Because there are already a ton of projects out there that attempt to implement Ruby in JavaScript. See the "Ruby" section on this page: https://github.com/jas

Because there are already a ton of projects out there that attempt to implement Ruby in JavaScript. See the "Ruby" section on this page: https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-languages-that-compile-to-JS https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-lang... The point of CoffeeScript is something quite different. It's an attempt to tidy up JS semantics, while finding a minimalist syntax to express the "good parts" of JavaScript. Any similarities to Ruby, Python, Haskell, Perl, Potion, etc. are hopefully only present in places where they make sense on the merits, and not just to be similar for familiarity's sake.