conways game of life - What do you call this JavaScript syntax, so I can research it?

Question

1) In the following code, what is the reasoning behind making gameOfLive a variable and not just function gameOfLife()?

2) What is gol? It seems like an array, but I am unfamiliar with the syntax or what its called.

I am studying http://sixfoottallrabbit.co.uk/gameoflife/

if (!window.gameOfLife) var gameOfLife = function() {

    var gol = {
        body: null,
        canvas: null,
        context: null,
        grids: [],
        mouseDown: false,
        interval: null,
        control: null,
        moving: -1,
        clickToGive: -1,
        table: "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/".split(''),
        tableBack: null,

        init: function(width, height) {
            gol.body = document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0];
            gol.canvas = document.createElement('canvas');
            if (gol.canvas.getContext) {
                gol.context = gol.canvas.getContext('2d');
                document.getElementById('content').appendChild(gol.canvas);
                gol.canvas.width = width;
                gol.canvas.height = height;
                gol.canvas.style.marginLeft = "8px";

                gol.control = document.getElementById('gridcontrol');

                gol.canvas.onmousedown = gol.onMouseDown;
                gol.canvas.onmousemove = gol.onMouseMove;
                gol.canvas.onmouseup = gol.onMouseUp;

                gol.addGrid(48,32,100,44,8);

                gol.refreshAll();
                gol.refreshGridSelect(-1);
                gol.getOptions(-1);

                gol.genTableBack();
            } else {
                alert("Canvas not supported by your browser. Why don't you try Firefox or Chrome? For now, you can have a hug. *hug*");
            }
        },
    }
}

Answer 1

1. In JavaScript, functions are first class objects. You could store them in objects (variables) and pass them as arguments to functions. Every function is actually a Function object.

2. gol is an object, which is being initialized using the object literal notation.