lowercase instance var in example code

[philfreo]

No description provided.

[jashkenas]

Revert this, please.

[caseywebdev]

Upper case instance variables?

[jashkenas]

Upper case global collections.

Aside: whatever kind of variable it is -- it certainly ain't an "instance" variable. That refers to a property of an instance of a class.

[tgriesser]

@jashkenas can you look at the discussion/changes in #2219 and comments at the base of #2412 regarding this -

I think the "upper cased collections" in the docs are misleading/confusing. Generally, upper cased variables are reserved for top level namespaces or constructor functions. Since there isn't really a concept of "global" in the docs, it is a bit confusing to not use the fairly standard naming convention to lowercase object instances (makes sense in the todo example where there is a bit more context, though I still think most just find it confusing).

If we revert this, we'll have to revert this in multiple places from the previous ticket as well.

[jashkenas]

Yes -- please revert it from both tickets.

If you go around and look at the codebases in many/most Backbone apps, you'll find that global namespaces and global collections are usually capitalized. It's a very nice convention to have, and something we should be keeping. Lowercased global variables are not a standard naming convention in any JavaScript I've ever seen -- I'd immediately assume that they were local.

[caseywebdev]

While I can't say I agree with this particular practice, I've reverted 😉

[braddunbar]

I don't feel strongly about how we do this in the docs but I also find the capitalized collection instances to be jarring.

In my experience, capitalized variable names are reserved for top level namespaces (e.g. window.Backbone, window.App) or constructor functions (e.g. Model, Collection, View). Seeing Documents in code I've never seen before, I assume/guess it's a constructor function or namespace. Further, I don't usually see window.documents, but instead window.App.documents in order to minimize the chance of a collision with third party libraries.

[tgriesser]

I agree with Brad, I guess it works okay if you're limited to a simple Todos app, but to put collection instances directly on the window is a pretty bad practice to encourage here.