If you're a web developer, backbone.js will teach you how to make gui apps!
I've been working with MVC style frameworks for quite a while on the server-side but until backbone I've never been able to get my head around how to create a gui app using MVC. It was never clear where and how to put things and before I knew it, everything would go spaghetti on me.
I've done lots of js and lots of js intensive apps and I always hated it because of all the lack of structure and mix of concerns everywhere.
For the last two months, I've been using backbone.js, underscore.js, jammit and coffeescript (which is also made by jashkenas) in a quite complex app. Because of them I was able to massively rework things based on changing requirements without ending up with dead code, or strange pieces that are somehow working but not really needed.
I can't say this enough. Backbone.js really helped put order in my code and it was so easy to pick up that I am convinced you're really hurting yourself by not using it. The documentation is amazingly well done and has real examples of how you'd use the code, instead of just being generated from arguments and other relatively unimportant stuff.
Thanks jashkenas and samuelclay! And congrats on finally launching documentcloud.org. Keep kicking ass!
I second this. Even though it took me a while to wrap my head around Backbone.js (I guess more examples would have helped, e.g. of apps using nested models), now that I got it working, it allows me to do a lot with just a little bit of very clean code. CoffeeScript is also awesome for cleaning up your client side code base.
I've been working with MVC style frameworks for quite a while on the server-side but until backbone I've never been able to get my head around how to create a gui app using MVC. It was never clear where and how to put things and before I knew it, everything would go spaghetti on me.
I've done lots of js and lots of js intensive apps and I always hated it because of all the lack of structure and mix of concerns everywhere.
For the last two months, I've been using backbone.js, underscore.js, jammit and coffeescript (which is also made by jashkenas) in a quite complex app. Because of them I was able to massively rework things based on changing requirements without ending up with dead code, or strange pieces that are somehow working but not really needed.
I can't say this enough. Backbone.js really helped put order in my code and it was so easy to pick up that I am convinced you're really hurting yourself by not using it. The documentation is amazingly well done and has real examples of how you'd use the code, instead of just being generated from arguments and other relatively unimportant stuff.
Thanks jashkenas and samuelclay! And congrats on finally launching documentcloud.org. Keep kicking ass!