While the syntax here is CoffeeScript-specific, this is a perfectly fine pattern to apply in any JavaScript.<p>The key is to remember that, in JavaScript, you aren't really "defining instance methods" in the way you are in almost any other language. You're just passing anonymous functions as the value tied to some key in a dictionary, which happens to be the prototype of some set of objects.
Once you get that into your mind and let it play around for a bit, you realize that you could be getting the anonymous function from anywhere!<p>From a function-factory, that takes some arguments and returns a function:<p><pre><code> render: renderWithTemplate("some_template")
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From an anonymous function wrapped in something that controls its execution:<p><pre><code> onScroll: _.debounce(100, function(){ /* do something */ })
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Or even by delegating to another object:<p><pre><code> viewInstance.onScroll = _.bind(somethingElse.render, somethingElse);
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Thanks for the great post to help bend our minds around these possibilities.