There is some discussion here on why a "bar" variable at top level only affects the scoping of other "bar" variables that are lexically below "bar" in the file,

There is some discussion here on why a "bar" variable at top level only affects the scoping of other "bar" variables that are lexically below "bar" in the file, not above it. https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/issues/1121 https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/issues/1121