title: Difference between this property descriptor and property assignment in ECMAScript 5?
body: <p>I am reading up a little more on ECMAScript 5 (in the browser, using the <a href="https://github.com/kriskowal/es5-shim" rel="nofollow">ES5-shim</a> which I know doesn't support everything). And just to clear up any confusion, considering I have this object (stolen from <a href="http://uxebu.com/blog/2011/02/23/object-based-inheritance-for-ecmascript-5/" rel="nofollow">this post</a>):</p>
  
  <pre><code>var Person = {
      firstName: null, // the person’s first name
      lastName: null // the person’s last name
  };
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is there any difference between this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>var Employee = Object.create(Person, {
      id: {
          value: null,
          enumerable: true,
          configurable: true,
          writable: true
      }
  });
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>var Employee = Object.create(Person);
  Employee.id = null;
  
  // Or using jQuery.extend
  $.extend(Employee, {
      id : null
  });
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>As far as I understood enumerable, configurable and writable are set to true when defining a property this way (which would also be backwards compatible to legacy JavaScript engines). Am I missing something or can I just omit the verbose property descriptors whenever I want this to be the desired behaviour?</p>