An elegant illustration of the utility of 'this' in javascript

this.md

Why this?

If the this mechanism is so confusing, even to seasoned JavaScript developers, one may wonder why it's even useful? Is it more trouble than it's worth? Before we jump into the how, we should examine the why.

Let's try to illustrate the motivation and utility of this:

function identify() {
    return this.name.toUpperCase();
}

function speak() {
    var greeting = "Hello, I'm " + identify.call( this );
    console.log( greeting );
}

var me = {
    name: "Kyle"
};

var you = {
    name: "Reader"
};

identify.call( me ); // KYLE
identify.call( you ); // READER

speak.call( me ); // Hello, I'm KYLE
speak.call( you ); // Hello, I'm READER