[orochi235]

I'm an experienced web developer (Backbone is my preferred framework) whose team is migrating to Ember. It has its high points, but on the whole, it's been driving me nuts.

Ember, like most modern frameworks, represents itself as MVC. But it's more like MVCLCTMRA (model-view-controller-layout-component-template-mixin-router-application, if you're following along at home). There are just so many moving pieces, and there's a lot of overlap between them. Should I be using a layout, a view or a component here? They're ALMOST the same, and they don't always vary in the places you'd expect them to. Also, the "model" portion, ember-data, is fairly immature and doesn't seem to be anywhere near production-ready.

There are also some design decisions that just leave me baffled. If templates are supposed to be the ideal place to declare stuff, why does a view's root element have to be declared in a bunch of JavaScript properties instead? Why do some of their camel-case names (e.g. RESTAdapter) violate the (fairly strict) naming conventions they enforce in user land?

I don't hate Ember, and I'm sure it perfectly fits the mental schema of at least one person on the planet, but it doesn't click all that well for me. And it's abstract enough that I don't think working through problems in it is making me better at anything except Ember.

It's also probably worth mentioning that about 80% of the documentation online seems to be in the form of StackExchange posts, and about 80% of those are obsolete, as Ember has gone through a lot of radical changes in the not-too-distant past.

[MatthewPhillips]

If you're experienced with Backbone but want something that competes with Angular/Ember in terms of features, you should really try CanJS[1]. It has a small API surface area so it's very easy to learn but still manages to bring advanced features like Web Components to the table.

[1]http://canjs.com/

[rxcfc]

Sorry to hear that you've been having trouble with Ember. Let me see if I can answer a few questions.

1) Layouts vs. Views vs. Components

A good place to start on this is the guides: http://emberjs.com/guides/views/adding-layouts-to-views/ http://emberjs.com/guides/views/ http://emberjs.com/guides/components/

From reading those, it should be pretty clear how layouts differ. I admit that it may be a bit less clear how views and components differ. Components are actually a more isolated type of view. Views have been around for longer, but in the future, we're going to discourage people creating custom view classes in favor of using components primarily. If you're not sure whether to use a view or a component, go with a component first.

2) Ember Data

Ember Data isn't a part of Ember Core, and for a good reason. While Ember Data is certainly a useable product (myself and many other do use it in production), it's not yet as mature as Ember Core (hence still being in beta). If Ember Data isn't good for you yet, you don't need to use it. Discourse is an example of a large Ember app that completely forgoes Ember Data.

3) Templates and Views

The template is rendered inside of the view's element which explains this. Alternatively, specify `tagName` as a property when using `{{view}}` or a component helper.

4) Documentation

The guides have a ton of information so you should definitely look there first. Also, if your company is really investing in Ember there are some good paid trainings available, including online courses. Tilde, my employer, has an online training (http://www.tilde.io/events/introduction-to-ember-online/) as does CodeSchool (who I do not work for) (https://www.codeschool.com/courses/warming-up-with-emberjs), among others. Since Ember has reached 1.0 a number of months ago, the API has stabilized and documentation will be valid for much longer.