In Javascript, when your getting a property of an object, is there a performance penalty to getting the whole object vs only getting a property of that object? Also Keep in mind I'm not talking about DOM access these are pure simple Javascript objects. For example: Is there some kind of performance difference between the following code: Assumed to be faster but not sure: var length = some.object[key].length; if(length === condition){ // Do something that doesnt need anything inside of some.object[key] } else{ var object = some.object[key]; // Do something that requires stuff inside of some.object[key] } I think this would be slower but not sure if it matters. var object = some.object[key]; if(object.length === condition){ // Do something that doesnt need anything inside of some.object[key] } else{ // Do something that requires stuff inside of some.object[key] }