Agreed. Maybe an example of how JavaScript/CoffeeScript would behave if it had dynamic scope semantics could help: // In dynamically scoped JS... var f = f

Agreed. Maybe an example of how JavaScript/CoffeeScript would behave if it had dynamic scope semantics could help: // In dynamically scoped JS... var f = function() { alert a; } f(); // would throw an error as expected, but... var g = function() { var a = 5; f(); // would now work because `a` now exists. } // The scope of `a` ends here though, so... f(); // would throw again, but if we give life to the dinamically scoped `a` again... var a = 6; f(); // now works! Printing 6 as "expected" (at least after swallowing dynamic scope).