AMK's Journal

There are many JS frameworks out there, and I want to learn one. I chose Backbone.js. (Angular is probably more popular, but also facing a Python 3-ish transition, so I let it slide.)

Backbone.js: one of a bunch of MVC-ish frameworks. Others include Angular, Spine, JavaScript MVC, Ember, Knockout.

TodoMVC is a to-do list app built in several different frameworks so you can compare them.

Backbone provides:

Models: represent domain objects.

  Wine = Backbone.Model.extend();   // Creates a model
  w = new Wine({prop1: val1, prop2: val2, ...})
  w.toJSON()

Collections: a bunch of Model objects. Will apparently infer a REST-ish backend automatically.

 WineList = Backbone.Collection.extend({
   Model: Wine,
   url: "http:..."     // URL for the REST back-end
  })
  wines = new WineList([list of objects used to create Wine instances]);
  wines.each(function (w) {...})

Views:

  HomeView = Backbone.View.extend();
  view = new HomeView();
  view.render()

Templates: Backbone uses Underscore for templating by default.

Routes: recording app state in the URL, and moving between different states.

  wineApp = new AppRouter();
  wineApp.routes = dict of string to method name

Events:

View.events = dict of event name to method name called when event is triggered.

I began setting up the skeleton for Barb's suggested sandbox game, as an HTML5 app that uses jQuery Mobile. I think I'll start out by trying the fake 2D approach, not a serious 3D simulation of every single particle in the sand.