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Article author here: I'll get into CoffeeScript when I feel that it solves more problems than it creates (it's very important for me to be able to debug raw so

by jerbils 14y ago

Article author here: I'll get into CoffeeScript when I feel that it solves more problems than it creates (it's very important for me to be able to debug raw source code in a language). My goal as a programmer is to reduce complexity, and I think it will take about 10 years for CoffeeScript to let me do that. EDIT: Forget to mention, there's nothing in particular that caused me to write this. I just realized that, more and more, my style goes against what a lot of people do. I figured I'd document it for anyone interested in it. :)

ricardobeat 14y ago
Hi Jeremy. Dmitry's argument you mention, for instance, is questionable and not very popular. I think I can't point to what you're going against (vs "old style" coding), maybe some examples in the post could help. On CS: you are already using a compile step that dynamically changes code, how more complex can it get? I have thousands of lines of CS in production and it never caused any more problems than JS. If you think of CoffeeScript as a tool to write Javascript, not a separate language, things go much smoother (you want to debug the javascript output, not the cs source).
- jerbils 14y ago
  Debugging compiled code is absolutely unpleasant. Fortunately, I only have to do it rarely. From what I can tell, debugging JavaScript that was compiled from CoffeeScript is a standard practice, and I simply don't want to pursue that. It's interesting how you describe CoffeeScript as a tool rather than a language, but in my opinion it is still a very leaky abstraction. As I mentioned, I look forward to revisiting it when a standard toolset has matured.
scottschulthess 14y ago
There are lots of people who feel it (CoffeeScript) does indeed solve more problems then it creates. If it actually does create more problems then it solves then a lot of people are just plain making a mistake by using it :) which I don't think is the case. Plenty of programmers I know had a similar knee jerk reaction to the idea of CoffeeScript and have since decided it is a worth-while trade off. You never know, you might be one of them!

by jerbils 14y ago

ricardobeat 14y ago

Hi Jeremy. Dmitry's argument you mention, for instance, is questionable and not very popular. I think I can't point to what you're going against (vs "old style" coding), maybe some examples in the post could help. On CS: you are already using a compile step that dynamically changes code, how more complex can it get? I have thousands of lines of CS in production and it never caused any more problems than JS. If you think of CoffeeScript as a tool to write Javascript, not a separate language, things go much smoother (you want to debug the javascript output, not the cs source).

jerbils 14y ago
Debugging compiled code is absolutely unpleasant. Fortunately, I only have to do it rarely. From what I can tell, debugging JavaScript that was compiled from CoffeeScript is a standard practice, and I simply don't want to pursue that. It's interesting how you describe CoffeeScript as a tool rather than a language, but in my opinion it is still a very leaky abstraction. As I mentioned, I look forward to revisiting it when a standard toolset has matured.

scottschulthess 14y ago

There are lots of people who feel it (CoffeeScript) does indeed solve more problems then it creates. If it actually does create more problems then it solves then a lot of people are just plain making a mistake by using it :) which I don't think is the case. Plenty of programmers I know had a similar knee jerk reaction to the idea of CoffeeScript and have since decided it is a worth-while trade off. You never know, you might be one of them!