CoffeeScript is a compiler, so obviously it doesn't know anything about your runtime. It declares variables in the scope they're first assigned in; so 'global.x

CoffeeScript is a compiler, so obviously it doesn't know anything about your runtime. It declares variables in the scope they're first assigned in; so 'global.x = y' works, while 'global = {}' compiles to 'var global; global = {};'.