This is tangential to the main thread, but the weirdness that is hoisting surely confuses a lot of people. (To clarify: hoisting seems to me to be more or worse

This is tangential to the main thread, but the weirdness that is hoisting surely confuses a lot of people. (To clarify: hoisting seems to me to be more or worse than just "there's no block scoping.") Just now on my the subway ride home I came across this example from David Flanagan's JavaScript: The Definitive Guide: var scope = "global"; function f() { console.log(scope); // Prints "undefined", not "global" var scope = "local"; // Variable initialized here, but defined everywhere console.log(scope); // Prints "local" } I'm someone who uses Javascript only occasionally, and I'm trying to learn it better. But I thought I understood scope just fine: no block scope, function scope, lexical scoping within functions and nested functions. I may have read about "hoisting" before, but honestly it never sunk in until today. So I'm assuming that Coffeescript always compiles down to Javascript where variables are explicitly hoisted upwards in declaration? (Answer appears to be yes from a few quick tests here...)