I’ve learning Javascript and it’s almost a no brainer to start checking Javascript frameworks in this ocasion I started to check out Backbone.js. Tha’s why I decided for this Lunch-n-Learn session to watch a video about it. I still need to do an small side project to test it for sure.

What I’ve learned?

  • Backbone is not an MVC framework for Javascript
    • Models
    • Templates
    • Views
  • It’s use to organize your Javascript
  • Page Objects
    • Related functions that do a particular thing inside the view 
    • It’s easier to test 
  • Model mirroing    (Collections & Models)
  • Views that handle events (Views)
  • Which can render DOM (Templates)
  • Patterns: Greenfield apps
    • Rails === API (No server side rendering of the HTML)
    • Backbone works fine for new greenfield projects but always consider alternatives
      • Ember.js
      • Angular.js
  • Backbone sweet spot is when you are converting an existing Rails app to have more client side behavior. 

Conclusion

Parting from the fact that Javascript is getting more use recently I think is a good idea to check out this type of frameworks, apart from learning how to use them with your existing stack I think is good to know when to use it to solve some particular problems. This video give some advice on the later.