On: CoffeeScript is Afrikaans JavaScript

[timruffles]

Perhaps the author meant for those who know Ruby:

- @ for instance variables

- #{} interpolation

and Python:

- for comprehensions

- significant whitespace

[mseebach → timruffles]

Those are syntactic sugar. If your devs have trouble understanding JavaScript because of this, I suggest your devs aren't very good.

[raganwald → mseebach]

I don't think all features are "just" syntactic sugar:

http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/04/writing-programs-for-peo...

Everyone parrots the line that programs should be written for people to read. I agree, and that's exactly why I use CoffeeScript: All of the devs in our office read and write JavaScript fluently, but code written in CoffeeScript is easier to read than code written in JavaScript.

[karterk → raganwald]

> but code written in CoffeeScript is easier to read than code written in JavaScript.

To be fair, that's a personal preference as well. For e.g. some people prefer reading code with symbols (&&, ||) than English keywords (and, or). Also, I have seen people from a C/C++ or Java background find JS easier to read than CS.

[mseebach → raganwald]

Yes, certainly. But the issue was whether these features makes CoffeeScript inherently more readable than JavaScript to a Ruby developer.

[dpritchett → mseebach]

The list comprehension syntax can be a bit confusing at first, especially if they're nested.

When I first saw them I just asked jashkenas in #coffeescript and then it made sense. Later I came to appreciate them in Python. Coincidentally I learned Ruby-style string interpolation from CoffeeScript before trying Ruby.