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Sort of? I mean, if you're using models and collections to store _model and collection_ state, then essentially yes, you'll probably have a global variable that namespaces the state of data in your application (or closure-wrapped modules, as the author suggests).

At a certain point (and fairly early, really) keeping the state of an interactive application as HTML nodes is not what I want.

Or a number of isolated, small state objects with well-defined interfaces.

Seriously? So you think Backbone.js and the like are just a fad?

I'm not fond of the way Backbone.js works. It solves none of the hard problems of making an SPA. (AngularJS is guilty of this too, albeit from a different angle.)