
Developing Backbone.js Applications – a Creative Commons book - getcontext
http://addyosmani.github.io/backbone-fundamentals/
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jcadam
While I wouldn't want to use _just_ Backbone anymore, I've found Backbone +
Marionette to be quite nice.

About a year ago, I was beginning a new (personal) project, and thought maybe
I'd learn Angular... went through a few online tutorials, seemed fairly
pleasant to work with. Then I ran across the news regarding Angular 2.0, that
it would be more or less a completely new framework. Not sure if that's true
or not, but there was enough confusion in the blogosphere around that time
that I decided __not __to sink the time into learning a new framework whose
creators had already declared obsolescent.

Backbone is the old reliable, I'll stick with it for the time being.

P.S. I don't consider myself a frontend/js developer -- I only ever do front-
end work on my own personal projects, because there's nobody else to do it :)

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igl
Not trying to be cynical, but i am kinda glad that backbone is "over" for me.
Been with it for about 5 years or more and i have seen big projects fall
apart. You don't see the tree behind all the leafs after a year of coding.

With flux/react/angular around development is a lot more fun again. I can't
imagine going back.

~~~
enraged_camel
What is interesting to me is that the top comment at the time I write this
provides the opposite anecdote, that they have seen huge projects using
Backbone go really well.

Makes me wonder if there's some sort of objective comparison and analysis of
frameworks, or if everything is based on anecdote and personal experiences.

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igl
Success mostly depends on the size of the team and their culture. Do they do
code reviews? Refactor early and often? Is there a architecture plan that is
enforced and trained to new hires?

Frameworks do give you a corset to work within. I do not claim backbone wasn't
a success. Just providing that was big.

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georgefrick
If we're just going to be Slashdot style anecdotal and start slinging... I've
seen huge projects go really well in Backbone. I can't imagine going back to
Angular. Since when is 'fun' the bar for frameworks?

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jordanlev
> Since when is 'fun' the bar for frameworks?

Since Ruby on Rails

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cdnsteve
Interesting issue with discussion regarding ES6:
[https://github.com/jashkenas/backbone/issues/3560](https://github.com/jashkenas/backbone/issues/3560)

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sspross
no offense, but I am the only one who thinks this MVC style isn't an option
anymore after things like react?

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tragic
Er, adding an option doesn't delete all the other options.

MVC is a decades old, tried and tested pattern for building user interfaces.
Whatever its merits, I suspect it will survive react.

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wereHamster
This is not a critique of MVC, but rather the particular implementation that
Backbone provides. With React you still have your models (and controllers).

And adding a new option may make an existing one obsolete. Remember ES3? I do,
but I wouldn't want to write new code in it. Once new options were added (ES5,
and then ES6), they made the old one obsolete. It desn't mean you can't use
the old options, but why would you if the new ones are superior?

~~~
enraged_camel
Is the ES3 vs. ES5/ES6 comparison valid? The latter were subsequent versions
of the former, kind of like Angular 2 vs Angular 1. Whereas Backbone, Ember,
React, etc. are all different, each with its own "way" of doing things.

~~~
wereHamster
I used ES5/6 because those are (I hope) in the eyes of the HN community clear
improvements over ES3. I personally wouldn't use ES5/6 nowadays, and instead
use TypeScript or PureScript. Both of which are IMO even bigger improvements.
Backwards compatibility does not matter in this comparison, what matters is
the relative ordering: Backbone.View < React, ES3 < ES5 < ES6, and IMO: ESx <
TypeScript/PureScript.

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berzniz
We've developed (and keep developing) a rather big application in Backbone.js
- it holds up and works perfectly.

We are setting a move from it since it lacks in some areas (no POJOs, no
nested, manual binding, lots of extra backbone-mini-libs required), but it
does hold well at any scale.

I wouldn't direct new comers to backbone.js anymore, new trends with 10x more
contributors wins over anything. I wrote about it being the C++ of JS MVC
frameworks ([http://berzniz.com/post/66372634868/backbonejs-is-the-c-
of-j...](http://berzniz.com/post/66372634868/backbonejs-is-the-c-of-
javascript-mvc))

