Javascript Frameworks Are Too Small

The author's assertions about code size are a bit misleading. Backbone is 4.6k minified, and 41k normally. Most frameworks provide minified versions of their libraries, because in web dev, you don't own the page.

Also, unlike server code, which is run on beefy custom-configured servers, client-side code is run on your grandmother's old desktop computer in IE6, and the entirety of the source code is sent over the wire. You can see where the ethic of 'micro-frameworks' comes from.