Getters and setters for Backbone models

BaseModel.coffee

Backbone = require 'backbone'

class BaseModel extends Backbone.Model
    constructor: ->
        super
        
        model = @
        @data = data = {}
        for key of @defaults
            do (key) ->
                data.__defineGetter__ key, ->
                    model.get key
                data.__defineSetter__ key, (value) ->
                    d = {}
                    d[key] = value
                    model.set d

module.exports = BaseModel

Usage.coffee

BaseModel = require 'BaseModel'

# To register getters and setters, BaseModel requires you
# to declare properties in the `defaults` property
class Person extends BaseModel
    defaults:
        firstName : null
        lastName  : null
        phone     : null

mike = new Person firstName: 'Mike', lastName: 'Wieringo', phone: 'unlisted'

# Use getters via `data` property
alert "Person's firstName is #{mike.data.firstName}"

# Bind events and watch them fira via setters
mike.bind 'change:phone', (ev) -> alert "#{mike.data.firstName} changed his phone number!"

mike.data.phone = '0-800-WIERINGO'

x.__defineGetter__ key, ->
  model.get key

Is a non standard extension. The correct ES5 code is

Object.defineProperty x, key, {
  get: ->
    model.get key
}

True enough, but it did support the target browsers we were using. I'll think about getting a wider and proper support for this.