Developing Backbone.js Applications: Building Better JavaScript Applications

by Addy Osmani

If you want to build your site’s frontend with the single-page application (SPA) model, this hands-on book shows you how to get the job done with Backbone.js. You’ll learn how to create structured JavaScript applications, using Backbone’s own flavor of model-view-controller (MVC) architecture.

Start with the basics of MVC, SPA, and Backbone, then get your hands dirty building sample applications—a simple Todo list app, a RESTful book library app, and a modular app with Backbone and RequireJS. Author Addy Osmani, an engineer for Google’s Chrome team, also demonstrates advanced uses of the framework.

Learn how Backbone.js brings MVC benefits to the client-sideWrite code that can be easily read, structured, and extendedWork with the Backbone.Marionette and Thorax extension frameworksSolve common problems you’ll encounter when using Backbone.jsOrganize your code into modules with AMD and RequireJSPaginate data for your Collections with the Backbone.Paginator pluginBootstrap a new Backbone.js application with boilerplate codeUse Backbone with jQuery Mobile and resolve routing problems between the twoUnit-test your Backbone apps with Jasmine, QUnit, and SinonJS

Genres: Programming, Nonfiction, Technical, Technology, Software, Coding, Computers

374 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 22, 2012

About the author

Addy Osmani is an engineering and evangelism leader who spent over 14 years at Google leading developer experience. In recent years his focus shifted to AI: Gemini's developer experience, agentic engineering, coding agents, harnesses, evals and benchmarks, and code quality, work that led into a Director role at Google Cloud AI running Cloud AI Developer Experience and Technical Evangelism, where he helped launch Google's agent developer platform (Agent Platform, Agent CLI, and Agent Studio). Earlier he led Chrome's Developer Experience, working on DevTools, Lighthouse, and Core Web Vitals.

Reviews

[Joakin]

Read the backbonejs.org documentation and the source code, and you will get a good insight about what backbone is.

This book contains a light introduction to backbone, and a lot of extra information about history of MVC, testing tools for JS, module loaders, etc.

It is not a "Developing Backbone.js Applications", it is a "Introduction to Backbone.js and the ecosystem for building javascript applications"

Also, please read it online or download the latest version of the book from github, since at least has a bit more useful info on it than a outdated copy. ( http://addyosmani.github.com/backbone... )

The effort is appreciated, and the content is not bad, but its for early begginers and the book isn't what it claims to be.

[Igor]

This is one of the few books that are written on the subject of Backbone.js, framework that I think is very powerful. The author is very familiar with the subject and has wast knowledge about the other surrounding plugins/add on's that can be used/combined with Backbone.js.

In my opinion this book is for intermediate and advanced users of Backbone.js and is not attended for beginners. There are a lot of subjects that are covered inside: building desktop application, building mobile application, testing with Backbone.js and many others. The examples that the author is using are great and there is additional source code for the ToDo application.

In my opinion it is 4/5 stars because there is not enough explanation about the code examples, I think that the explanation should be more deep and explaining new functions. And some how for me the flow of the book is discontinued.

But all and all this is a great book that is worth having.

[Alessandro Pellizzari]

Recensione della versione CC del 2012:

Spiega molto poco e molto male cosa sia e come si usi Backbone.js. Dà per scontate troppe cose, forse chiare a chi programma in Ruby o in Node.js, ma assolutamente incomprensibili per chi ha background diversi. E non fornisce un quadro generale che permetta di capire la struttura di un'applicazione.

E la spiegazione delle caratteristiche di Backbone.js è limitatissima. La gran parte del libro viene "spesa" su Node.js, su Ruby, su sistemi di templating per Javascript e Ruby, o per spiegare come integrare Backbone con jQuery.

Insomma, l'ho trovato quasi completamente inutile.


Aggiornamento della versione definitiva:

Migliorata molto la spiegazione di Backbone, ora finalmente si riesce a capire come impostare un progetto, anche se c'è ancora qualche piccolo bug nel codice che costringe ad andare a vedere i repository su github per avere un'applicazione funzionante.

Il problema viene dopo. Vengono spiegati diversi plugin per Backbone, da Marionette e Thorax fino ai paginatori, passando per l'uso di require.js e della modularizzazione di un'applicazione.
Il tutto sembra sempre lasciato a metà. I sorgenti di esempio sono sempre incompleti, costringendo inevitabilmente a vedere github. Le spiegazioni sono lasciate in sospeso. Non viene mai fornita una visione di insieme dell'applicazione e delle interazioni tra i file, rendendo quasi impossibile capire anche il poco codice presentato.

Mi sono fermato al capitolo su Backbone Boilerplate e BBB.Grunt perché avevo la distinta sensazione di non stare capendo niente, e di stare dimenticando quello che avevo imparato nella prima parte del libro.

Un libro che sembra ancora in lavorazione e che forse cerca di coprire troppi argomenti.

[Quan]

One of the best programming book I've read. This book suites well as a beginner introduction to backbone.js (which in my opinion is a much better js frameworks for beginners to start with rather than highly opinionated ones like ember or angular). Read this book, do a simple backbone project, read the source code, read the document, it's not that difficult.

A word of caution: the marionettejs chapter is outdated as of 2015.

[cfog]

A decent introduction to using Backbone.js and freely available. The book shows a large number of specific ways of using Backbone. However it tries to cover a lot of ground which means it often raises more questions than it answers - a bit frustrating.

[Angel]

Well written and has a logical flow to it. Good examples demonstrate the concepts and reinforce the points to be made in each chapter. The book does a good job at explaining the technology as a whole and how it can be leveraged in the real world.

[Boyan]

A great introduction to the framework also covering some plugins and concepts that can make your life a lot easier.

[Bjoern Rochel]

Solid reference material. Not more, not less. Maybe already a bit outdated in some places.

[Ryan Seamons]

Good overview of backbone.js. Definitely need to practice more before I feel like I get it.

[John]

Has some good chapters like the first Todo App and the modular app with Require.js, but others are lacking content like the in the Marionette Todo App chapter and the jQuery Mobile + Backbone.

[Alexey Ivanov]

Good starting point to learning Backbone.

[Keith]

Skimmed the rest after getting the meat that I needed for the project.

[WyrmxD]

Not as good as reference or searching as the web site ;) but extremely useful for a deep understanding on several concepts for Bakcbone beginners.

[Irwan]

A good book to start learning this technology. Using it for my current project. Will refer to it from time to time.

[Vladyslav Siriniok]

Absolutely obsolete

[Aras Atasaygın]

This books contains lots of javascript good practices besides backbonejs. Learned a lot...

[Sallar]

Very nice and thorough explanation of Backbone.js. Recommended.