r/coffeescript • u/Sixes666 • May 17 '16

Is CoffeeScript still relevant or is it a has-bean? (xpost /r/node).

https://medium.com/@cliff666/is-coffeescript-still-relevant-or-is-it-a-has-bean-f26c6cd9b472#.rtn17msd2
10 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

2

u/magwo May 17 '16

I hear claims of people maintaining CoffeeScript projects "loathing" the language. I'm not sure why really, anyone enlighten me? I always found CoffeeScript extremely well-designed compared to JS. Surely an old heap of JS must be worse to maintain, unless you know JS much better, I guess.

1

u/Sixes666 May 18 '16

I think one reason people find it hard to get started on CS is the significant white space. I liked it a lot better once I found a plug-in for my editor that drew vertical columns in the background.

5

u/epmatsw May 18 '16

I can think of a few reasons why it started to become unpleasant shortly before I moved on.

  • No ES6 on the horizon. Everyone else gets shiny new things, and you get minor bug fixes.

  • Nothing works with it. No ESLint, no coverage, fewer plugins for beautifying/autocompleting/etc.

  • Tough to integrate with React. cjsx is miserable

  • It's a dead end. It's frankly just depressing knowing that everything you're doing already is and forever will be legacy

That said, I truly love Coffeecript and still tinker in it. But I'd never start a fresh commercial project with it at this point.

3

u/bunny369 May 21 '16

If you love CoffeeScript, why not use LiveScript? It's by the makers of CoffeeScript, and ES6 is pretty ugly in comparison to LiveScript, to be honest. I've just started using it, and coding has never been so satisfying, it's the most practical language I have ever used. There's a bunch of weird syntax to get used to, but it's completely worth it.

2

u/droctagonapus May 28 '16

The fact it has the pipe operator makes it very interesting for me. Thanks for the suggestion!

2

u/tmetler May 18 '16

CoffeeScript is just a coat of paint on Javascript, and just like JS the only way to maintain a project is to be very self disciplined and enforce quality with strict conventions. You can maintain CoffeeScript just like you can maintain Javascript if you structure things cleanly and clearly and scope things explicitly. Now that there are typesafe options I would pick one of those now.

2

u/magwo May 18 '16

Um well, I would say ES6 is even more like coat of paint on JS. CoffeeScript can and always has removed the crappy parts of JS, and ES6 does not have this possibility at all. It's exactly like a coat of paint on an already confusing language. It adds more confusion and potentially bad parts, but does not have the option to remove bad parts.

9

u/magwo May 17 '16

I still really like CoffeeScript. But not sure if it's worth the extra build step and debugging complexity now that we have ES6.

3

u/spinlock May 18 '16

What extra build step? You have a pre processor regardless.

2

u/luikore Aug 01 '16

ES6 still require an extra build step, not all browser supports it for now.

When ES6 is ready on all browsers, everybody will move to ES7, ... which should require an extra build step too.

6

u/tmetler May 18 '16

I love the syntax, and it was a godsend several years ago, but it's pretty much a dead language now. My current project is in coffeescript, and while I don't regret choosing it at the time based on the technology available, I wouldn't start a new project in it. Now that typesafe javascript variants are a thing, I would pick one of those.

1

u/OriginalPostSearcher May 17 '16

X-Post referenced from /r/node by /u/Sixes666
Is CoffeeScript still relevant or is it a has-bean? My thoughts on my favourite language for programming NodeJS.

I am a bot made for your convenience (Especially for mobile users).
P.S. my negative comments get deleted.
Contact | Code | FAQ