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Poll: Have you moved from JavaScript to CoffeeScript?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: Have you moved from JavaScript to CoffeeScript?

#81

Post by StavrosK »

amirshim wrote: post #80
StavrosK wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I checked out your app, very interesting how native it feels. Would you recommend Titanium, in general?

Titanium is a mixed bag. For simple applications, it's great, but as soon as you need to do something a little bit complicated, the learning curve goes up quite a bit. For example, in my app ( http://iphone.albumpl.us ) I had to write a couple of small custom objective-c modules to get some camera/image stuff to have sufficient performance. But overall being able to write most of it in CoffeeScript, is so much better…

Ah, very nice, thank you.

Re: Poll: Have you moved from JavaScript to CoffeeScript?

#82

Post by slouch »

Peaker wrote: post #72
slouch wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and why would I want less of JavaScript's syntax in my life when it has so much overlap with other languages I use like PHP?

Well, you do choose Javascript when you could have chosen PHP and had even more overlap. Presumably, because you believe it is better for the tasks. Similarly, Coffeescript authors believe that Coffeescript is better than Javascript -- even if there's less overlap.

Will understanding the CoffeeScript syntax help me learn another programming language like JavaScript did?

Re: Poll: Have you moved from JavaScript to CoffeeScript?

#83

Post by eropple »

true_religion wrote: post #40
eropple wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Used it. Not extensively, but I have. It adds nothing of real value for me; I have no fundamental beef with the Good Parts of JavaScript and get nothing from a Ruby-inspired hat on top. I'd like to see something like MileScript gain some traction--not to replace JavaScript, but as another tool in the toolbox. MileScript adds new value that you don't really get with plain JS; CoffeeScript doesn't.

I'd be shocked if Milescript got traction without it being inflicted on developers from above. Milescript turns Javascrpit into Java. Whilst many developers don't have a problem with static typing, none I know of like the verbosity of Java. An ML or Haskell styled Javascript might fare better.

I'm not sure I agree--it's certainly verbose, but to me it feels more like C# verbosity (which I find helpful and often nice) than Java (which is often obfuscatory).

Re: Poll: Have you moved from JavaScript to CoffeeScript?

#85

Post by Apocryphon »

I'm currently learning JS, but am preferring to not learn CoffeeScript or jQuery yet, because I feel like I would be avoiding the nitty-gritty of the language with convenient frameworks that pave over some ugly spots. I know that JS is a bit of an aberration in that it has been around for so long in so many places yet has so many fundamental flaws, but it feels wrong that I would have to learn a framework that wraps around the language to protect me from the ugliness of the language. I'd rather face JavaScript full on first, suffer through the process, instead of jumping into CS.

Also, I never understood why some people advocate learning C++ before C. But that's a different debate...

Re: Poll: Have you moved from JavaScript to CoffeeScript?

#86

Post by pavel_lishin »

stilist wrote: post #54

After reading posts about it on here for maybe a year, I recently decided to try it for a small jQuery plugin. I enjoyed it so much that we immediately switched to writing all new code in CoffeeScript and have begun converting existing code as time allows. The benefits over straight JavaScript are amazing—I’d been writing careful code that drew from the ‘good parts’ mentality and pre-declared all variables, etc. Now…

Is it difficult to debug the resulting code?

Re: Poll: Have you moved from JavaScript to CoffeeScript?

#89

Post by michaelchisari »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #86
stilist wrote: post #54

After reading posts about it on here for maybe a year, I recently decided to try it for a small jQuery plugin. I enjoyed it so much that we immediately switched to writing all new code in CoffeeScript and have begun converting existing code as time allows. The benefits over straight JavaScript are amazing—I’d been writing careful code that drew from the ‘good parts’ mentality and pre-declared all variables, etc. Now…

Is it difficult to debug the resulting code?

I might take this back later, but so far, not really. I thought it was going to be, I keep expecting to run into crazy debugging hurdles, but they just haven't showed up yet. Maybe I'm still at a naive point in my development, and just haven't done anything that would trip it up, but so far so good.

Re: Poll: Have you moved from JavaScript to CoffeeScript?

#90

Post by michaelchisari »

Apocryphon wrote: post #85

I'm currently learning JS, but am preferring to not learn CoffeeScript or jQuery yet, because I feel like I would be avoiding the nitty-gritty of the language with convenient frameworks that pave over some ugly spots. I know that JS is a bit of an aberration in that it has been around for so long in so many places yet has so many fundamental flaws, but it feels wrong that I would have to learn a framework that wraps…

I don't recommend learning CS before JS, because it's a different interpretation of JS, it isn't its own language. In fact, I'm glad I boned up on my Javascript skills (read "The Good Parts" and some solid tutorials) before moving to CoffeeScript.
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