2

My Backbone.View looks this way:

define(["promise!table_config", "BBModel"], function (config, myModel) {
    "use strict";

    return Backbone.View.extend({
        initialize: function () {
            this.model = new myModel({
                foo: config
            });
            ...
        },
        render: function () {
            ...
        }
    });
});

Is is a good or bad practice to initialise a model inside a view? Particularly in this case, in a require.js module where 'config' is a require-promise, motivating me to put put a model inside a view.

machineghost
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Jevgenijs Golojads
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  • IMHO its not view responsibility to instance model, its controllers task. – Evgeniy Oct 06 '14 at 09:59
  • That is my assumption as well. But let's say I'm forced to do so in this case. What would be consequences in the future, from the perspective of app architecture for instance. – Jevgenijs Golojads Oct 06 '14 at 10:17
  • On top these 3 points: 1) hardly to test 2) tight coupling between view type and model type. 3) Nearly impossible to share same model between different views. – Evgeniy Oct 06 '14 at 11:54

1 Answers1

2

While Backbone does have a Model and a View class, it is not a strict MVC framework (eg. it lacks a Controller class). The Backbone documentation page explains as much (emphasis mine):

How does Backbone relate to "traditional" MVC?

Different implementations of the Model-View-Controller pattern tend to disagree about the definition of a controller. If it helps any, in Backbone, the View class can also be thought of as a kind of controller, dispatching events that originate from the UI, with the HTML template serving as the true view. We call it a View because it represents a logical chunk of UI, responsible for the contents of a single DOM element.

Given that, even though (as @Evgenly mentioned in the comments) "its not view responsibility to instance model, its controllers task" ... since the Backbone View is (conceptually) a controller, it absolutely makes sense to create your models inside your views.

But putting that theory aside, here's a more practical answer. I work on a 3+ year-old Backbone app, along with two other developers (and more previously). In that app the vast majority of all models get created inside views (the few remaining ones get created inside routes). Not only has this not been a problem for us, but I can't even imagine any other way of doing it.

machineghost
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  • agree, pure BB a View is overloaded with part of Controller responsibilities. But its not abandoned to extend BB with new abstract feature that can take care about Controller role. As an example - Backbone.Marionette.Controller - roughly, its and object extended from BB.Events and keep hash of API methods. On point of view we should not limit ourself BB tools from box and extend it abstract components we need, besides BB flexibility provide us quite clear ways to do it. – Evgeniy Oct 07 '14 at 05:37