Conditionally adding object methods

I stumbled my way into an interesting experiment today where I discovered that, within a JavaScript constructor function, one might conditionally add a method based on whether the prototype has that method already or not. https://gist.github.com/nicholascloud/132d808c55a8cd3bce87 This code ensures that when the method `bar` exists on the prototype for Foo, the instance implementation of `bar` added in Foo’s constructor won’t be applied. So the instance implementation is kind of like a “default implementation”. This might really only be useful if a constructor function’s prototype property changes over time, a scenario that is not likely to occur in most applications. This came in handy for me while writing unit tests, however. I have a complex mock that creates an object for which I control both the prototype used and the constructor function. What I do not control, however, is how the object is instantiated within the module I am testing because it is ultimately instantiated through a factory function. So I can’t intercept the object and just “append” an overriding method onto the instance; the function must be added to the prototype before the object is even created by the factory function. But if a method is created on the prototype AND the constructor defines a method of the same name, the constructor function’s method will take precedence in the prototype chain. Instead, I used the conditional logic shown in the gist above to ensure that the method I define on the prototype (which I control for the purposes of the test) is the one that will be used. There are probably much better ways to accomplish this. Conditional constructor methods reek like a code smell, so I would probably not implement anything like this in production code. For a little unit test mock, though, it is a fun thought experiment.