Some programmers love to use every parenthesis and curly bracket that they can fit, just because it makes it absolutely clear how the logic should unfold. Others find them a terrible imposition and look for every chance to avoid them.
CoffeeScript was created so that the second group could avoid the terrible weight that the JavaScript syntax places on their overburdened fingers. The little finger, the one that is usually responsible for the curly brackets, is especially blessed because CoffeeScript doesn't ask it to do very much.
If you scrape away the very thin syntax layer, CoffeeScript is just JavaScript underneath. It doesn't look like it because there are no curly brackets, but the behavior is the same. The CoffeeScript make command, known of course as "cake," turns the pithy CoffeeScript commands into proper JavaScript, inserting all of the extra parentheses, curly brackets, and what not.
There's something clean and beautiful about the code, but it also might seem a bit more cryptic. When you unpack a conditional, you might have to think for a second to remember what will get executed and what won't. There are no curly brackets to spell it out for you. Perhaps it's just a matter of what you're used to reading. But it's perfect for people who don't want to lift a little finger.
The Bossies 2011 index:
Bossie Awards 2011: The best open source software of the year
Bossie Awards 2011: The best open source applications
Bossie Awards 2011: The best open source desktop and mobile software
Bossie Awards 2011: The best open source application development software
Bossie Awards 2011: The best open source data center and cloud software
This slideshow, "Bossie Awards 2011: The best open source application development software," originally appeared at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in application development and open source at InfoWorld.com.
