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CoffeeScript2 - A Redesign of the CoffeeScript Compiler

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Re: CoffeeScript2 - A Redesign of the CoffeeScript Compiler

#5

Post by yuchi »

sirclueless wrote: post #4

Forgive me for being skeptical, but it seems to me that CoffeeScript is going the way of Lisp: a language by hackers for hackers, with way too many incompatible implementations because each implementer has their own pet features that must be included.

There's already a production ready transpiler, and a big bunch of production code to test against every new transpiler. Why do you think this is going to be a reason for fragmentation?

And, by the way, coffeescript is not intended to be a language for hackers (I mean, only for hackers) but for Ruby programmers moving to javascript, JS programmers looking for a more terse syntax and programmers with an eye for terseness.

In my opinion it has only two big flaws that need to be targeted by new transpilers: 1) for --> each 2) parens free chainable syntax.

Re: CoffeeScript2 - A Redesign of the CoffeeScript Compiler

#6

Post by pistoriusp »

I don't think it's fair that he should be allowed to use the name "CoffeeScript 2."

I feel that it implies that it's an official project, but it's actually a re-implementation and separate project.

And if they're not backwards compatible it could lead to a ton of confusion and a fragmented language.

I think if you want your own project then you should at the very least get your own name.

Re: CoffeeScript2 - A Redesign of the CoffeeScript Compiler

#7

Post by mistercow »

pistoriusp wrote: post #6

I don't think it's fair that he should be allowed to use the name "CoffeeScript 2." I feel that it implies that it's an official project, but it's actually a re-implementation and separate project. And if they're not backwards compatible it could lead to a ton of confusion and a fragmented language. I think if you want your own project then you should at the very least get your own name.

I would be surprised if he didn't have Ashkenas's blessing on the name, since he's been the second biggest contributor to the main CoffeeScript project.

Re: CoffeeScript2 - A Redesign of the CoffeeScript Compiler

#8

Post by GeZe »

jashkenas wrote: post #3

Very much looking forward to seeing how this turns out. To view a list of some of the public-facing things Michael wants to change, take a look here: https://github.com/michaelficarra/coffee-of-my-dreams

For those who don't want to wait, most of the public-facing changes listed there are already in LiveScript (http://gkz.github.com/LiveScript/) - though with a few more (in my opinion well justified) incompatibilities.

Re: CoffeeScript2 - A Redesign of the CoffeeScript Compiler

#9

Post by jashkenas »

sirclueless wrote: post #4

Forgive me for being skeptical, but it seems to me that CoffeeScript is going the way of Lisp: a language by hackers for hackers, with way too many incompatible implementations because each implementer has their own pet features that must be included.

Whoops -- I think you're missing a big part of the point of compiling into "standard" JavaScript. Not only is CoffeeScript code fully compatible with any JS library ... it's also compatible with code generated by any version of the compiler, and with code generated by alterna-compilers like Coco, and eventually this project as well. The semantic compatibility exists at the "plain 'ol" JS level.

Re: CoffeeScript2 - A Redesign of the CoffeeScript Compiler

#10

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

jashkenas wrote: post #3

Very much looking forward to seeing how this turns out. To view a list of some of the public-facing things Michael wants to change, take a look here: https://github.com/michaelficarra/coffee-of-my-dreams

He wants to remove semicolons except where absolutely necessary?

Is he nuts? The compiled output shouldn't be relying on an error-correction feature. Especially since it might break minifiers and validators.

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