Documentation:

Frontend Framework built with Backbone.js, Require.JS

• Dependencies via require() or define()
• File Organization
• Mustache Templates
• Base classes - constructor objects
• Small Views and Templates
• CollectionView and ViewManager
• RequireJS Optimizer build process

Standards

• No “var that = this;” usage
  • be descriptive if assigning this to a variable
  • try not to pass “this” as context as much as possible
• Use Backbone, Underscore and RequireJS conventions as much as possible
  • the frontend favors convention over configuration
• Use the CollectionView for managing a the relationship between a Collection and the View that relates to those models.
• Need to define a more formal ViewManager class or define a set of best practices
• The Backbone.Model.parse method should only be used for things like virtual fields
  • example: the member model may create a name field that concats first and last names
  • most parsing should be done on the sync specific to that version
• Use small views and templates
  • rendering (and re*rendering) is faster and the DOM is easier to maintain
• All dependencies must go through RequireJS require() or define() functions
  • no global state even for jQuery, Backbone, Underscore, etc
• No manual jQuery DOM manipulation
  • the DOM fragments should be rendered through the View objects
• No logic in the templates
  • too hard to test the logic
  • use Mustache templates only
• Base classes are used for Models, Collections, and Views to add common behavior
• Unit tests should be maintained using Jasmine (BDD style) for site*wide scripts:
  • e.g. models, views, collections, base classes and (utils) libraries
• Comments should use // syntax, and also may include markdown syntax
  • docco documentation generator parsed best with //.
  • Routinely run docco (node package) to generate documentation (html files)
    • at least, following major releases.
• Maintain examples by documenting best practices (Backbone and RequireJS) within code repository
  • docco generates a docs folder; each package should have a docs folder
  • docs folder has implementation notes highlighting frontend standards.
• Document the build process using RequireJS Optimizer