In JavaScript we have at least 4 ways of defining functions:

function myFunction() { alert('hai!'); }
var myFunction = function() { alert('hai!'); }
var myFunction = function myFunctionName() { alert('hai!'); }
var myFunction = new Function("alert('hai!');")

These are not all the same, and the crucial thing here is the word 'function' as used in each case. In the first example we're using the function statement, and in the second and third examples we're using the function operator. We'll come back to the fourth example later.

So what's the difference between the function statement and the function operator? Well first we need to understand a bit about anonymous functions. Most of us are familiar with using anonymous functions as event listeners - something like this:

this.on('render', function() {... do some stuff when 'this' has rendered ...});

In this example we've passed in a function without a name as a listener callback. But what do we mean when we say a function does have a name? Do we mean this:

var myFunction = function() {... do some stuff ...};

No we don't. Assigning a function to a variable does not give it a name. The function assigned to our variable above is still an anonymous function. To give a function a name we need to do something like this: