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The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

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Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#21

Post by danso »

oinksoft wrote: post #6

@mitsuhiko Not gonna happen ;) Forbidding shadowing altogether is a huge win, and a huge conceptual simplification. How arrogant! You'd think he'd step back for a second and consider the suggestion, but it sounds like he's on autopilot.

I think Jeremy probably has one of the highest programming-chops-to-arrogance ratios among today's top programmers. It was a tweet, he said what he needed to say. He's been more than willing on HN to step in and explain Coffeescript to critics and offer helpful critiques of competing frameworks (well, in the context of Backbone).

Here's how he introduced CoffeeScript to HN almost exactly two years from today: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1014080

Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#22

Post by tjholowaychuk »

I like the look of coffeescript's assignment better, but I cant help but think "let" is much less ambiguous, once you see it you look no further. This reminds me a bit of Ruby, where "foo" could be a function or variable potentially from anywhere so it's a little unclear although better looking.

Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#23

Post by showell30 »

statictype wrote: post #13
oinksoft wrote: post #6

@mitsuhiko Not gonna happen ;) Forbidding shadowing altogether is a huge win, and a huge conceptual simplification. How arrogant! You'd think he'd step back for a second and consider the suggestion, but it sounds like he's on autopilot.

Everyday there seems to be a new post on HN, complete with inflammatory headline, criticizing Coffeescript in someway because it doesn't work in the exact way the author expected. There are lots of people throwing in their $0.02 on how the language should work without having joined the mailing list or seen any discussions on the thought process behind its features. I'm not saying the suggestion made isn't reasonable,…

In fairness, Armin (the author the blog post) did engage Jeremy (the author of coffeescript) on this issue over twitter. I wish that he would allow comments on his blog. I also wish that he could engage the broader CS community in a proper forum before dissing the language and/or creating a fork of the language. He's overreacting. This whole blog post apparently started because he had a naming collision with "log" in one of his programs. CS does have a mailing list, but most of the action happens via github issues.

Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#24

Post by notSorella »

showell30 wrote: post #16
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obviously, plenty of folks managed to write bug-free code in Python before "nonlocal" was invented. Python has the inverse behavior of CoffeeScript. So that was never an issue.

Well, fine, but Python2 had the inverse problem--you couldn't mutate top-level variables without awkward "global" statements.

That's a whole different matter, which can't make you shoot yourself in the foot without knowing it for any non-trivial code.

CoffeeScript's scoping forces you to always keep track of whatever is enclosing the current scope ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP. This is way too much when your function doesn't need to access outer variables (which should be the minority of the cases).

So, problem is, you either make all your functions have non-free variables (but Jashkenas seems to dislike functions shadowing outer variables too, which is just... overtly weird), or you keep track of all variables above the current scope.

The former is not too unreasonable, until you remember it makes no sense with closures :3

Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#25

Post by tjholowaychuk »

danso wrote: post #21
oinksoft wrote: post #6

@mitsuhiko Not gonna happen ;) Forbidding shadowing altogether is a huge win, and a huge conceptual simplification. How arrogant! You'd think he'd step back for a second and consider the suggestion, but it sounds like he's on autopilot.

I think Jeremy probably has one of the highest programming-chops-to-arrogance ratios among today's top programmers. It was a tweet, he said what he needed to say. He's been more than willing on HN to step in and explain Coffeescript to critics and offer helpful critiques of competing frameworks (well, in the context of Backbone). Here's how he introduced CoffeeScript to HN almost exactly two years from today: http://…

"top programmers" don't write javascript and web apps, we're all pretty much noobs

Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#26

Post by showell30 »

notSorella wrote: post #24
showell30 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, fine, but Python2 had the inverse problem--you couldn't mutate top-level variables without awkward "global" statements.

That's a whole different matter, which can't make you shoot yourself in the foot without knowing it for any non-trivial code. CoffeeScript's scoping forces you to always keep track of whatever is enclosing the current scope ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP. This is way too much when your function doesn't need to access outer variables (which should be the minority of the cases). So, problem is, you either make all your functio…

You are correct that variable scoping goes all the way to the top, but nobody is forcing you to create top-level variables with overloaded names like "log". Seriously, if you have a file that uses log files and logarithms, just take some care to distinguish the concepts. Use "log_file" for log files; use "logarithm" or "Math.log" for inverse exponentation.

Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#27

Post by Perceptes »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #14
latchkey wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I understand you or maybe you don't understand me. I was talking about using parens for method/functional calls, not getting rid of them from CS.

I understand. If you don't have parens on method calls, how could you use an anonymous function that is not the last parameter? For example: doSomething(-> # stuff happens ), onerror

I had this question a while back as well. Take a look at the discussion here, including Jeremy's thoughts: https://gist.github.com/1215863

Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#28

Post by murloc »

tjholowaychuk wrote: post #25
danso wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Jeremy probably has one of the highest programming-chops-to-arrogance ratios among today's top programmers. It was a tweet, he said what he needed to say. He's been more than willing on HN to step in and explain Coffeescript to critics and offer helpful critiques of competing frameworks (well, in the context of Backbone). Here's how he introduced CoffeeScript to HN almost exactly two years from today: http://…

"top programmers" don't write javascript and web apps, we're all pretty much noobs

But he writes coffeescript so unlike you he's a "top programmer". except for times when he writes javascript which probably would be when hes drunk or for whatever reasons his IQ has dropped.

Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#29

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

showell30 wrote: post #23
statictype wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyday there seems to be a new post on HN, complete with inflammatory headline, criticizing Coffeescript in someway because it doesn't work in the exact way the author expected. There are lots of people throwing in their $0.02 on how the language should work without having joined the mailing list or seen any discussions on the thought process behind its features. I'm not saying the suggestion made isn't reasonable,…

In fairness, Armin (the author the blog post) did engage Jeremy (the author of coffeescript) on this issue over twitter. I wish that he would allow comments on his blog. I also wish that he could engage the broader CS community in a proper forum before dissing the language and/or creating a fork of the language. He's overreacting. This whole blog post apparently started because he had a naming collision with "log" in…

> I wish that he would allow comments on his blog.

Why? Hackernews and reddit exist and everybody is free to send me a mail or contact me on twitter. This way I do not have to moderate any comments or deal with spam.

> I also wish that he could engage the broader CS community in a proper forum before dissing the language and/or creating a fork of the language.

And do what? Duplicating an issue that is already there? Commenting on a dead issue? The author has expressed his unwillingness to deal with this issue so why should I reopen the issue there?

> He's overreacting.

How am I? I wrote a very short blog post about why I think the scoping is bad and how it caused me problems. Many people asked me on Twitter why I think the scoping does not work as good as it should and since I only have 140 characters to explain stuff there I wrote it to my blog. How else should I communicate that?

> CS does have a mailing list, but most of the action happens via github issues.

There is an issue about this topic from a year ago which was closed and the author does not want this to be changed. I am okay with that, a language needs leadership. That does not mean however that other people should not know about this issue when they design the next programming language.

Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#30

Post by tjholowaychuk »

murloc wrote: post #28
tjholowaychuk wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"top programmers" don't write javascript and web apps, we're all pretty much noobs

But he writes coffeescript so unlike you he's a "top programmer". except for times when he writes javascript which probably would be when hes drunk or for whatever reasons his IQ has dropped.

99% of the popular people out there are just above average enough to make useful projects for those lesser experienced. Most truly talented people are not very well known, they're busy hacking on v8, the kernel etc. Tools for average programming just get more of a spotlight. Is Express complex? no, people just use it, is coffeescript complex? no, is boostrap complex? no..
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