Tower.js - JavaScript Framework for Node.js modeled after Ruby on Rails

If you know javascript well and are familiar with it's many gotchas and you know how to use your text editor well with javascript, the coffeescript really doesn't add more than it detracts.

If I can't fork and contribute to the project in javascript, but instead have to set up my environment for coffee script to contribute, then it's not javascript.

This isn't just about readability and comprehension, it's about contribution as well.

If the compiled javascript is bundled in there and I can read it, fair enough. If you can't accept patches and code contributions in javascript, then that's not javascript.

If you're a half-way decent js dev, it's hard to believe CoffeeScript could be a cognitive stumbling block for you. Inferring custom baked inheritance in js libraries surely is more difficult.

Of course CS isn't for everyone, but a hard stance that a CS lib can't be considered 'JavaScript' seems more of a political stonewalling than an intelligent conversation. But, I've come to expect such thorny defenses cultivated by a coterie of stern acolytes who have devoted themselves to a particular flavor of programming.

in the last part, my emphasis was on the word everything. If you divide that comment into two different comments (first being 'misleading article' and second, (implicitly) 'I don't want to learn CS, though I write code in JS regularly'), I'd up vote the first and down vote the second comment.

It is true that his decision does not affect anyone else, but I don't believe that even such decisions can't be criticized. And I'm arguing that his decision of not wanting to learn a dialect of a language he uses on a daily basis (that would take a very short time) is not a good one, and is un-hackerish. If he had taken time to learn and have decided that CS is not for him, I neither would've down-voted him, nor would I comment on his decision.

I'm sorry if I wasted your's or any one else's time by my comments on this unimportant matter. I know that HN's comment section is meant to be a place for constructive arguments, but I couldn't help it. I read that an unseen friend is doing something that I think is really wrong, and I can't help mentioning it.

There is something of a schizophrenic behavior at work here. I am a Rails dev, I love the framework for all its strengths and would choose to live with its (relative) shortcomings any day but I think there's something not healthy about how it seems that a new (web framwork|language|paradigm|whatevs) always has to (kill|take a dump on) the competition to claim the spotlights.

The two technologies can co-exist without a problem, there are many pieces of software to fill that gap without having to reinvent the wheel where Rails does the job just fine.

And to anyone saying Rails has become "bloated", quit the catchphrases-based rhetoric already, a Rails project is nothing more than a set of conventions and classes, the developer (that's you) has a choice of tools every step of the way, so if your app is bloated, stop producing bloated code or hopelessly waiting for a silver bullet, IT IS NOT HAPPENING. NEVER. NODE WON'T BE IT EITHER.

Three years from now, some clever dude will come up with a new fresh concept, Node will suddenly be so 2012 but deep down you'll know.

You'll know it's the same old caper below the latest layer of paint and glitter.

Props to the people who worked hard on Java frameworks who make tons of people happy in the heavy infrastructure enterprise realm, props to the people behind PHP and associated frameworks, props to Rails dev for pushing the envelope and making me enjoy programming again and props to Ryan Dahl, Google and Joyent for making Node happen and shaking the bottle once again.

It does NOT have to be X VS Y VS Z.