If you don’t need to run a constructor function to make your new object, you can call Object.create():

  var a = {a: 1}; 
  // a ---> Object.prototype ---> null

  var b = Object.create(a);
  // b ---> a ---> Object.prototype ---> null

I think that this is what Douglas Crockford is trying to do here with versions of JavaScript that don’t have the relatively new Object.create().

If you want your new object to be a kind of class, that is, a constructor function that inherits from some other constructor function, this is a readable way of doing so:

function ChildClass (...) {
    // call the parent class constructor to give `this`
    // all the properties and methods its parent class has
    ParentClass.call(this, ...);

    // then code that makes the child different from the parent:
    // may well override (some of) what the parent class
    // constructor just did
}
ChildClass.prototype = new ParentClass;

These idioms need to be made more complex to work with at least some jQuery plugins. Perhaps jQuery.proxy() is all that’s needed.

Sources: 1, 2