> "I want to write a bunch of gross code to perform dirty checking of objects to keep everything in sync" said no UI developer ever.

Except that this is in no way an equivalent comparison. With Backbone, you actually have to write the hundreds of callbacks in your application code.

Whereas with Angular, you attach a value to a scope, and declare it in a template. In that case, the framework actually does take care of the 'ugly' for you.

Backbone keeps the ugly in front of your face, it just gives you a slightly neater way to organize it (i.e. as compared to jQuery soup).

My fault. I guess I misunderstood the point being made.

Or you use a templating engine/language and write a simple reusable adaptor. An adaptor you have to write once, assuming one doesn't already exist.

If I'm reading the above comment correctly, the author is stating that Backbone surfaces this to the user. To manage state in a Backbone app requires lots of callback binding.

Huh? I've written quite a few large scale angular apps...and I haven't written a bunch of code to do any of that. If you have something that needs to be checked outside of angular, it belongs in a directive.