Developing javascript applications on top of rails just got faster thanks to the Rails 3.1 asset pipeline. Like jquery-rails, this gem bundles some javascript files to make them available to your application:

• backbone
• underscore
• json2

Add it to your Gemfile:

gem 'backbone-rails'

Require backbone and its dependencies as a group in app/assets/javascripts/application.js.coffee:

#= require backbone-rails

With pure javascript, the lines would look like app/assets/javascripts/application.js:

//= require backbone-rails

Or if you need to, require what you need in app/assets/javascripts/application.js.coffee:

#= require json2
#= require underscore
#= require backbone

With pure javascript, the lines would look like app/assets/javascripts/application.js:

//= require json2
//= require underscore
//= require backbone

backbone-rails ships with a generator that copies all javascript files to public/javascripts. You can run it with rails g backbone:install.

The gem will follow backbone versioning.

• John Bintz (Support for Rails 3.0 via generators)
• Wes Gibbs and Les Hill (Include all dependencies as a group)