Introduction
jQuery made manipulating the DOM easy. But as JavaScript applications grow, jQuery alone isn't enough. You end up with spaghetti code – event handlers everywhere, data scattered across the page, no structure.
Backbone.js solves this. Created by Jeremy Ashkenas (also behind CoffeeScript and Underscore.js), Backbone provides structure for JavaScript applications. It's not a full framework like Rails – it's a library that enforces architectural patterns.