[Cthulhu_]

One thing this tutorial / thing doesn't highlight is that Angular is ~800 KB (unminified, ~200 KB gzipped, including some modules), versus Backbone's ~60KB (unminified, ~20KB gzipped).

So it does take 240% more lines of code to do sort of the same thing as the angular tutorial, but the angular library is 1000% as big. If my math's correct.

(disclaimer: I like Angular, and for big projects like the one I've worked on, both backbone and angular, I really prefer angular. If bandwidth is a major concern though, and you know how big your app's going to end up, consider library size)

[nsp]

I don't know we're you're getting those numbers - angular is 36k minified, backbone is ~10, and includes much less code (no rendering/binding library etc). Still a nontrivial distance, but a far cry from 700kb/10x

[Rygu]

Continuing this point, Backbone requires rendering, binding, and probably relational models libraries. Not to mention the boilerplate and configuration code you have to write to tie all those libraries together. Less may end up being more.

Another point is that with all those libraries, how do you sanely manage the security and quality of your application? With the exception of just a few - almost every Backbone add-on library I've tried is badly programmed (un-SOLID / weird JS / no tests), not documented enough, and unmaintained solo-projects that just so happen to be on GitHub.

[al2o3cr]

There's a big difference: 800k of code that somebody else is maintaining is very likely to be way less hassle than 2.4x the code that you have to maintain.

As a slightly hyperbolic example, imagine comparing code that uses the filesystem with code that directly writes bytes to the disk - sure, it's probably only 5x more code but nobody would seriously entertain doing it...

[AdrianRossouw]

I dunno. angular is pretty complex.

I'm willing to bet that there's going to be a bug somewhere in that 800kb of code that is truly going to fuck up your day.

At least that 2.4x amount of code _could_ have more straight forward bugs.

[mcv]

Comparing Backbone and Angular is like comparing apples and dinner.

Backbone is a library. You can use it or ignore it, combine it with other stuff, you call Backbone code and use its objects, and it does some limited but well-defined stuff. It's easy to combine with other libraries, and you don't have to use Backbone's feature everywhere if you don't want to.

Angular, on the other hand, is a framework. It shapes everything you do. It bootstraps your application for you, and calls your code when it needs your input. It imposes a totally different way of working and thinking on you. What it does for you is far bigger than what Backbone does for you. It doesn't play nice with libraries that haven't been written for use with Angular.

Really, the difference is like writing a basic Java program where you write the main() and you call some libraries; and using a webframework that handles tons of stuff for you and you just write the controllers, services and views.