Backbone.js frontend with RESTful Rails backend?

Question

I started in the web development world with PHP, and then Rails in the recent few years. Since then I've been doing all my web projects in Rails.

Recently there seems to be a movement towards making Rails as a pure RESTful backend service and using frontend framework such as Backbone.js for all frontend interaction. I'm wondering what's you guys' take on it? Will this be the eventual future?

As well, besides Backbone.js, what are some other alternatives for frontend framework for this purpose?

Also assuming that I will want to support both a desktop version and a mobile version of my app, would this be a proper route to take? So I'll have a single backend service with different frontend services? This way I don't need to manage all the views on Rails' side?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I did something like this a few years ago in .net. Is was not via proper .NET MVC and didn't use the new JS frameworks, but the principle was the same; server code returns JSON to javascript which builds the page and interactions etc.

The result was a lovely responsive website, but, maintenance was a nightmare. Be very careful to keep your JS code well organised.

Personally, I find it easier to maintain server code (in any language) than javascript so I wouldn't go down that route again.

(IMHO)

Fran

Answer 2

For Client-side frameworks, this article has a list of 20 of them with pro's and con's: http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/web-roundups/20-javascript-frameworks-worth-checking-out/

Here's the list:

1. Backbone.js
2. Knockout.js
3. Asana luna
4. Cappucino
5. Sproutcore
6. BatmanJS
7. corMVC
8. TrimJunction
9. pureMVC
10. jamal
11. choco
12. sammyjs
13. extJS
14. agilityJS
15. eyeballs
16. activejs
17. spinejs
18. qooxdoo

These are roughly all about creating client-side, ajax-based, javascript MVC frameworks.

If you're looking to start somewhere, then I recommend thinking about Client-Side Templates (...ates...ates...ates) (just the "V") to support a service-oriented architecture (many clients are supported by service-endpoints you create).

It's a new technique that involves modularizing your client-side code, bringing MVC to the client, and let business-logic live in the platform. A lot of Software-as-a-Service applications are leveraging them, and with the increasing sophisticated of javascript libraries and frameworks, as well as browser capabilities with HTML5, CSS3, etc. there's going to be an increasing sophistication in client-side presentation.

So learn it.

What are the benefits?

To paraphrase Linked In: for leveraging browser-caching, de-coupling your front-end client-side presentation, asynchronous load, progressive rendering (for some frameworks), performance, ajax-interaction, and more.

Several great frameworks include:

1. mustache
2. dust.js
3. handlebars
4. Google Closure Templates
5. Nun
6. Mu
7. kite

I highly recommend looking at Linked In's move away from JSP towards Client-Side Templates and why they choose dust.js in Linked In's front-end client-side templates throwdown for a comparison. They go into much greater detail, and research, as to why they changed their stack to support this (it involved using 3 server-side technologies), as well as their comparisons of all the frameworks they could find.

Answer 3

It is my opinion that contemporary web applications are moving towards this model of having RESTful back-end and all the view interactions coded in front-end. These free video tutorials from Joe Zim:

http://www.joezimjs.com/javascript/introduction-to-backbone-js-part-1-models-video-tutorial/

helped me understand backbone and how it can simplify templating and view renders.