CoffeeScript is Afrikaans JavaScript
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CoffeeScript is Afrikaans JavaScript
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Re: CoffeeScript is Afrikaans JavaScript
#2Interesting comparison. I speak Afrikaans in the office every day (although it's not my mother tongue) and I do appreciate the simplicity of the language. It's also really cool in the same way Klingon is cool, i.e. some things can only be said in Afrikaans.
I must point out that the language itself is not as simple ("kitchen dutch") as the author makes it out to be though, in fact it's in my opinion just as sophisticated as dutch - albeit with slightly simplified grammar and spellings.
Re: CoffeeScript is Afrikaans JavaScript
#3Like HAML before it, coffeescript is more like 'piglatin with shortcuts' to me, i.e. you have to mentally make a transformation on the javascript you were going to write while simultaneously stripping away unnecessary crud.
This is somewhat analogous to the stage in learning a spoken language where you're mentally translating (rather than just articulating directly in the target language). Unlike a spoken language however, in haml/coffeescript this phase only needs to last about an hour, instead of months or years.
P.S. I have a pet theory that bi-linguals are more 'intuitively comfortable' with what I call 'transformation' languages like HAML and Coffeescript, probably because they're used to cross-compiling their own speech while learning their second language. Not based on any scientific research but it appears to play out in my current office.
Re: CoffeeScript is Afrikaans JavaScript
#4I'm not sure I understand why CoffeeScript should be easier to understand for a backend developer than JavaScript?
Re: CoffeeScript is Afrikaans JavaScript
#5This sort of analogy doesn't go very far for me because spoken languages evolve organically and continually in ways that computer programming languages do not. My compiler/interpreter doesn't meet me half way when I make small human-comprehendible changes. Even spoken languages that are engineered grow and change in-use.
Re: CoffeeScript is Afrikaans JavaScript
#6Interesting comparison. I speak Afrikaans in the office every day (although it's not my mother tongue) and I do appreciate the simplicity of the language. It's also really cool in the same way Klingon is cool, i.e. some things can only be said in Afrikaans. I must point out that the language itself is not as simple ("kitchen dutch") as the author makes it out to be though, in fact it's in my opinion just as sophistic…
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Re: CoffeeScript is Afrikaans JavaScript
#7I suppose it depends on your mother tongue.
KoffieSkrip is nie eintlik 'n Afrikaanse Javaskrip nie.
Afrikaans has a few quirks and oddities that would make it seem strange to English speakers. For example, the Afrikaans sentence above means "CoffeeScript is not actually an Akfrikaans Javascript". But to someone who is unfamiliar with the language, the structure might imply a double-negative ("CoffeeScript is not actually an Akfrikaans Javascript not").
Re: CoffeeScript is Afrikaans JavaScript
#8Like HAML before it, coffeescript is more like 'piglatin with shortcuts' to me, i.e. you have to mentally make a transformation on the javascript you were going to write while simultaneously stripping away unnecessary crud. This is somewhat analogous to the stage in learning a spoken language where you're mentally translating (rather than just articulating directly in the target language). Unlike a spoken language ho…
Well, as a linguist and hapa I don't fit your mold very well. I don't like HAML particularly, and I prefer explicit block scoping a la JS and Ruby rather than CS and Python. I do like CoffeeScript though :)
Re: CoffeeScript is Afrikaans JavaScript
#9I'm not sure I understand why CoffeeScript should be easier to understand for a backend developer than JavaScript?
Perhaps the author meant for those who know Ruby:
- @ for instance variables
- #{} interpolation
and Python:
- for comprehensions
- significant whitespace
Re: CoffeeScript is Afrikaans JavaScript
#10I'm not sure I understand why CoffeeScript should be easier to understand for a backend developer than JavaScript?
Perhaps the author meant for those who know Ruby: - @ for instance variables - #{} interpolation and Python: - for comprehensions - significant whitespace
Those are syntactic sugar. If your devs have trouble understanding JavaScript because of this, I suggest your devs aren't very good.