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jashkenas
backbone
JavaScript2010–2026
jashkenas / backbone

backbone

Give your JS App some Backbone with Models, Views, Collections, and Events

Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
48Distinct people
55Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
28.1KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Give your JS App some Backbone with Models, Views, Collections, and Events

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

It's somewhat hidden on the project page, but I love the annotated source view: http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/docs/backbone.html Edit: It looks like it's taken…

tkaemming used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 5:03:38 AM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year55 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2010-10-13 17:50:30 UTC to 2026-01-18 22:02:29 UTC.

0369122010-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments20102011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 10 mentions; 2 submissions, 8 comments2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 11 mentions; 2 submissions, 9 comments2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 10 mentions; 2 submissions, 8 comments2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 3 submissions, 2 comments2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments20182019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20102010-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20112011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC1028
20122012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC1129
20132013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC1028
20142014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC532
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

From the project README

An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.

Read the project’s introduction
____ __ __ /\ _`\ /\ \ /\ \ __ \ \ \ \ \ __ ___\ \ \/'\\ \ \____ ___ ___ __ /\_\ ____ \ \ _ <' /'__`\ /'___\ \ , < \ \ '__`\ / __`\ /' _ `\ /'__`\ \/\ \ /',__\ \ \ \ \ \/\ \ \.\_/\ \__/\ \ \\`\\ \ \ \ \/\ \ \ \/\ \/\ \/\ __/ __ \ \ \/\__, `\ \ \____/\ \__/.\_\ \____\\ \_\ \_\ \_,__/\ \____/\ \_\ \_\ \____\/\_\_\ \ \/\____/ \/___/ \/__/\/_/\/____/ \/_/\/_/\/___/ \/___/ \/_/\/_/\/____/\/_/\ \_\ \/___/ \ \____/ \/___/ (_'_______________________________________________________________________________'_) (_.———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————._) Backbone supplies structure to JavaScript-heavy applications by providing models with key-value binding and custom events, collections with a rich API of enumerable functions, views with declarative event handling, and connects it all to your existing application over a RESTful JSON interface. For Docs, License, Tests, pre-packed downloads, and everything else, really, see: https://backbonejs.org To suggest a feature or report a bug: https://github.com/jashkenas/backbone/issues For questions on working with Backbone or general discussions: security policy, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/backbone.js, https://matrix.to/#/#jashkenas_backbone:gitter.im or https://groups.google.com/g/backbonejs Backbone is an open-sourced component of DocumentCloud: https://github.com/documentcloud Testing powered by SauceLabs: https://saucelabs.com Many thanks to our contributors: https://github.com/jashkenas/backbone/graphs/contributors Special thanks to Robert Kieffer for the original philosophy behind Backbone. https://github.com/broofa This project adheres to a code of conduct. By participating, you are expected to uphold this code.
Read the full README on GitHub

What Hacker News says

11 sources
sanderjd·Nov 24, 2012
While I think GWT is a pretty good project and has some way to go before it can be categorized as failing, some of your other remarks make me think that you have not given appropriate consideration to the alternatives to its approach. First and foremost, you can write javascript in such a way that your code does nothing weird and only what you intended. A good place to start is still "JavaScript: The Good Parts"[1]. Then I suggest finding some examples of nicely written javascript code on GitHub or some such site. I personally think underscore.js[2] and backbone.js[3] are rather nice. If you have really given javascript a fair shot, and still strongly dislike it, there are many other languages that compile into javascript, but match its style more closely that Java does. I have been enjoying working in CoffeScript[4]. There is an excellen
Read the rest
t interactive book[5] that shows the javascript generated by the constructs in the language, which is also a good resource for discovering idioms to do things that are not obvious in javascript, like creating classes. TypeScript[6] and Dart[7] are both interesting languages with syntax more familiar to Java. There are a lot more languages that compile to javascript that I haven't mentioned[8]. It's possible that GWT and Java are the best fit for you, but don't pigeonhole yourself by thinking that they are the only good options out there. [1] http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Good-Parts-Douglas-Crockfor... [2] https://github.com/documentcloud/underscore/blob/master/unde... [3] https://github.com/documentcloud/backbone/blob/master/backbo... [4] http://coffeescript.org/ [5] http://arcturo.github.com/library/coffeescript/02_syntax.htm... [6] http://www.typescriptlang.org/ [7] http://www.dartlang.org/ [8] https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-lang...
In Changing times for web developers
chrizel·Nov 12, 2012
But you have to keep in mind, according to the code (https://github.com/documentcloud/backbone/blob/master/backbo... ) this will only get rid of the events on this.model and this.collection. If you are using another field or model (like in your example myModel, if it is not the same as this.model) -- then you will still get memory leaks. Backbone is a real pitfall here in larger projects and you have to keep memory leaks in mind when using Backbone events. (sadly JavaScript has no WeakMaps yet, which would solve the problem for us) That's why projects like Backbone Marionette or EventBinder exists which are handling the Backbone events leaking problem better than bare bones Backbone alone. See http://lostechies.com/derickbailey/2011/09/15/zombies-run-ma... In a very large application I'm writing at the moment I've introduced a common View
Read the rest
parent class which extends Backbone views with proper subview handling and correct event disposal. So in my views I can write something like this (works very similar to the Backbone view's DOM "event" mapping field, but instead of DOM events we are talking about Backbone events here) [Edit: well, looking at the submission article, that's very similar to the solution described in the article] objectEvents: { 'model change': 'reload', 'collection reset': 'render' } Then my View class handles the rest: it connects the events in the constructor and disconnects them correctly on remove(). The only thing you have to keep in mind is that you have to remove all old subviews explicitly when they get recreated. That's when my subview handling kicks in, because I have some helper methods like addSubView and removeAllSubViews which get called when re-rendering the parent view. Backbone subview handling can be a real pain and memory management has to be kept in mind. Every time you are using the "on"-method you should ask yourself when this event gets destroyed and if it could lead to a memory leak. Or you should use something like EventBinder. https://github.com/marionettejs/backbone.eventbinder
In Preventing memory leaks in Backbone.js
tgriesser·Aug 29, 2012
With regards to view cleanup code in Backbone - in the github develop branch [1], the view is now a little more active in its memory cleanup. A dispose() function was recently added which removes any handlers added in the view's 'events' object, as well as any collection or model listeners where the view is passed as the third argument (callback context). This function is also called by the view's .remove(), taking care of the majority of basic memory cleanup needs when the element is cleared from the screen. [1]: https://github.com/documentcloud/backbone/commit/3ae1af6df1b...
In Advice On & Instruction in The Use of Ember.js
ianstormtaylor·Aug 28, 2012
Maybe. I've actually adopted the style from Backbone itself. https://github.com/documentcloud/backbone/blob/master/backbo... I've found that while it make individual methods harder to read, maybe, it helps with readability of the file in general. If your methods stay small and are well named, you don't need to read their internals as often, but scanning the file quickly, it's much easier to get a big picture. I used to be very liberal with line breaks, but then seeing methods as their own blocks gets harder. It's just a trade-off. Those example methods could probably use a single line break each, I'll give ya that :p
In Break Apart Your Backbone.js Render Methods
robinduckett·Feb 9, 2012
The problem is your complete unwillingness to compromise and to make it easier for people to upgrade an existing app. The way that silent works now should be it's own option, say "defer". Because you're deferring the changes until a later date. It could even be called delay or later. Whatever it is called, it is in no way silent anymore. My proposal is to add a new option, mute, which bypasses the change events and causes the attribute to change but does not trigger change:attribute. Edit: https://github.com/documentcloud/backbone/pull/981
In Backbone patterns

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