A high level comparison of the popular Front-end JavaScript tools AngularJS and Backbone.js. Angular - a framework, and Backbone, a library, are popular and powerful implementations of MVC-like architecture.

1. SMACKDOWN
Photo credit: ljlphotography via Flickr

2. About Me
John Moore
john@bizzieMe.com

3. Why Use a 3rd Party Toolset?
• Implement a tested
architecture
• Write less code
• DRY
• Abstract browser differences
• Faster time to market
• More time to kick ass and
chew bubblegum Photo: Soriinsim via Flickr

4. What The?
MVC
MVP
MVVM
MV*
MV-WTF
Photo: James McCauley via Flickr

5. Photo by: Alex Chen via Flickr
A Tale of Two Projects
• Dashboard App
• Restful Service –
single domain
• Small Team, co-
located
• Modern Web
Browsers
• Complex SPA
• Large Team
• Dozens of
Views
• Geographica
lly Diverse
• IE 6+

6. • Prescriptive
• Done For You
• More rigid

7. • Less Prescriptive
• Use What You Want
• Toolbox Agnostic
• You Wire

8. Concepts
• Templates
• Directives
• Models
• Scope
• Expressions
• Compiler
• Filter
• View
• Data Binding
• Controllers
• Dependency Injection
• Injector
• Modules
• Services
• Routing
• Animation
• Model
• Collection
• View
• Router

9. Dependencies
NADA
ZIP
ZILCH
• jQuery or Zepto
• Json2.js (for
ancient
browsers)
• Underscore or
Lo-dash

10. Models

11. Views

12. Controllers
Karen Elliot via Flickr

13. DOM Philosophy
“AngularJS lets you
extend HTML
vocabulary for your
application. The
resulting environment
is extraordinarily
expressive, readable,
and quick to develop.”
"Get your truth out of
the DOM"

14. Ancient Browser (IE < 9) Support
v 1.2 supports IE 8.
v 1.3 dropped IE8
support
Could be shimmed
maybe but is a huge
pain
IE 6+
I suggest having json2
and modernizr
because old IE really
sucks

15. In Common
• Just JavaScript
• All Clientside / Front-end
• Don’t Prevent You From Doing Stupid Things
• Active Communities
• Numerous Plugins / Extensions
• Used on Large Commercial Projects
• O’Reilly Books / Tutorials / YouTubes

16. My Recommendations / Parting Comments
• Test
• Refactor all the time
• Read the source-code
• Don’t Hack The Platform
• Coffeescript & Jade are the devil

17. Photo: Tom Coates via Flickr
john@bizzieMe.com