Thanks for that explanation. One last question: why would you do 'jam install backbone'? Are people developing all their client-side code in the node environment as well?
[Or, it seems like maybe node in this case is just a dependency for jam, which is simply a tool used to make all your JavaScript development easier, without introducing any extra runtime dependencies.]
There are two sides to Node. One is the HTTP server environment you're thinking of. The other is just as a generic JavaScript execution environment, with packages for filesystem etc..
[Or, it seems like maybe node in this case is just a dependency for jam, which is simply a tool used to make all your JavaScript development easier, without introducing any extra runtime dependencies.]