

CoffeeScriptLineMatcher - showell30
https://github.com/showell/CoffeeScriptLineMatcher

======
showell30
CoffeeScriptLineMatcher lets you see CoffeeScript/JavaScript code side by
side. It's mostly geared toward debugging, but it also helps you examine the
transformations made by the CS transcompiler.

------
phren0logy
Nice to see this, as it seems to address one of the most common concerns about
using CoffeeScript. I have to wonder, though, how many minds will it really
change? Maybe a lot, but I'm wondering how this will pan out. I'm guessing
some people provide line matching for debugging as a concern but will continue
to move the goal posts as this and other barriers are removed.

I feel like that's a pattern I see around here, which is odd because if you'd
rather just use javascript that seems totally reasonable without an excuse.

~~~
showell30
I agree with you that are some skeptics who will continue to move the
goalposts. I also think that the tool itself won't change any minds.

My hope is that it can help early adopters get over the initial debugging
barrier, which, despite the hype, is a legitimate concern. The tool can also
be an aid for advocates in teaching coffeescript.

------
jhrobert
Great.

Based on that, what would be even more useful still is a way to browse my code
from a within the editor itself. Something with say line numbers on some left
pane synchronized with the corresponding file section on the right pane.

Some editors already provide a similar feature using line numbers from
compilers ; that's usefull to fix syntax errors typically.

~~~
showell30
Yup, there is some support for editor integration, although it's still up to
you to actually glue it into your editor of choice. See the issue below for
more discussion.

<https://github.com/showell/CoffeeScriptLineMatcher/issues/13>

------
mike-cardwell
I just tried this out and the web interface it provides is awful. You're
better off opening the .js and .coffee files in vi and finding things
manually. The page is twice the width of my browser as I'm looking at it now.

~~~
Timmy_C
I think you should fork it and rewrite the CSS for the dashboard. The markup
for the code snippets is just <pre> elements. You could set the white-space to
'pre-line' for those elements to take care of the width issue.

~~~
mike-cardwell
I just tried setting white-space to "pre-wrap" and it improves the interface
greatly. It still needs a lot of work though to make it pleasant to use.

~~~
showell30
The tool obviously works best with a fairly wide browser window, but patches
are more than welcome to improve the CSS, which is obviously kind of
primitive. For simple stuff, filing an issue would be great--no need for a
full-blown pull request.

