Notes on how routing code might be shared b/t Backbone and Express

gistfile1.coffee

# Pretending we have a module called rooter..
 
# Option #1 - Abstract only the shared portion
#
# Accepts a callback and the params. The callback takes (err, locals).
# Rooter then injects locals into the express request, and when mixed into
# Backbone it wraps the route handlers passing the locals as the first argument.
# This splits the further handling of the routing to the respective server/client
# routing engines.
 
# lib/setup/rooter.coffee
rooter '/artwork/:id', (callback, id) ->
  new Artwork(id: id).fetch().then callback
 
# server/routes.coffee
app.get '/artwork/:id', (req, res) ->
  res.render 'artwork-page'
 
# client/router.coffee
Router extends Backbone.Router
  routes:
    '/artwork/:id': 'artwork'
  artwork: (locals, id) ->
    $('body').html require('artwork-detail')(locals)
 
# Option #2 - Combined routing
#
# This joins the routing code server/client together potentially replacing both
# express and Backbone's routers. It provies callbacks that get excuted either 
# on the client or server. This means the routing code would live together, 
# allowing any shared routing code to execute outside of the callbacks.
 
rooter '/artwork/:id', (client, server, id) ->
  new Artwork(id: id).fetch().then (err, artwork) ->
 
    client ->
      return alert('fail') if err
      $('body').html require('artwork-detail')(artwork: artwork)
    
    server (req, res, next) ->
      return next(err) if err
      res.render 'artwork-page' if req.method is 'GET'