Object Literal Property Value Shorthand

Question

When creating JavaScript factory functions I was taught that the return syntax looks like the below:

function FF(constructorArg) {
   var _privateName = constructorArg;

   var publicMessage = "Hello StackOverflow";

   function publicMethodGetName() {
      return _privateName;
   }

   return {
      publicMethodGetName: publicMethodGetName,
      publicMessage: publicMessage
   };
}

However, I've just noticed that I can simplify the return to the following:

 return { publicMethodGetName, publicMessage };

and it still works.

Are there any unintended side effects of using this simpler syntax or is it fine to use?

Answer 1

That's a shorthand syntax of defining object literal properties that was introduced by ECMAScript2015 (a.k.a. ES6). The only possible problem is environmental support. The environment should support this feature.

For supporting ES5-based environments you can use an ES6 transpiler and convert the code into ES5.