backbone with requirejs

Question

I am building a complex web app and trying to use requirejs with backbone. I found out that backbonejs is a non AMD framework which restricts me to use requirejs out of the box.

I researched on internet and found that there are patches available to make backbone AMD compliant.

Please guide if patching this way is a no-issue setup. Will i run into any issues during the app development due to patching of core file in backbonejs?

I apologise if its a stupid question :)

Why do you need AMD? AMD in a Javascript app can add a lot of complexity, and it's not uncommon to overestimate one's need for a technical library. — Mark Rushakoff
– Mark Rushakoff, Commented Jan 25, 2013 at 7:57
It's also easy to neglect the need to organize/modularize your code early on, and then suddenly find that you have a mess of unmanageable spaghetti code. AMD makes it much easier to separate code into distinct modules, which is a plus when working with a framework like backbone (I think). — Chris Salzberg
– Chris Salzberg, Commented Jan 25, 2013 at 8:09

Reza S · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-25 07:53:23Z

4

Nope, it's not a stupid question. We actually have done this and is working fine for us, so far :)

You can follow this guide on how to do it: http://kilon.org/blog/2012/08/build-backbone-apps-using-requirejs/

Don't forget to read the chapter on unit testing it with Jasmine. Pretty nice combination all together.

answered Jan 25, 2013 at 7:53

Reza S

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4 Comments

beNerd Over a year ago

counting on your advise :)

beNerd Over a year ago

can you help me understand what is meant by shimming of dependencies?

Hui Zheng Over a year ago

@MrinalPurohit You may try my answer, just insert a shim property in requirejs.config's properties argument.

Reza S Over a year ago

@MrinalPurohit When some modules that you are loading are dependent on other modules, you achieve this through shims. Or when You need them to export an accessor parameter. Have a look at Requirejs docs on this: requirejs.org/docs/api.html#config-shim

Hui Zheng · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-25 09:24:41Z

4

Before Require.js 2.0, you have to patch Backbone to be AMD compliant. You can find some AMD-compliant forks of Backbone on github(e.g. amdjs). Fortunately, Require.js 2.0+ added support for loading non-AMD compatible scripts by using the Shim configuration. Example:

requirejs.config({
    shim: {
      "backbone": {
          deps: ["underscore", "jquery"],
          exports: "Backbone"
      }
    },

    paths: {
    // as usual
});

edited Jan 25, 2013 at 9:24

answered Jan 25, 2013 at 7:53

Hui Zheng

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4 Comments

beNerd Over a year ago

yes you are correct. I studied that. Just want to know what the shim actually means. whats the meaning of shim configuration. Please shed some light.

Hui Zheng Over a year ago

shim is inspired by use.js, you may take a look at its source code to get some idea: github.com/tbranyen/use.js/blob/master/use.js

beNerd Over a year ago

further, is datatables library AMD compatible? or i need to shim that dependency as well

Hui Zheng Over a year ago

Haven't used datatables library before, but it seems not to be AMD-compliant. Basically, you need shim any library that is not AMD-compliant when you need that available in define function's parameter.

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