Visualforce Remoting Correct Approach?

Question

I have a controller with the below (sanitized) methods:

@remoteAction
global static String getParam1(String someInput1){
    String param1 = someInput1;
    return param1;
}

@remoteAction
global static String getParam2(String someInput2){
    String param2 = someInput2;
    return param2;
}

And a VF page with the following javascript:

<script>

//vf remoting
Visualforce.remoting.Manager.invokeAction("{!$RemoteAction.controller.getParam1}", aninputhere, function(result,event){
var jsParam1 = result;});

//calling method directly
controller.getParam2(aninputhere,function(result,event){
    var jsParam2 = result;});

</script>

While I have done this inconsistently by accidental both work fine in all contexts that they are used...is there any benefit/reason I should use the vf remoting approach in javascript over calling the controller directly?

Answer 1

Just verbosity. I prefer the latter because it is more concise. As far as I know, that's the only difference. As a direct consequence, it is also somewhat easier to pass the reference to a static resource/angular framework/etc, since you can pass a single function instead of the entire manager.

As a simple example, you could add that specific function to a namespace:

(function (w) {
    "use strict";
    w.myNamespace = w.myNamespace || {};
    w.myNamespace.callRemoteAction = controller.getParam2;
    // other logic, cleanup, etc.
}(window));

Answer 2

I will prefer the first approach of using $RemoteAction

Visualforce.remoting.Manager.invokeAction("{!$RemoteAction.controller.getParam1}", aninputhere, function(result,event){

The reason is this is namespace independent and I will not have to worry about namespace when i package the visualforce page for managed package application as the platform automatically takes care of namespacing .