

Complete Google App Engine + Backbone.js + Require.js Todo list Web App Example - ronreiter
https://github.com/ronreiter/webapp-boilerplate

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rjurney
I don't get it - why are people so interested in Backbone.js? It seems to
impose the same kind of baggage in interfaces/front-ends that operating
systems impose.

Lots of configuration, tons of conventions to learn, lots of little files...
personally, in Javascript I create classes of things I want to draw, and they
know how to draw themselves. Is that so bad? Now... granted, I don't build
CRUD apps. I do visualization and data apps. But... it just seems like
Backbone.js puts me in Java world in a browser.

Am I wrong? Why? How does backbone.js help you?

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jashkenas
While I absolutely share your confusion as to why _this particular link_ sat
towards the top of HN for so long, there are lots of reasons to be interested
in Backbone.js.

Ideally, there is little to no configuration, a very minimal set of
conventions imposed by the library (especially when compared with others in
the space), and as many or as few files as you feel like using. But to be
specific:

Backbone.js is a minimal implementation of the foundation that many MVC-ish
JavaScript apps tend to acquire during their lifetimes. I would imagine that
in many of your visualization/data apps, you have models of the data, and UI
components that render the data and react to changes in the models. Backbone
gives you convenience methods for those basic operations: binding events to
changes in the data, granular re-rendering of UI components, map, reduce,
filter, reject, serializing models to/from JSON ... and leaves the rest of it
up to you.

Off the top of my head, here's an example where having data modeled in
Backbone was very helpful to implement a visualization:
<http://blog.documentcloud.org/blog/2011/10/entity-charts/>

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rjurney
Thanks for taking the time to explain it!

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ccarpenterg
I did the same thing but without Require.js:

Code: <https://github.com/ccarpenterg/todolist>

Wiki: <https://github.com/ccarpenterg/todolist/wiki>

Demo: <http://todolist-app.appspot.com/>

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overshard
I have one that is mostly working with some bugs running on Heroku -> MondoDB
-> Node.js -> Backbone.js w/ BrowserID

<https://github.com/overshard/node-todobin/>

~~~
switz
Sweet, I've been looking for some MongoDB/Node.js paired with Backbone
projects. Thanks!

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brianjesse
I made a spine.js Todo list for any php back-end + couch/mongo/pgsql -- it
jquery-polls a _changes feed to show todos that other people add

code <https://github.com/voitto/structal.todos>

demo <http://todosdemo.structal.org>

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jamesu
All i need is a piece of paper and a pen. No need for unnecessary complexity.

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jeffehobbs
Very cool. Thanks for passing this along!

