by Klonoaron 5/11/2011, 2:26:29 AM

While I like CoffeeScript, I feel I need to note that this isn't really a great example - in fact, I'd call it an incorrect example:

    var elem, formValues;
    formValues = (function() {
        var _i, _len, _ref, _results;
        _ref = $('.input');
        _results = [];
        for (_i = 0, _len = _ref.length; _i < _len; _i++) {
            elem = _ref[_i];
            _results.push(elem.value);
        }
        return _results;
    })();

That's... needlessly bad, so to speak. That could be rewritten in a much more readable fashion, like so:

    var formValues = (function(inputEls) {
        var results = [];
        inputEls.each(function() {
            results.push($(this).val());
        });
        return results;
    })($('.input'));
    

If CoffeeScript is generating the first block seen here, then I'd actually be concerned, but perhaps I care more about this than some. Either way, while...

    formValues = (elem.value for elem in $('.input'))

...is certainly nicer, I don't really think it's necessary to further bastardize the views held on Javascript syntax in general. The first block in this comment is, to put it bluntly, utter shit, and does nothing but continue the trend that "oh god Javascript is horrible".

by ddemchukon 5/11/2011, 12:47:45 AM

I guess I could be ignorant here, but I don't really feel that Coffeescript makes things easier/more elegant/better than just using jQuery. I'm not particularly a fan of abstracting abstractions in the first place so I'm probably biased, but I find jQuery to be clean and concise already. An example from the article:

$.post(

  "/posts/update_title"

  new_title: input.val()

  id: something

  -> alert('done')

  'json'

)

All coffeescript really did there was remove the commas and subtly change the syntax. That's not an improvement at all, it's just a lateral syntax change. If anything, the lack of commas almost makes it harder to read.

Why change to coffeescript and add another step (compilation of coffeescripts) into the mix when jquery was already pretty good to start with? Just seems like its something that would make it hard to take on new coders when your business starts scaling because they would need to know yet another meta-abstraction.