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CoffeeScript: The beautiful way to write JavaScript

amix.dk

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Re: CoffeeScript: The beautiful way to write JavaScript

#11

Post by mrspeaker »

jherdman wrote: post #4

I can't shake the feeling that people that like CoffeeScript are those that don't "get" JavaScript (e.g. CoffeeScript's notion of a class, whereas JavaScript has none -- let go an embrace the prototypal object model). Further, most (if not all) of the examples of the problems with JavaScript are null and void. A language that combines paradigms? Most do. Sure, the name sucks, but that's hardly an issue. I understand…

I think the opposite: people you get CoffeeScript are more likely those who really get JavaScript. It's turning JavaScript into the language it was supposed to before before the marketers got their hands on it and "javafied it".

In fact, Brendan Eich has taken a bunch of it's features and they will be included in the next version of JS (woot!): http://brendaneich.com/2011/01/harmony-of-my-dreams/

http://www.aminutewithbrendan.com/pages/20110131

Re: CoffeeScript: The beautiful way to write JavaScript

#13

Post by amix »

jherdman wrote: post #4

I can't shake the feeling that people that like CoffeeScript are those that don't "get" JavaScript (e.g. CoffeeScript's notion of a class, whereas JavaScript has none -- let go an embrace the prototypal object model). Further, most (if not all) of the examples of the problems with JavaScript are null and void. A language that combines paradigms? Most do. Sure, the name sucks, but that's hardly an issue. I understand…

I don't think many use CoffeeScript because they don't "get" JavaScript. I think they use CoffeeScript because it gives them a much better JavaScript and makes them more productive and "happy".

Re: CoffeeScript: The beautiful way to write JavaScript

#14

Post by JoelSutherland »

I couldn't agree more.

The biggest problem with CoffeeScript adoption is the administrative overhead required for novices to get it running. This means that most CoffeeScript projects are usually larger -- it just doesn't get used in small one-off things.

My company's product is a hosted CMS and we just tackled this problem (http://www.gethifi.com/blog/hosted-cms-coffeescript-support) by completely eliminating the workflow issue. You can use Coffee or JS and the system takes care of the rest for you.

I've found this to be a big help when working on smaller client sites. Often I just need to write a couple dozens lines of JS and it just isn't worth the hassle to do it in Coffee -- now it's gravy.

Re: CoffeeScript: The beautiful way to write JavaScript

#15

Post by hermanthegerman »

jherdman wrote: post #4

I can't shake the feeling that people that like CoffeeScript are those that don't "get" JavaScript (e.g. CoffeeScript's notion of a class, whereas JavaScript has none -- let go an embrace the prototypal object model). Further, most (if not all) of the examples of the problems with JavaScript are null and void. A language that combines paradigms? Most do. Sure, the name sucks, but that's hardly an issue. I understand…

I have to say that by using cs I learned a lot more about js. Maybe for old js cats it doesnt matter, but I only used js occasionally before, and now it became one of my favorite languages (I use with node, and I write all my node stuff in cs).

One particular example that changed everything for me was the natural and simple way I could build the typical callback constructs with -> and => , so they almost look like blocks in ruby, and feel way more natural as a control construct, and I didnt have to stack lots of })}); and so on.

If you're rather new to something, the ease of use and the simplicity and readability speeden up the learning process extremely.

That being said, there are also a couple of things in cs that are kind of silly.. like using 'for i in my_array', but 'for k of my_dict', and stuff like that, that are really hard to debug.

Although, in terms of debugging, the fact that it gets compiled and possible errors are early detected and a canonical js is generated also saved me lot of time, in particular with IE ;-)

Re: CoffeeScript: The beautiful way to write JavaScript

#16

Post by jashkenas »

hermanthegerman wrote: post #15
jherdman wrote: post #4

I can't shake the feeling that people that like CoffeeScript are those that don't "get" JavaScript (e.g. CoffeeScript's notion of a class, whereas JavaScript has none -- let go an embrace the prototypal object model). Further, most (if not all) of the examples of the problems with JavaScript are null and void. A language that combines paradigms? Most do. Sure, the name sucks, but that's hardly an issue. I understand…

I have to say that by using cs I learned a lot more about js. Maybe for old js cats it doesnt matter, but I only used js occasionally before, and now it became one of my favorite languages (I use with node, and I write all my node stuff in cs). One particular example that changed everything for me was the natural and simple way I could build the typical callback constructs with -> and => , so they almost look like bl…

To explain the reason for the "in/of" distinction...

"for item in list" vs "for key, value of object" is an unfortunate necessary evil. It would be great to use the same keyword, "in", for both types of loop, but I'm afraid there's no way for us to know at compile time if "list" or "object" is really an array, or really an object.

Re: CoffeeScript: The beautiful way to write JavaScript

#17

Post by mrkurt »

dstein wrote: post #7

I really wanted to like CoffeeScript but that it can't be metaprogrammed and serialized (easily) is a huge problem for a scripting language. I guess scripting was never the point of CoffeeScript, but a lot of what makes JavaScript so flexible is lost when you add a compile stage.

I'm struggling to think of something I can do in Javascript, but not CoffeeScript. Can you give an example?

Re: CoffeeScript: The beautiful way to write JavaScript

#18

Post by skymt »

davepeck wrote: post #12

Out of curiosity: What's with today's obsession over beautiful syntax? Shouldn't we strive for beautiful semantics, instead?

In this case, the semantics were already decided: CoffeeScript was intended to map transparently to JavaScript. Each change to semantics would add complexity to that mapping.

Re: CoffeeScript: The beautiful way to write JavaScript

#20

Post by davepeck »

skymt wrote: post #18
davepeck wrote: post #12

Out of curiosity: What's with today's obsession over beautiful syntax? Shouldn't we strive for beautiful semantics, instead?

In this case, the semantics were already decided: CoffeeScript was intended to map transparently to JavaScript. Each change to semantics would add complexity to that mapping.

Syntactic sugar is all CoffeeScript can ever be. Is pretty syntax better than common-use syntax?

(To be clear: I don't have a strong opinion. I'm curious what the community thinks the value proposition for CoffeeScript, HAML, etc is.)

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