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My general dislike for Atom wasn't anything to do with the editor itself, I've just always been sore they used CoffeeScript which is a language I personally _lo

My general dislike for Atom wasn't anything to do with the editor itself, I've just always been sore they used CoffeeScript which is a language I personally _loathe_. I was excited to have a sublime replacement I could hack on, but that killed it for me. It was that it was so inaccessible and for such a asinine reason (a language purely for syntactical sugar). JavaScript is the lingua franca of the internet for fucks sake... I'll stop ranting about that. BUT NOW.. for anyone else like me-- it looks like, from my quick glance, there's not much CoffeeScript left in the repo. So maybe it's time to give it a chance again.

subsection1h 9y ago
> CoffeeScript which is a language I personally _loathe_. [...] it was so inaccessible You know JavaScript, yet CoffeeScript is inaccessible? WTF. I had never written a line of Lisp in my life before using Emacs, but that didn't stop me from writing hundreds of lines of Emacs Lisp during the first weekend that I used Emacs. What's up with the unwillingness (or inability?) that many web developers seem to have for using more than one or two programming languages?
- rubyn00bie 9y ago
  Why would I learn something which doesn't offer me any value? CoffeeScript is literally syntactical sugar, which I believe, adds levels of indirection to the code and makes it more difficult long-term to support, read, and develop. Not only that, but JavaScript's evolution has made nearly every reason to use it moot. Also FWIW-- I've done vastly more native and server-side programming over the last... oh, seven years than "web." So... I don't think this is something with "web developers."
- keymone 9y ago
  yeah, I could see myself saying the same but not about coffeescript. That thing just needs to go away, seriously. Having to constantly keep a mental model of two languages when you write code outweighs any benefits from syntax sugar and supposed readability. It was nice ten years ago when JavaScript was absolutely horrendous but not now.
  - oneweekwonder 9y ago
    > It was nice ten years ago when JavaScript was absolutely horrendous but not now. ECMAScript 5 was released in December 2009, Coffeescript first appeared the same month with release 0.1.0. What was absolutely horrendous about ECMAScript 5? edit: Javascript 1.8 shipped with Firefox 3 in June 2008.
    - keymone 9y ago
      i don't even.. for people making these claims there's just no way to convey how horrific js development was until quite recently (it still is far worse than most popular languages out there tbh) other than inventing a time machine and sending you there, but then it's a kind of punishment i wouldn't want upon my worst enemy. browser fragmentation rings any bells? were you actually doing js dev back then?
      - tigershark 9y ago
        What is the connection between browser fragmentation and coffescript syntax? Coffescript was born to have a lighter JavaScript-like syntax, not to remove browsers fragmentation.
        keymone 9y ago
        the connection is between fragmentation and claim that ecmascript and js 1.8 were released and everything magically became great in december 2009 as was implied by the grandparent.
        oneweekwonder 9y ago
        > magically became great in 2009 as was implied by the grandparent. I implied nothing, I asked you a question. Might have been a bit open ended but you made a claim that did not reflect with my reality. So I did a reality check. If there was a "magic" moment I will give chrome released late 2008 and firebug 1.4 released early 2009 the attribution for a turning point in webdev.
- qubex 9y ago
  > that didn’t stop me from writing hundreds of lines of Emacs Lisp Oh, you wrote an A.I.-enabled missile launch control system in your first weekend too? ;)

subsection1h 9y ago

> CoffeeScript which is a language I personally _loathe_. [...] it was so inaccessible You know JavaScript, yet CoffeeScript is inaccessible? WTF. I had never written a line of Lisp in my life before using Emacs, but that didn't stop me from writing hundreds of lines of Emacs Lisp during the first weekend that I used Emacs. What's up with the unwillingness (or inability?) that many web developers seem to have for using more than one or two programming languages?

rubyn00bie 9y ago
Why would I learn something which doesn't offer me any value? CoffeeScript is literally syntactical sugar, which I believe, adds levels of indirection to the code and makes it more difficult long-term to support, read, and develop. Not only that, but JavaScript's evolution has made nearly every reason to use it moot. Also FWIW-- I've done vastly more native and server-side programming over the last... oh, seven years than "web." So... I don't think this is something with "web developers."
keymone 9y ago
yeah, I could see myself saying the same but not about coffeescript. That thing just needs to go away, seriously. Having to constantly keep a mental model of two languages when you write code outweighs any benefits from syntax sugar and supposed readability. It was nice ten years ago when JavaScript was absolutely horrendous but not now.
- oneweekwonder 9y ago
  > It was nice ten years ago when JavaScript was absolutely horrendous but not now. ECMAScript 5 was released in December 2009, Coffeescript first appeared the same month with release 0.1.0. What was absolutely horrendous about ECMAScript 5? edit: Javascript 1.8 shipped with Firefox 3 in June 2008.
  - keymone 9y ago
    i don't even.. for people making these claims there's just no way to convey how horrific js development was until quite recently (it still is far worse than most popular languages out there tbh) other than inventing a time machine and sending you there, but then it's a kind of punishment i wouldn't want upon my worst enemy. browser fragmentation rings any bells? were you actually doing js dev back then?
    - tigershark 9y ago
      What is the connection between browser fragmentation and coffescript syntax? Coffescript was born to have a lighter JavaScript-like syntax, not to remove browsers fragmentation.
      - keymone 9y ago
        the connection is between fragmentation and claim that ecmascript and js 1.8 were released and everything magically became great in december 2009 as was implied by the grandparent.
        oneweekwonder 9y ago
        > magically became great in 2009 as was implied by the grandparent. I implied nothing, I asked you a question. Might have been a bit open ended but you made a claim that did not reflect with my reality. So I did a reality check. If there was a "magic" moment I will give chrome released late 2008 and firebug 1.4 released early 2009 the attribution for a turning point in webdev.
qubex 9y ago
> that didn’t stop me from writing hundreds of lines of Emacs Lisp Oh, you wrote an A.I.-enabled missile launch control system in your first weekend too? ;)