Show HN: Espresso.js – React Meets Backbone for a Minimal MVC

https://github.com/techlayer/espresso.js

by akrymski • 12 years ago

41 26 12 years ago

daveidol• 12 years ago

So how does this compare to actually using React/Flux? It looks like all the virtual DOM stuff no longer exists, which seems to me like you would lose a lot of the niceties of React. Why not just use the actual Flux architecture with Backbone as stores and React as the view?

akrymski11• 12 years ago

Few benefits:

- no need to diff the whole DOM tree

- no need to write JSX, you can simply use DOM nodes

the render() method still gives you most of the niceties of React, ie a declarative view of your DOM, without the nasty inclusion of HTML inside your JS controllers.

PS ToDoMVC performance benchmark shows the to-do app to be about 3-4x faster than React.

paultannenbaum• 12 years ago

My guess is the performance benchmarks would be much different if you are dealing with an app with a high number of nodes where the diff/repainting benefits of React really kick in.

jacobr• 12 years ago

React works fine without JSX. var DOM = React.DOM; DOM.div() etc.

jbhatab• 12 years ago

The docs are sparse. Can you briefly explain why this is awesome?

I actually use backbone and react right now and love it. I also thought flux was too much, so I'm very interested in a framework like this.

akrymski11• 12 years ago

I believe it combines the best ideas of React & Flux & Backbone:

- A small library that you can read and hack easily

- No templates or HTML/JSX in your JavaScript

- Models & Collections are small wrappers around Objects & Arrays

- Declarative DOM representation provides a simple binding between views and models (optional)

- One-directional data flow

- Child components are managed automatically (no zombie views)

- Proper Collection.set performs a smart update without relying on sorting

- Built-in List component for displaying a list of models

lhorie• 12 years ago

Hi, I'm the author of Mithril.js (another small framework).

This is very nice. I just have a few questions:

- is it possible to reuse markup from one place in another without copy-paste? (e.g. let's say I have a pagination control that I want to display both above below a table)

- how would you hook a third party library (e.g. let's say I need to use select2.js or pikaday.js)?

- is it possible to render things on the fly? (e.g. asynchronous modules) or does all of the HTML need to be on the page on page load?

couchand3• 12 years ago

It doesn't look like there's any separation between the model and the view, so in what sense is this MVC?

dreamdu5t• 12 years ago

It's not MVC. There are no controllers, and data in a Backbone app does not flow in a circular fashion. I consider Backbone views describable as presenters, and Backbone describable with the Model-View-Presenter (MVP) pattern.

MVP diagram: http://lostechies.com/derickbailey/files/2011/12/NewImage2.p...

Why Backbone is not MVC: http://lostechies.com/derickbailey/2011/12/23/backbone-js-is...

couchand3• 12 years ago

Not sure if your comment is directed towards me or the OP. However, there is in fact a Controller class in this project, so you may be confusing this framework for vanilla Backbone?

akrymski11• 12 years ago

It's very much an MVC framework

akrymski11• 12 years ago

Views are just DOM nodes. Models are completely separate.

couchand3• 12 years ago

Ah, I hadn't even clicked through to index.html, assuming it was just boilerplate.

Now that I've looked at it a bit more, I have to echo the other commenter who asked about routing, particularly since the view markup is statically on the page. Perhaps I'm missing something?

krazemon• 12 years ago

This definitely seems like something I'd like to use and also contribute to if you are interested. One question I have is, how do you imagine routing being done? I don't see it in the examples so I was curious if you have ideas about this.

akrymski11• 12 years ago

ToDo example actually has simple routing. I'm using this mostly for PhoneGap projects so don't even use routing, but any routing library should work same way as in Backbone, eg:

https://github.com/flatiron/director

Thanks, would be happy to accept contributions!

hardwaresofton2• 12 years ago

Looking at the todo example, I don't see any of the usual React code for creating/managing components...

Is it just React the pattern (without the component part)?

akrymski11• 12 years ago

Controllers are equivalent to React's components. the render() method lets you include child controllers:

https://cdn.rawgit.com/techlayer/espresso.js/master/docs/ind...

hardwaresofton2• 12 years ago

Yup, I totally missed the docs -- my mistake, was too hasty

Would be nice if docs were higher up on the README though

tjelen• 12 years ago

OK, this is an interesting approach. Here are some notes from reading the source:

- Basic model classes: Model and Collection similar to Backbone, but much simplified (no REST-API stuff, validations etc, it's basically just that events are fired when data is changed)

- There are no templates, all or most of the markup is already present on the page

- The Controller class is attached to a DOM element. Specific nodes (called 'refs' as in React) inside this element are denoted by the "data-ref" attribute. These are collected by the controller during init phase and then their state is managed via the render() method.

- there's a special List controller which can be connected to a Collection. It manages a list of sub-Controllers (each attached to an item in the Collection)

I like the simplicity. It's very similar to what I'm using lately for smaller projects.

akrymski11• 12 years ago

May I add one more point:

- the render() method provides a way to declare what the DOM looks like (React-style) OR manipulate the DOM imperatively (Backbone style)

This helps the Flux one-directional data flow, which you can see in the ToDo example. Controller's model is actually its internal state by default, so all data mutation must go through the main data store.

Thank you so much for boiling it down to the key points, I've been struggling to explain the details clearly. Really the best way to understand what's going on is to read the ToDo app as it's only 100 lines.

We are using this for PhoneGap and node-webkit apps, it's a perfect for for mobiles where you need fine-grained control over memory and performance, and you know the runtime you're developing against (webkit) so there isn't a goal to get this running across every browser like React or Backbone.

mc_hammer• 12 years ago

this is so gud

Show HN: Espresso.js – React Meets Backbone for a Minimal MVC

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