My recent dive into MVC has me wanting to do some client-side razzle-dazzle. I have a Tekpub subscription and Rob’s MVC3 vid shows off backbone.js. It looks interesting, but it looks a tab bit complicated and cumbersome. I have to say that the URL router stuff is awesome sauce.
I decided I’d start looking around. Last year on one of the Hanselminutes podcasts he spoke with Steve Sanderson about knockout.js. At the time I wasn’t doing anything with MVC, so I did not think it would be of much value, but I filed it away. (NOTE: I realize now I could use knockout, backbone, whatever with Webforms, but did not realize it at the time.) I must say knockout looks pretty sweet. I watched Steve’s presentation at MIX11 and I really love the two-way binding out of the box (that was the one thing I did not care for much about backbone, though I realize there is a plugin for it).
While both knockout and backbone look really cool, I cannot decide which one to go with? Unfortunately there is not a jQuery-like choice here – there is not a real dominant player that everyone has decided on. So, I decided I’d check out some opinions. There is a great question on StackOverflow (naturally) and it has lots of good info. There are some other options to consider as well:
There is a LOT more out there then I thought. I guess I am going to have to take a little time and weigh the pros/cons of each before I go jumping in to using one – not my strong suit!