title: JavaScript prototype.init craziness
body: <p>Could someone please explain the significance of prototype.init function in JavaScript and when it is called during object instantiation?</p>
  
  <p>Why would you want to overwrite it with an empty function?</p>
  
  <p>I am reading the JavaScript for Web book and am stuck on the this for the past few hours...what is piece of code supposed to achieve?</p>
  
  <pre><code>var Class = function(){ 
  
  var klass = function(){
     this.init.apply(this, arguments); 
  };
  
  klass.prototype.init = function(){};
  
  // Shortcut to access prototype 
  klass.fn = klass.prototype;
  
  // Shortcut to access class 
  klass.fn.parent = klass;
  
  ...
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This is just too much magic for me...:)</p>