addyosmani/backbone-fundamentals — pull request #98 by kjbekkelund (2012-04-06 11:44:30+00:00)
Title: Use cached version of the el jQuery object

Instead of writing `$(this.el)` all around, I changed it to using `this.$el` instead. First of all it makes use of a cached version of the jQuery object and secondly I think it makes the code easier to read and that it's more idiomatic. Additionally, I think it clarifies `this.el` versus `this.$el` for those new to Backbone. I caught a couple of `.el` bugs at the same time, it seems.