I was fortunate enough to receive a review copy of Backbone.js Patterns and Best Practices directly from the author. It’s a decent book, and a great ‘next step’ for anyone thats a budding Backbone developer that has got the basics down and wants to take their skills to the next level.

The book starts out just barely covering the basics, so this is definitely not a beginner guide. From there it quickly goes into some common pitfalls and best practices that Backbone developers inevitably face. It covers each aspect of typical Backbone development, but gives tips and tricks along the way to boost your performance and reduce frustration and most importantly boilerplate.

From time to time the author will make mention of a 3rd party plugin that is right for the job, but I felt probably could have used some more time actually discussing the plugin. One of my favorite plugins for Backbone is Marionette, and I felt it got only a passing mention in the book. To be fair, this isn’t a Marionette book.

There are some great chapters on using AMD with require.js as well as test driven development!

In the end, my only complaint if I had one at all was that the book felt a little short and possibly rushed in a few areas. Overall though it was a quick read (which might be a good thing) and I definitely learned a few things having finished the book.

I would recommend this book to anyone that has a good understanding of the basics of Backbone.js and wants to bump their skill set up a level.

Backbone.js Patterns and Best Practices @ Packt Publishing or Amazon.com