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We don't want your coffescript

blog.ponyfoo.com

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Re: We don't want your coffescript

#11

Post by gfodor »

shazow wrote: post #9
gfodor wrote: post #4

Are there people that seriously can't just read CoffeeScript as-is? Are there seriously people that can't scan through the CoffeeScript docs in about 20 minutes and pick up the language more or less? The first time I saw CoffeeScript I immediately realized, oh, fuck yes, this is obviously better, and switched over to it immediately. I was productive with it instantly. Is it really something worth spending your time a…

I can read it but it's a struggle. Much like reading Ruby, for someone who comes from Python. The syntax doesn't quite make sense to me and its usage varies between authors—a bunch of things are optional and used unpredictably (parenthesis, lambdas, indent-alignment). Despite the Pythonish indent-based blocks, CoffeeScript is very much Ruby-like in syntax and culture. From my experience, fluent Ruby readers enjoy Cof…

I think making analogies about this is hard. Programmers are used to thinking about languages as Big Things that change the way you think. This is not that.

I would encourage you to dedicate a block of about 30 minutes to port a single piece of non-trivial JavaScript code to CoffeeScript. You'll almost certainly neutralize any hangups you have in this short period.

Re: We don't want your coffescript

#12

Post by tommaxwell »

shazow wrote: post #9
gfodor wrote: post #4

Are there people that seriously can't just read CoffeeScript as-is? Are there seriously people that can't scan through the CoffeeScript docs in about 20 minutes and pick up the language more or less? The first time I saw CoffeeScript I immediately realized, oh, fuck yes, this is obviously better, and switched over to it immediately. I was productive with it instantly. Is it really something worth spending your time a…

I can read it but it's a struggle. Much like reading Ruby, for someone who comes from Python. The syntax doesn't quite make sense to me and its usage varies between authors—a bunch of things are optional and used unpredictably (parenthesis, lambdas, indent-alignment). Despite the Pythonish indent-based blocks, CoffeeScript is very much Ruby-like in syntax and culture. From my experience, fluent Ruby readers enjoy Cof…

Very solid points. As someone that also enjoys JS as-is, it really frustrates me when people use CoffeeScript in JS answers and tutorials.

Re: We don't want your coffescript

#13

Post by xdissent »

shazow wrote: post #9
gfodor wrote: post #4

Are there people that seriously can't just read CoffeeScript as-is? Are there seriously people that can't scan through the CoffeeScript docs in about 20 minutes and pick up the language more or less? The first time I saw CoffeeScript I immediately realized, oh, fuck yes, this is obviously better, and switched over to it immediately. I was productive with it instantly. Is it really something worth spending your time a…

I can read it but it's a struggle. Much like reading Ruby, for someone who comes from Python. The syntax doesn't quite make sense to me and its usage varies between authors—a bunch of things are optional and used unpredictably (parenthesis, lambdas, indent-alignment). Despite the Pythonish indent-based blocks, CoffeeScript is very much Ruby-like in syntax and culture. From my experience, fluent Ruby readers enjoy Cof…

"Doing things like answering JavaScript questions in CoffeeScript is simply inconsiderate and not very useful"

Fuck me, right?

Re: We don't want your coffescript

#14

Post by mattdw »

gfodor wrote: post #4

Are there people that seriously can't just read CoffeeScript as-is? Are there seriously people that can't scan through the CoffeeScript docs in about 20 minutes and pick up the language more or less? The first time I saw CoffeeScript I immediately realized, oh, fuck yes, this is obviously better, and switched over to it immediately. I was productive with it instantly. Is it really something worth spending your time a…

> The first time I saw CoffeeScript I immediately realized, oh, fuck yes, this is obviously better, and switched over to it immediately. I was productive with it instantly.

Which is fine for you. But I tried it for a project then ditched it, because it didn't justify the extra tooling required in my development pipeline, and because there are ambiguities and inconsistencies in the syntax and the language, and yes, occasionally it's actually worse than Javascript.

Which is only to say that not everyone fits into a "doesn't know CoffeeScript"/"loves CoffeeScript" dichotomy.

Re: We don't want your coffescript

#15

Post by gfodor »

mattdw wrote: post #14
gfodor wrote: post #4

Are there people that seriously can't just read CoffeeScript as-is? Are there seriously people that can't scan through the CoffeeScript docs in about 20 minutes and pick up the language more or less? The first time I saw CoffeeScript I immediately realized, oh, fuck yes, this is obviously better, and switched over to it immediately. I was productive with it instantly. Is it really something worth spending your time a…

> The first time I saw CoffeeScript I immediately realized, oh, fuck yes, this is obviously better, and switched over to it immediately. I was productive with it instantly. Which is fine for you. But I tried it for a project then ditched it, because it didn't justify the extra tooling required in my development pipeline, and because there are ambiguities and inconsistencies in the syntax and the language, and yes, oc…

The point wasn't that everyone should use it. The point was that it was trivial to pick up and use so I'm often surprised when people complain about how difficult it is to read. If I handed you a piece of CoffeeScript and you literally had never read the docs, but are a competent programmer who knows Javascript well, it'd be surprising if you couldn't just read it as-is and know what it's doing since you know it's just an alternative syntax for javascript.

Re: We don't want your coffescript

#16

Post by tommorris »

shazow wrote: post #9
gfodor wrote: post #4

Are there people that seriously can't just read CoffeeScript as-is? Are there seriously people that can't scan through the CoffeeScript docs in about 20 minutes and pick up the language more or less? The first time I saw CoffeeScript I immediately realized, oh, fuck yes, this is obviously better, and switched over to it immediately. I was productive with it instantly. Is it really something worth spending your time a…

I can read it but it's a struggle. Much like reading Ruby, for someone who comes from Python. The syntax doesn't quite make sense to me and its usage varies between authors—a bunch of things are optional and used unpredictably (parenthesis, lambdas, indent-alignment). Despite the Pythonish indent-based blocks, CoffeeScript is very much Ruby-like in syntax and culture. From my experience, fluent Ruby readers enjoy Cof…

Strange. I know Ruby and Python and switch between them quite frequently, but generally prefer Ruby.

I loathe CoffeeScript. My problem with CoffeeScript is it imposes extra burden—to learn the syntax, and to learn how the build tools and process works (which, once you factor into account the various different web frameworks like Rails, Django, Flask and whatever brand of crazy syrup the Node people are currently drinking can be quite substantial)—but the benefit isn't there. CoffeeScript is just JavaScript but prettier.

That's not a worthwhile tradeoff for me. When Rails started doing CoffeeScript, I just opened up ~/.railsrc and popped --no-coffee in there, and my life has been a lot less painful.

CoffeeScript fixes the things about JavaScript that are least significant to me in terms of developer pain (semi-colons, curly braces and so on) but does nothing to address the things that I hate about writing JavaScript (oh, the weakly-typed type system for one thing).

If a front-ender on my team started using CoffeeScript on a project I work on, I'd take him to one side and say "it's fine to practice weird kinks in private, but compile it into JavaScript before you check it in". :)

Re: We don't want your coffescript

#17

Post by lloeki »

shazow wrote: post #9
gfodor wrote: post #4

Are there people that seriously can't just read CoffeeScript as-is? Are there seriously people that can't scan through the CoffeeScript docs in about 20 minutes and pick up the language more or less? The first time I saw CoffeeScript I immediately realized, oh, fuck yes, this is obviously better, and switched over to it immediately. I was productive with it instantly. Is it really something worth spending your time a…

I can read it but it's a struggle. Much like reading Ruby, for someone who comes from Python. The syntax doesn't quite make sense to me and its usage varies between authors—a bunch of things are optional and used unpredictably (parenthesis, lambdas, indent-alignment). Despite the Pythonish indent-based blocks, CoffeeScript is very much Ruby-like in syntax and culture. From my experience, fluent Ruby readers enjoy Cof…

> CoffeeScript != JavaScript [...] Python != Ruby

I beg to differ, CoffeeScript really is JavaScript, written (literally) differently. CoffeeScript is merely a different formal language+grammar[0] that can (and is — almost) translated word for word into the same core. The semantics and underpinnings are exactly the same as with JavaScript.

Conversely, were you writing Python with a Ruby-like formal language, it would not give you things that are profoundly Ruby, like blocks or inheritance model (classes and modules, singletons, method resolution) or open classes or require. The opposite is completely true, as writing Ruby in a Python formal language would not give you decorators or (python) modules with their imports and namespaces.

CoffeeScript vs JavaScript is literally a bikeshed over the very same core.

(That said, I'm in the CS camp because I find the language requires much less overhead to keep code safe and sound, especially when dealing with not so potent developers that just can't seem to understand that yes, var is damn important)

[0]: in the mathematical sense, i.e http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_language

Re: We don't want your coffescript

#18

Post by lloeki »

tommorris wrote: post #16
shazow wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can read it but it's a struggle. Much like reading Ruby, for someone who comes from Python. The syntax doesn't quite make sense to me and its usage varies between authors—a bunch of things are optional and used unpredictably (parenthesis, lambdas, indent-alignment). Despite the Pythonish indent-based blocks, CoffeeScript is very much Ruby-like in syntax and culture. From my experience, fluent Ruby readers enjoy Cof…

Strange. I know Ruby and Python and switch between them quite frequently, but generally prefer Ruby. I loathe CoffeeScript. My problem with CoffeeScript is it imposes extra burden—to learn the syntax, and to learn how the build tools and process works (which, once you factor into account the various different web frameworks like Rails, Django, Flask and whatever brand of crazy syrup the Node people are currently drin…

> does nothing to address the things that I hate about writing JavaScript (oh, the weakly-typed type system for one thing

It can't because it's actually JS, by design. Yet it dutifully tries as hard as it can within this design goal by e.g making its == compile to JS ===. Maybe you'd rather be interested in ClojureScript or Dart, which use JS merely as a VM instead of their systemic core.

> If a front-ender on my team started using CoffeeScript on a project I work on, I'd take him to one side and say "it's fine to practice weird kinks in private, but compile it into JavaScript before you check it in". :)

If a back-ender[0] were to come to me-as-a-front-ender (since I'm equally both), and tell me what language to use, I'd tell him to, well, mind his own server-side business and let front-enders use whatever language they deem able to make them go from A to B in the most clean, reliable, and efficient way possible to them, or else I'll make them rewrite their stuff in NodeJS under cover of both ends being able share and reuse code, just to make them suffer ;-)

[0]: which I don't know if you are or not, but given the substance of your comment, I'd venture mostly the former.

Re: We don't want your coffescript

#19

Post by lloeki »

tommaxwell wrote: post #12
shazow wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can read it but it's a struggle. Much like reading Ruby, for someone who comes from Python. The syntax doesn't quite make sense to me and its usage varies between authors—a bunch of things are optional and used unpredictably (parenthesis, lambdas, indent-alignment). Despite the Pythonish indent-based blocks, CoffeeScript is very much Ruby-like in syntax and culture. From my experience, fluent Ruby readers enjoy Cof…

Very solid points. As someone that also enjoys JS as-is, it really frustrates me when people use CoffeeScript in JS answers and tutorials.

Wile I don't consider them to be solid points (see my reply), yours is a solid one: when one asking a question (say on SO) asks speaking in JS tongue, I'd expect the person answering to reply in JS, simply out of courtesy.

And conversely.

Re: We don't want your coffescript

#20

Post by gfodor »

tommorris wrote: post #16
shazow wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can read it but it's a struggle. Much like reading Ruby, for someone who comes from Python. The syntax doesn't quite make sense to me and its usage varies between authors—a bunch of things are optional and used unpredictably (parenthesis, lambdas, indent-alignment). Despite the Pythonish indent-based blocks, CoffeeScript is very much Ruby-like in syntax and culture. From my experience, fluent Ruby readers enjoy Cof…

Strange. I know Ruby and Python and switch between them quite frequently, but generally prefer Ruby. I loathe CoffeeScript. My problem with CoffeeScript is it imposes extra burden—to learn the syntax, and to learn how the build tools and process works (which, once you factor into account the various different web frameworks like Rails, Django, Flask and whatever brand of crazy syrup the Node people are currently drin…

> If a front-ender on my team started using CoffeeScript on a project I work on, I'd take him to one side and say "it's fine to practice weird kinks in private, but compile it into JavaScript before you check it in". :)

I know this was just a hypothetical, but this is a bad idea. You've lost the original source code and replaced it with something that is, I think everyone can agree CS-advocates or not, hard-to-read Javascript code.

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