perf(*): use Object.create instead of creating temporary constructors

[jbedard]

For inherit: http://jsperf.com/inherit-extend-vs-ocreate

For constructing an object without calling the constructor: http://jsperf.com/create-constructor/2
Note that caching the constructor is actually faster but I'd rather avoid the extra logic and caching. Maybe that will be done in #9772 though.

[gkalpak]

Note that the slowing factor is having to call extend twice.
If (for whatever reason) one would not want to use Object.create, replacing

return extend(Object.create(parent), extra);

with:

var constr = function() {};
constr.prototype = parent;
return extend(new constr(), extra);

is almost equally fast.

Of course, Object.create() is consicer and preferrable.
I am just mentioning this in case it has a noticable perf impact and we want to backport it to 1.2.x.

[jbedard]

I find creating temp objects like that quite ugly. It also seems to perform much worse (see the second benchmark) unless you cache the constructor which makes it even uglier.

[gkalpak]

The second benchmark does not prove that it is much slower than Object.create. They are very close (in comparison to caching the contructor), but the difference is negligible given extend will take up most of the time: http://jsperf.com/inherit-extend-vs-ocreate/4

In any case, as I already said, there is no reason to not use Object.create() in 1.3.x.
I olny mentioned the (more verbose) alternative, in case we want to port it back to 1.2.x (due to Object.create's not being available in IE8).

[caitp]

microbenchmarks don't mean a whole lot, but I feel like we are gaining a bit of simplicity using Object.create instead, so it seems like a worthwhile refactoring

[caitp]

@petebacondarwin can you rubber stamp this?

[petebacondarwin]

LGTM

[PatrickJS]

Object.setPrototypeOf is a thing. When will angular 1.x update the codebase to es6? 1.4 or 1.5?
http://maximilianhoffmann.com/posts/object-based-javascript-in-es6

[lgalfaso]

At the moment there are no plans to change angular 1.x code to ES6

Object.setPrototypeOf is a thing. When will angular 1.x update the
codebase to es6? 1.4 or 1.5?