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Personally I'm ready to start filtering anyone that prefers JS over CoffeeScript. Its just about superior in every way. Maintainability goes up as the lines o

Personally I'm ready to start filtering anyone that prefers JS over CoffeeScript. Its just about superior in every way. Maintainability goes up as the lines of code drop precipitously and significant whitespace, come on guys. I use bracey languages all the time, and moving to one that doesn't isn't that big a deal. The real problem is there are a lot of "developers" that came up just doing simple Javascript functions. They know their functions, and they dont want their world to change. They would rather accidently reference closure or global and type significantly more code than learn a slightly different way to code Javascript. Complaints such as "extra hassle due to compilation" are laughable honestly. If adding a build step is an extra hassle, this might be the wrong profession. Tinkering should be in your nature! CoffeeScript super charges Javascript. Any truly competent JS programmer that gives it a try for a few days would realize it.

seanalltogether 13y ago
"If adding a build step is an extra hassle, this might be the wrong profession." That's a very railsy answer. The strength of the web is that you don't need to run a build at all. I think that's the fundamental dislike of Coffeescript. I've worked on so many html frontends where a build process wasn't necessary to accomplish our job, and if someone tried to introduce one for the sake of coffescript it would simply be an annoyance.
- XorNot 13y ago
  It's also that you lose any ability to step-debug at the moment. You still need to know Javascript to debug Coffeescript by and large. That mental context-switch overhead is the whole driving philosophy behind NodeJS in the first place - don't switch languages so often. CS/JS is enough of a change that the overhead is not insignificant.
  - winslow 13y ago
    This is no longer true. You can debug CoffeeScript in web browsers now with source maps. Yes you may need to dig into JS for a more severe bug but most of the stuff is debug-able in source maps.
  - lowboy 13y ago
    Eh, I don't find switching back and forth to be that problematic in terms of context switching. That's because CS is very similar to JS in everything but syntax. Which is also why a solid JS background is almost essential when writing CS.
- winslow 13y ago
  I'm currently using CoffeeScript for a big project on the web and the build step that I have automatically watches my coffee files and recompiles on a new change. Group that with using LiveReload and you have an auto recompile and reloading application with no additional manual build step.

seanalltogether 13y ago

"If adding a build step is an extra hassle, this might be the wrong profession." That's a very railsy answer. The strength of the web is that you don't need to run a build at all. I think that's the fundamental dislike of Coffeescript. I've worked on so many html frontends where a build process wasn't necessary to accomplish our job, and if someone tried to introduce one for the sake of coffescript it would simply be an annoyance.

XorNot 13y ago
It's also that you lose any ability to step-debug at the moment. You still need to know Javascript to debug Coffeescript by and large. That mental context-switch overhead is the whole driving philosophy behind NodeJS in the first place - don't switch languages so often. CS/JS is enough of a change that the overhead is not insignificant.
- winslow 13y ago
  This is no longer true. You can debug CoffeeScript in web browsers now with source maps. Yes you may need to dig into JS for a more severe bug but most of the stuff is debug-able in source maps.
- lowboy 13y ago
  Eh, I don't find switching back and forth to be that problematic in terms of context switching. That's because CS is very similar to JS in everything but syntax. Which is also why a solid JS background is almost essential when writing CS.
winslow 13y ago
I'm currently using CoffeeScript for a big project on the web and the build step that I have automatically watches my coffee files and recompiles on a new change. Group that with using LiveReload and you have an auto recompile and reloading application with no additional manual build step.