Backbone.js on Rails at Boston.rb

On Tuesday I gave a Backbone.js on Rails talk at the Boston Ruby Group. Video and slides are now online.

What’s in the talk

In the 45-minute talk, I discussed:

• Why would you use a client-side framework?
• What are some such frameworks? How might you decide among them?
• An overview of the moving parts of Backbone.js
• Following a page load from the Rails request and response to Backbone initialization, routing, dispatch, and rendering.
• Briefly, the integration points between Backbone.js and Rails such as the asset pipeline and JSON APIs

What’s not

There are a few topics included in the slides that I didn’t cover in the video, in the interest of time:

• How to apply integration and isolation testing for apps with Javascript
• Using pushState with Backbone.js and Rails
• How to keep multiple clients’ data in sync (polling, push)

Find more in the book

We cover all these topics (and others) in more depth in the Backbone.js on Rails eBook.

Any questions from the talk you didn’t get to ask that night? Purchasing the eBook before we release the first edition means you can request particular topics to be covered in the book.

If you’re a little more pressed for time with your question, I’ve found the backbonejs Google Group to be a great place to discuss Backbone and different usage scenarios.