Set Javascript Namespace to Window: Bad idea? Or Brilliant?

Question

I cam upon this code in an example for the EaselJS library - what it does is it assigns the namespace of the entire createjs library to "window".

<script>
var createjs = window;
</script>

My question is this: Is setting the namespace of a library to window a really dumb idea? Doesn't it just get rid of the whole point of using a namespace by making all the namespaced variable suddenly global scoped?

The only advantage I can see is letting you write shorter contructors for your objects. For example typing:

 stage = new Stage(canvas);

instead of:

 stage = new  createjs.Stage(canvas);

Is this a bad idea, or is is somehow brilliant, or just harmlessly quirky?

Answer 1

The reason this was set up this way was to maintain backwards-compatibility with previous versions which were not namespaced. This allows developers to upgrade to the latest version when it was added without having to refactor all their code.