Backbone best practices

backbone_bp.markdown

General

• User activity should manipulate data, not modify markup : Let backbone handle updating the view when an action takes place with something like an observer.

Models (use a model when your problem is inline with the items below)

• Works with attributes (properties of the object)
• Automatically triggers data change events ie delete, update, etc
• Can use custom methods
• Can use javascript properties to reference other objects (even Collections; composition?)

Collections (use a collection when your problem is inline with the items below)

• Manages an array of models
• Can trigger custom events
• Can become complicated when trying to recreate the functionality of a model

Views

• Append List to the end of views that render a collection for clarity
• Define initialize() and set any necessary properties in the actual view class (setup only happens once for life of application ie once view is first executed.) Caveat : You must do this after the page has loaded ie inside of a document.ready block
• ALWAYS add the bindAll function in the initialize method of every view to ensure event binding happens in the right context otherwise callbacks can bind to the wrong events.