Third-Party Libraries

This page discusses when to use the major, UI-framework-level, libraries we depend on, along with a few common code conventions for these libraries.

jQuery

jQuery is available throughout HQ. We use jQuery 3.

Prefix jQuery variables with a $:

var $rows = $("#myTable tr"),
    firstRow = $rows[0];

Underscore is available throughout HQ for utilities.

Knockout is also available throughout HQ and should be used for new code. We use Knockout 3.0.

Prefix knockout observables with an o:

var myModel = function (options) {
    var self = this;
    self.type = options.type;
    self.oTotal = ko.observable(0);
};

…so that in HTML it’s apparent what you’re dealing with:

<input data-bind="visible: type === 'large' && oTotal() > 10, value: oTotal" />

Current total: <span data-bind="text: oTotal"></div>

Backbone is used in Web Apps. It should not be used outside of Web Apps. Within Web Apps, we use Marionette for most UI management.

We use yarn for package management, so new libraries should be added to package.json.