I think the author is getting flak for having his own "framework" while writing an article about being frameworkless. But the "framework" riot.js has just one

I think the author is getting flak for having his own "framework" while writing an article about being frameworkless. But the "framework" riot.js has just one important function called "observable." It's 60 lines of code that sets up an event system. I have a similar custom event system in my projects and I do not use frameworks. It's not something people will need to Google or ask their coworkers much about. Backbone on the other hand... anyone unfamiliar with it will need to spend a significant amount of time learning it.