7 ms·

Kudos to the creator. Writing something like this takes a lot of effort and it looks like they did a great job! Well done! With that said, on wider level, what

• alongub 12y ago
  It's not that JavaScript syntax is difficult. It's that there are some common patterns that repeat themselves so much times. For example, safe object navigation. This code in Spider/CoffeeScript: var x = a?.b?.c?.d; compiles to something like: var x = typeof a !== "undefined" && a && a.b && a.b.c ? a.b.c.d : void 0;
  • bsimpson 12y ago
    I've been using node-jsx and jsx-loader to bring JS Harmony syntax into projects I'm working on now. The last great hurdle to make JS a language that's easy to express in is the existential operator. It sucks how often you have to manually null-check in JS. I'm mighty tempted to write a Webpack plugin to make `?` usable in vanilla JS.
  • joshuacc 12y ago
    You can also handle problems like this via libraries. For example, underscore-contrib [1] does it this way: var x = _.getPath(a, "b.c.d"); There are definitely advantages to having this pattern baked into the language, though. [1] http://documentcloud.github.io/underscore-contrib/ http://documentcloud.github.io/underscore-contrib/
• tdumitrescu 12y ago
  The main reasons I reach for Coffeescript for my personal projects are: * built-in support for comprehensions and other array/object operations * simple syntax for context binding * automatic module isolation. These eliminate a lot of boilerplate littering my JS code. At my company gig we use JS but rely heavily on Underscore to address the same pain points; I prefer to have it built into the language syntax instead. ES6 probably has enough of this built in to make me switch back eventually.
• Cushman 12y ago
  Another reason to prefer CoffeeScript is because of its low cost of both defining and calling functions. The combination makes functional programming, including working with callbacks and promises, much less of a headache. Even if you don't know CS very well, I dare you to take a look at the JavaScript this compiles to and call it more readable: (req, res)-> getUserIds(req.query) .then (ids)-> Promise.all ids.map (id)-> getUser(id).then (user)-> user.friends.count .then (response)-> res.send 200, response .catch (error)-> res.send 500, error
  • mendelk 12y ago
    I believe your example is a perfect demonstration of how coffeescript can cause unintended bugs. You code compiles to: (function(req, res) { return getUserIds(req.query).then(function(ids) { return Promise.all(ids.map(function(id) { return getUser(id).then(function(user) { return user.friends.count; }); })); }).then(function(response) { return res.send(200, response); })["catch"](function(error) { return res.send(500, error); }); }); Not what intended, I assume :)
    • Cushman 12y ago
      Well, that's definitely the JavaScript I intended to create :) Is there a bug in my logic somewhere? Edit: But that aside, to be fair, I'll readily agree that it is easy to mess up CoffeeScript's significant whitespace if you don't pay attention to it. For example, you add a multi-line callback to one of those single-line callbacks at your peril! But the tradeoff is, no mismatched braces/parenteses. Personally, I find the warts are not that hard to avoid, and the overall impact on my productivity is positive.
      • Cyph0n 12y ago
        I guess he's referring to the implicit returns which are a pain in the neck to deal with.
        • 12y ago
• woah 12y ago
  It's relatively easy to build a compile-to-js language because of the pre-existing tooling.