Delphi property read/write

Properties expose fields. Fields should (almost always) be kept private to a class and accessed via get and set properties. Properties provide a level of abstraction allowing you to change the fields while not affecting the external way they are accessed by the things that use your class.

public class MyClass
{
    // this is a field.  It is private to your class and stores the actual data.
    private string _myField;

    // this is a property. When accessed it uses the underlying field,
    // but only exposes the contract, which will not be affected by the underlying field
    public string MyProperty
    {
        get
        {
            return _myField;
        }
        set
        {
            _myField = value;
        }
    }

    // This is an AutoProperty (C# 3.0 and higher) - which is a shorthand syntax
    // used to generate a private field for you
    public int AnotherProperty { get; set; } 
}

@Kent points out that Properties are not required to encapsulate fields, they could do a calculation on other fields, or serve other purposes.

@GSS points out that you can also do other logic, such as validation, when a property is accessed, another useful feature.

Move them to an array, sort that array, and then use that array for your purposes. Here's a solution:

var maxSpeed = {
    car: 300, 
    bike: 60, 
    motorbike: 200, 
    airplane: 1000,
    helicopter: 400, 
    rocket: 8 * 60 * 60
};
var sortable = [];
for (var vehicle in maxSpeed) {
    sortable.push([vehicle, maxSpeed[vehicle]]);
}

sortable.sort(function(a, b) {
    return a[1] - b[1];
});

//[["bike", 60], ["motorbike", 200], ["car", 300],
//["helicopter", 400], ["airplane", 1000], ["rocket", 28800]]

Once you have the array, you could rebuild the object from the array in the order you like, thus achieving exactly what you set out to do. That would work in all the browsers I know of, but it would be dependent on an implementation quirk, and could break at any time. You should never make assumptions about the order of elements in a JavaScript object.

var objSorted = {}
sortable.forEach(function(item){
    objSorted[item[0]]=item[1]
})

In ES8, you can use Object.entries() to convert the object into an array:

const maxSpeed = {
    car: 300, 
    bike: 60, 
    motorbike: 200, 
    airplane: 1000,
    helicopter: 400, 
    rocket: 8 * 60 * 60
};

const sortable = Object.entries(maxSpeed)
    .sort(([,a],[,b]) => a-b)
    .reduce((r, [k, v]) => ({ ...r, [k]: v }), {});

console.log(sortable);

In ES10, you can use Object.fromEntries() to convert array to object. Then the code can be simplified to this:

const maxSpeed = {
    car: 300, 
    bike: 60, 
    motorbike: 200, 
    airplane: 1000,
    helicopter: 400, 
    rocket: 8 * 60 * 60
};

const sortable = Object.fromEntries(
    Object.entries(maxSpeed).sort(([,a],[,b]) => a-b)
);

console.log(sortable);