Backbone.Js - what's the difference between el and $el?

backbone.js, javascript

Solution

Straight from the documentation, `$el` is:

A cached jQuery (or Zepto) object for the view's element. A handy reference instead of re-wrapping the DOM element all the time.

So, `$el` is a cached, jQuery (or Zepto) version of `el`. If you need to use any jQuery or Zepto methods on `el`, you can simply use `$el` instead of wrapping `el` in `$()` each time.

Problem

So I've been stuck for the whole afternoon on this problem which I eventually solved. It turned out I was assigning el instead of $el. What's the difference between the two and when should I use each of them?

Original source