Backbone.js

Raised as a usability problem by 19 people on Hacker News over 15 years (2011–2025), in 17 threads.

People raised many different problems with Backbone.js, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.

Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.

The newest 19 complaints

String-mapped event handlers are hard to read, error-prone, and typos go undetected by the compiler2025-10-26
Large Backbone app is hard to trace across many files2025-10-25
Bugs made the DOM fail to reflect the latest model changes in large apps2023-11-27
Deep property updates silently fire no change event, confusing developers for a long time2022-06-03
Nesting child views is hard and there are many ways to trigger events2022-05-05
Steep learning curve and confusing metaphors make it hard to get a basic UI running2013-06-03
DOM handling is tricky and cumbersome to work with in Backbone2013-05-29
Too much boilerplate code makes it tedious for a server-side developer2013-04-17
Constant quirks and bugs are almost impossible to track down2013-04-17
Manual syncing of UI elements like sortable lists to models is painful2013-04-08
Getting started is really difficult before you understand Backbone2013-03-25
Hard to learn, takes months and tends to produce messy code2012-12-14
Cannot mix hash URLs and pushState URLs on one page; History is a singleton2012-08-03
Custom checkbox ignores space bar; pressing it scrolls the page instead2012-06-19
Clicking About takes over a second with no sign that content is loading2012-03-15
Can't tell from the error event which request failed, such as a destroy2012-01-30
Docs cover the API but lack context, forcing readers to guess good practice2011-12-22
Docs too thin beyond todo apps, forcing readers into the source code2011-12-22
Clicking back takes several presses to return to the page, surprising users2011-07-01