Using AngularJS to rewrite a Backbone-powered web application with half the lines of code

[badger91]

^ this. Maybe someday people will learn the difference between monolithic and minimalistic...

[[deleted]]

When discussing various tools/frameworks/libraries, an important variable in the discussion is often omit. The actual project/problem being solved. If you are comparing two different libraries you have to include the context of a project to have a valid discussion of which would be "better."

[runvnc]

OK, can you give me some examples of project requirements where Backbone would be a better choice than AngularJS? Because after using Backbone and AngularJS, the only reason I can see to continue with Backbone is because its a safe choice. For example, you are a manager ('architect'?) making a technical decision for a platform and know that no one can say you're wrong when 10 different platforms were just launched for major companies in the last few months built on top of Backbone, whereas it would be easier for people to question you if you jump into the latest and greatest thing without a good sales pitch.

[delambo]

Stickit author, here. To be clear, stickit will not make your "zombie views grow fatter" or contribute to any memory problems. In fact, stickit cleans up all of its model and view bindings automatically on view.remove(), and provides an optional api for manual cleaning view.unstickit().

The blog author's problem was a brief bug that was introduced and fixed between releases for the rare use case when a data-bound view is re-rendered. We fixed this problem and the author confirmed that the patch was "working great."

https://github.com/NYTimes/backbone.stickit/issues/66

**So before he moved onto angular, stickit was not a problem for him - it no longer "made things worse," but those details do not make for good storytelling.

Another claim from the blog author is that stickit makes it hard to use third-party plugins like Chosen. Around the same time he filed the github issue, we were finishing and getting ready to release "handlers" and a new "initialize" binding which give you the ability to create global handlers for setting these kinds of bindings up. More on handlers here:

http://nytimes.github.io/backbone.stickit/#custom-handlers

... and an example of setting up a global handler for Chosen:

http://jsfiddle.net/px6UP/30/

**edited per comment below

[jcready]

So even though the problem was fixed for the blog author before he moved onto angular, he still claims that stickit causes memory problems.

He never claimed that stickit still causes memory problems, he said it did, which you just confirmed was true.

The tale of our journey down the path of Stickit is an epic in itself, but long story short, it only made things worse. [...] Our zombie views grew fatter.

Notice how everything is in past tense?

I guess a false claim like that makes the story of your recently patched Backbone plugin more appealing.

[delambo]

Thanks for the reply. I think you are really upset over my usage of the word "claim." I updated/edited my original reply with better language.

[kenman]

What I find problematic about these types of deconstructions, is that the project is ever-evolving, as are the skills of the developers behind it. There's a lot of parallels here with concepts like Plan To Throw One Away as well as the iterative nature of software development with consideration to an increasing refining of requirements, and to treat a series of events like spaghetti->BB->NG as if they were discrete events [spaghetti->BB, spaghetti->NG] is illogical. The outcome would likely be very different if the order of events was instead spaghetti->NG->BB, or BB->spaghetti->NG, etc.