Javascript can be prototypical

The following JS code can be used to beget (a la Douglas Crockford, with a bit of _prototype spice) and to do a 'real' shallow clone. The object you clone will have the same parent as the cloned object, rather than just inheriting from Object.

This makes javascript work like a 'real' prototypical language (SELF) so we can follow the patterns that that implies.

function object(o){
 if( !o ) {
  o = this;
 }
 var builder = function(){};
 builder.prototype = o;
 var result = new builder();
 result._prototype = o;
 return result;
}

function clone(objectToClone, objectsParent) {
 if(!objectToClone) {
  objectToClone = this;
 }
 if(objectToClone._prototype) {
  objectsParent = objectToClone._prototype;
 }
 if(!objectsParent) {
  throw "no parent defined for this object";
 }

 // create new object with prototype
 var result = object(objectsParent);

 // copy over new stuff
 for(var key in objectToClone) {
  if( objectToClone.hasOwnProperty(key) ) {
   result[key] = objectToClone[key];
  }
 }
 return result;
}

Object.prototype.clone = clone;
Object.prototype.beget = object;