When I started learning Backbone.js, I hadn't done advanced JavaScript programming before. I took this opportunity to explore advanced JavaScript concepts in the context of the Backbone.js source code.

In this post, I will share some of these concepts which helped me understand both Backbone.js and JavaScript on a deeper level.

Immediately invoking function expressions

IIFEs look like this:

( function () { ... }());

Note: The opening ( and closing ) are syntax to denote that this function is immediately invoked

These functions are used to prevent polluting the global namespace in the JavaScript runtime environment. The first line of the Backbone.js source code has an IIFE which wraps the rest of the code, preventing any variables declared inside it from being available globally. This is done to prevent situations where a variable is used multiple times in the global namespace on a web page.

For example the first statements of the Backbone.js source code use common variable names which could potentially be modified elsewhere on the page if not placed inside the IIFE:

var root = this ; var previousBackbone = root . Backbone ; var array = []; var push = array . push ; var slice = array . slice ; var splice = array . splice ;

Inheritance

When building a Backbone.js app your Views will look something like:

var MyView = Backbone . View . extend ({ ... });

MyView is extending from the base Backbone.View , meaning that it inherits Backbone.View 's properties and methods. As a user of Backbone.js, you can optionally override these inherited properties and methods in your implementation.

There are three different kinds of properties and methods that Backbone's base classes contain:

Properties/Methods that are expected to be overwritten

Backbone.View explicitly says in the annotated source that initialize and render should be overwritten as they are empty implementations:

initialize : function () {}, render : function () { return this ; }

During runtime, the Backbone.View 's constructor calls initialize and expects the user to implement some logic there to eventually render the view. More on constructors later.

Properties/Methods that can be optionally overwritten

Backbone.Model and Backbone.Collection 's sync methods are the best examples of methods which work without a user's implementation, but can also be overwritten for custom functionality:

sync : function () { return Backbone . sync . apply ( this , arguments ); }

In the default implementation of sync above, the model or collection simply calls the Backbone.sync method with the arguments it received using apply to pass the this context object. More on this below.

In practice, you may want to implement localStorage on one your Models/Collections to eliminate unnecessary network requests. To achieve this, you could override the sync method like this in your model:

var MyModel = Backbone . Model . extend ({ sync : function ( method , model , options ) { if ( method === 'read' ) { if ( window . localStorage . getItem ( 'myData' )) { return window . localStorage . getItem ( 'myData' ); } else { return Backbone . sync . apply ( this , arguments ); } } else { return Backbone . sync . apply ( this , arguments ); } } });

Above I simply check if the myData key is stored in localStorage, and if it is, I read it from there. If not, I call the Backbone.Sync method, just like the default Backbone.Model.sync implementation. This feature of Backbone is really powerful as it allows you to choose at what level to customize your classes.

Less common method overriding

The sync method explicitly tells the user that it can be overwritten for custom functionality, but you can also optionally override many other Backbone methods. In the Backbone documentation, the following example is presented for overriding the Backbone.Model.set method:

var Note = Backbone . Model . extend ({ set : function ( attributes , options ) { Backbone . Model . prototype . set . apply ( this , arguments ); ... } });

This is similar to the pattern we saw above, except we are calling the Backbone.Model 's set method instead of copying its functionality. You will notice the .prototype added after the class, which refers to the inheritable methods of Backbone.Model .

This type of override would make sense if we needed to perform some logic before updating the model via the standard Backbone.Model 's set method.

Properties/Methods that should not be overwritten or called

In reality, every single inheritable method in Backbone's classes can be overwritten and called by the user. However, some of these methods are used internally by Backbone and should not be called or overwritten so they achieve their expected functionality when used in the library.

JavaScript doesn't provide a mechanism to hide these methods from the user with its style of inheritance, so instead a common pattern is to prefix these private methods with a _ to indicate that the user of the function shouldn't overwrite it or call it.

This is seen throughout the Backbone.js source, and here is an example of two private methods in the Backbone.View class:

_configure : function ( options ) { if ( this . options ) options = _ . extend ({}, _ . result ( this , 'options' ), options ); _ . extend ( this , _ . pick ( options , viewOptions )); this . options = options ; }, _ensureElement : function () { if ( ! this . el ) { var attrs = _ . extend ({}, _ . result ( this , 'attributes' )); if ( this . id ) attrs . id = _ . result ( this , 'id' ); if ( this . className ) attrs [ 'class' ] = _ . result ( this , 'className' ); var $el = Backbone . $ ( '<' + _ . result ( this , 'tagName' ) + '>' ). attr ( attrs ); this . setElement ( $el , false ); } else { this . setElement ( _ . result ( this , 'el' ), false ); } }

These private methods are called internally by the Backbone.View class and act as supporting methods to public methods or the class' constructor. For example, the _.configure() method is called in the Backbone.View 's constructor to configure the view based on the options the user passes in.

JavaScript constructors

After writing your own Backbone views, you will invoke them by writing something like the following statement:

MyViewInstance = new MyView ();

This new keyword creates a new instance of MyView by calling its constructor and returning an object containing inherited properties and methods. Likely while programming in Backbone, you won't define a custom constructor, as the inherited constructor performs expected logic to prepare the class. Here is the Backbone.View constructor:

var View = Backbone . View = function ( options ) { this . cid = _ . uniqueId ( 'view' ); this . _configure ( options || {}); this . _ensureElement (); this . initialize . apply ( this , arguments ); this . delegateEvents (); };

This constructor sets up the view by giving it a unique id, configuring it based on an optional options argument, ensuring the view is bound to an element, and then initializing the view and delegating DOM events.

The this keyword

Understanding this is essential to advanced programming in JavaScript. It refers to the object on which the current function was invoked. In a Backbone View, when you write this.render() inside of your initialize function, the this refers to your View because it was passed via apply in the constructor function above.

One interesting use of this in Backbone.View is in the delegateEvents method. The following statement from that method binds the jQuery event handlers to the corresponding view, so that this refers to MyView instead of the DOM element which received the event:

method = _ . bind ( method , this );

Without having the above line of code, the following buttonClickHandler method would refer to the DOM element with the myButton class that was clicked instead of MyView and would throw an error when this.render() is called:

var MyView = Backbone . View . extend ({ events : { 'click .myButton' : 'buttonClickHandler' }, buttonClickHandler : function ( event ) { // this would refer to the jQuery element not the MyView instance this . render (); } });

underscore is a powerful utility which allows you to write more semantic code. When operating on arrays or objects, you can use methods like _.first , _.any , and _.without rather than writing your own data manipulation functions. Backbone provides underscore methods directly on the Backbone.Collection and Backbone.Model for easy access to the methods.

In addition to custom convenience methods, underscore implements cross-browser versions of newer JavaScript functions which are only available in modern browsers. underscore will detect if the browser supports the method, and will use the native implementation if it is present.

Conclusion

I hope this was helpful for developers wanting to advance their JavaScript and Backbone.js knowledge! I recommend exploring these concepts by writing code snippets in a web browser JavaScript console or a node.js command line interpreter. Let me know if you have any questions in the comments.