shouldn't, as it then hides the original method) be used as a name of a custom method. That means that if the Object.prototype would get polluted with a lot of methods, it would make the choice of property names more difficult:

  1..keys() // Did you expect this to work?

Why are't Object related methods inside the Object prototype?

1 Answers1