Why is the Temp.prototype on the MDN Object.create polyfill set to null?

Question

Why does the MDN polyfill for Object.create have the following line:

Temp.prototype = null;

Is it so that we avoid maintaining a reference

Answer 1

Yes, exactly. This polyfill does hold the Temp function forever in memory (so that its faster on average, not needing to create a function for every invocation of create), and resetting the .prototype on it is necessary so that it does not leak.