Is it bad practice to assign a global shortcut variable to a global namespace (object literal)?

I have a little quandary over whether it is good practice to do the following.

I have a global object literal or namespace that I use to contain base functions and variables.

Within this I have a Page property which contains all the variables and functions for a specific page. I also contain re开发者_运维技巧ferences to element IDs in a property within the Page property. This is due to having an ASP.NET site whereby I need to store the .NET-generated client IDs so I can reference them with jQuery.

Base
    Base.Page
        Base.Page.Elements

My issue is that I find myself assigning "shortcut" variables to these literals within my page functions such as the following:

Base.Page.DoThisStuff = function () {
    var p = Base.Page;
    var pe = Base.Page.Elements;

    //Function Stuff Here

    p = null;
    pe = null;
}

My question is: Is it a better idea to create a 'global' variable in my master page, such as var _p = Base.Page; or is this horrible and bad practice and I should continue as above?

(My namespaces don't have names as short as the above - they are just for illustration.

I have not tagged ASP.NET or jQuery as I don't think they directly relate to this question.)

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This really seems to me a question of programming style, and each answer will vary.

I would keep my variables in as smaller a scope as possible, hence, I would prefer the solution above rather then the global variables shortcuts idea.

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In general you'll want to limit your global "footprint", mainly to avoid another piece of js redefining some of your globals. I would say that the simpler the identifier is, the most likely it is that someone else might use it.

What I've seen in extjs and I think is a good compromise is that they'll define shorthands just under the Ext namespace. For example get a component you'll have the Ext.getCmp method which,if I recall correctly, is a shortcut to Ext.ComponentMgr.get.

So you'd keep Base.Page, and maybe Base.pe if you very often need access to page elements.