The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript • Hacker News Board

Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#41

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 4:15 AM UTC

murloc wrote: post #34

tjholowaychuk wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

Like anything else in life there is front facing people that are generally good at marketing and would use other people's hard work to build technically inferior stuff on and be famous for. Not necessary a bad thing. The truly talented most of the time choose to go unnoticed. And there is always trolls like you who I don't know how they find the time to ship code ;p

[deleted]

Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#42

Post by xnxn » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 4:15 AM UTC

showell30 wrote: post #26

notSorella wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Use "log_file" for log files; use "logarithm" or "Math.log" for inverse exponentation.

Just clarifying; are you actually suggesting this, or was that sarcasm?

Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#43

Post by tjholowaychuk » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 4:16 AM UTC

murloc wrote: post #40

tjholowaychuk wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

umm no haha, I'm certainly amongst the average. Trust me writing parsers is very trivial, I've written many. Thinking you're a good programmer is perhaps the most naive thing you can do

I know its trivial once demystified specially using parser generators. But language design isn't though. Anyways i think your a pretty decent programmer.

sure it is, take a few features from ruby, a few from python, add yaml and there you have it, coffeescript.

Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#44

Post by limeblack » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 4:20 AM UTC

Another Issue:

Although the following examples could become unambiguous with parenthesis, these examples demonstrates how a trivially overlooked ending delimiter further complicated the language. Not only is the intent of the CoffeScript code unclear in the examples below but the slight variation in the CoffeScript, produces radically different output. The CoffeeScript differences are so small it would be easy for someone to add accidentally while editing. Anonymous function passing and function calling in Javascript require no additional wrappers or edits, while in CoffeeScript you must add special case clarity.

http://img542.imageshack.us/img542/7379/coffeescripttojavasc...

Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#45

Post by nas » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 4:26 AM UTC

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.

Yes, and it's very uncommon that you need to do that. I learned Scheme years ago before I learned Python (in 1993, I think). At first I was dismayed by Python's lack of non-local assignment. However, in years of Python programming I can count the times I needed the ability on one hand. I haven't yet found a need for 'nonlocal'.

Obviously it depends on programming style. In Coffeescript you don't have something akin to 'self' and so assigning to a non-local happens a lot.

Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#46

Post by murloc » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 4:26 AM UTC

tjholowaychuk wrote: post #43

murloc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know its trivial once demystified specially using parser generators. But language design isn't though. Anyways i think your a pretty decent programmer.

sure it is, take a few features from ruby, a few from python, add yaml and there you have it, coffeescript.

What do you think about node? Does it fall in your category of above-average people building tools for the average programmer?

Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#47

Post by strait » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 4:30 AM UTC

tjholowaychuk wrote: post #30

murloc wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

Perhaps you are being too hard on yourself. The majority (more than half) of the well known programmers truly are "superstars". It's all very subjective, though. Where is the standard for complexity or even cleverness? How is it different than simply being esoteric. Maybe I am personally fascinated with regular expressions and after much study, can belt out a half page of parse and extract 'magic' that would make the uninitiated shake their head and crown me a genius. But to me, it's simply assembling larger ideas from smaller ideas.

Personally, I would say that a truly talented programmer is simply someone who is very capable in mathematics and can produce a working and extendable program in a reasonable amount of time, that does something new and useful. This criteria alone leaves a ton of people out, you know!

Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#48

Post by tjholowaychuk » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 4:30 AM UTC

murloc wrote: post #46

tjholowaychuk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure it is, take a few features from ruby, a few from python, add yaml and there you have it, coffeescript.

What do you think about node? Does it fall in your category of above-average people building tools for the average programmer?

they're certainly above average but even Ryan himself is humble enough to admit he's not amazing, I dont recall what his exact words were. I think it was on google+, he was talking about how he works with such brilliant people (which are lesser known), but yeah overall node's popularity is largely because it attracts more average people to the scene, vs things like erlang or haskell which are fantastic but attract a lot less attention.

This is also why I dont do conferences, I dont want to be known for going around promoting things (like crock), sure I'll blog about features added once and a while but other than that I want the projects to speak for themselves. Eventually if I can gain enough knowledge then sure being well known is neat since you can leverage it to hopefully expose better projects, but there's no end to what you can learn in this industry.

Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#49

Post by showell30 » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 4:32 AM UTC

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #29

showell30 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?…

I wish that you would allow comments on your blog, so that folks following your twitter link would be able to see both sides of the issue, but I obviously understand your spam issues, which is why I said "wish" and not "should".

I wish that you would engage the CS community on this topic without the sole agenda of getting this fixed. It's true that the issue was put to rest a while ago, but the decision wasn't made in a vacuum--there was consensus involved. I think it's a little unfair to say that Jeremy "has expressed his unwillingness to deal with this issue"; that makes it sound like he was dismissing you or dismissing further debate on this, when in fact he just told you what had already been decided.

When I say you're overreacting on this issue, it's just my opinion, so don't get too worked up about it. You had a bug. "Log" means two things. IMHO you don't need to fork coffeescript; that would be a gross overreaction, but YMMV.

You are not doing anything wrong by taking the time to write up your opinion in a blog--if I implied that in any way, it was not out of malice; it was just imprecise writing on my part.

Re: The Problem with Implicit Scoping in CoffeeScript

#50

Post by Avshalom » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 4:38 AM UTC

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…

The problem is actually worse. You also have to keep track of all the variables BELOW the current scope as well so you don't accidentally (as in the case of the article) turn a declaration into a reassignment.