Question

If developing web applications using ASP.NET MVC or Ruby on Rails make the application use the MVC design pattern, then if I build my application using only HTML5/Javascript + backend webservices (like WCF rest), then which design pattern will my application follow?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Depends on how you structure you application 😉

If you use popular “thick client JS” frameworks like Backbone.js, Knockout.js or Ember.js you end up using a MVC style as well. Only change is that the model access it’s data through the webservice. Most framework abstracts away this as well, so you can switch to localStorage, WebSocket or something else.

From my personal experience using Backbone.js, I really like the MVC pattern for client applications. It really helps structuring large js apps.

Edit:

Knockout.js is actually MVVM, from the docs:

Developers familiar with Ruby on Rails, ASP.NET MVC, or other MV*
technologies may see MVVM as a real-time form of MVC with declarative
syntax. In another sense, you can think of KO as a general way to make
UIs for editing JSON data… whatever works for you 🙂