Backbone.js vs. JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit vs. PostCSS vs. Sencha Ext JS Comparison Chart

Backbone.js gives structure to web applications by providing models with key-value binding and custom events, collections with a rich API of enumerable functions, views with declarative event handling, and connects it all to your existing API over a RESTful JSON interface. When working on a web application that involves a lot of JavaScript, one of the first things you learn is to stop tying your data to the DOM. It's all too easy to create JavaScript applications that end up as tangled piles of jQuery selectors and callbacks, all trying frantically to keep data in sync between the HTML UI, your JavaScript logic, and the database on your server. For rich client-side applications, a more structured approach is often helpful. With Backbone, you represent your data as Models, which can be created, validated, destroyed, and saved to the server.

PostCSS is a versatile tool that transforms CSS using JavaScript plugins, enabling a wide range of functionalities such as linting, supporting variables and mixins, transpiling future CSS syntax, and inlining images. It serves as a framework for developing CSS tools and can be utilized to create template languages similar to Sass and LESS. The core of PostCSS comprises a CSS parser that generates an abstract syntax tree, a set of classes that form the tree, a CSS generator that produces a CSS line for the object tree, and a code map generator for CSS changes. Plugins operate on the object tree, analyzing and modifying it before PostCSS generates a new CSS string reflecting these changes. Notable plugins include Autoprefixer, which adds vendor prefixes, and Stylelint, a modern CSS linter that enforces consistent conventions and avoids errors in stylesheets. PostCSS is employed by industry leaders such as Wikipedia, Twitter, Alibaba, and JetBrains.