helpers.md

Here is an example of using some helper methods to help manage boilerplate view code. This baseInitialize helper basically wraps the existing initialize method and runs some boilerplate code first.

// Global helper object
var helpers = {
  
  // Example helper
  // This method will wrap any existing initialize method
  // and run some boilerplate first
  baseInitialize: function(view) {
    (function() {
      
      // Store reference to existing initialize
      var _initialize = this.initialize;
      
      // Replace initialize method
      this.initialize = function() {
        // Bind all view methods to view
        _.bindAll(this);
        
        // Run existing initialize
        _initialize()
      }
    }).apply(view);
  } 
}

var SomeView = Backbone.View.extend({
  initialize: function() {
    // This will run after _.bindAll(view)
  }
});

helpers.baseInitialize(SomeView)

Now, in this instance, using a version of the module pattern seems a bit overkill. We don't need any sudo-private variables and we really have no need to worry about methods being overridden. A more succint version might look like this:

var helpers = {

  baseInitialize: function(view) {
    var _initialize = view.initialize;
    
    view.initialize = function() {
      _.bindAll(view);
      _initialize()
    }
  } 
}