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jashkenas
coffeescript
CoffeeScript2009–2025
jashkenas / coffeescript

coffeescript

Unfancy JavaScript

Web Development
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
181Distinct people
274Mentions
3Explicit recommenders
16.6KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Unfancy JavaScript

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

Deno + Coffeescript? I mean it runs Typescript natively, so why not my favorite flavor of javascript, too? https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/issues/5150

danschumann used a recommendation phrase. 3 indexed comments match. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 6:01:08 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year274 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2009-12-24 21:07:22 UTC to 2025-11-10 07:58:51 UTC.

02040602009-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2010-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments20092010-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 13 mentions; 4 submissions, 9 comments2011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 67 mentions; 7 submissions, 60 comments2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 45 mentions; 7 submissions, 38 comments2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 45 mentions; 11 submissions, 34 comments2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 28 mentions; 1 submissions, 27 comments2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 21 mentions; 3 submissions, 18 comments2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 15 mentions; 3 submissions, 12 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 12 mentions; 0 submissions, 12 comments20172018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 6 mentions; 2 submissions, 4 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 6 mentions; 1 submissions, 5 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 6 mentions; 0 submissions, 6 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 0 submissions, 5 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2025

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20092009-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2010-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20102010-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC1349
20112011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC67760
20122012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC45738
20132013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC451134
20142014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC28127
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC21318
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC15312
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC12012
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC624
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC615
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC606
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC505
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

From the project README

An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.

Read the project’s introduction
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Read the full README on GitHub

What Hacker News says

45 sources
thenerdfiles·Dec 25, 2013
JS "Frameworks" AngularJS has a steep learning curve because of its "Angular Way" (which doesn't get W3C Standards right, like templating). In the large-scale context, AngularJS, very much unlike Backbone.js, really adds another layer of complexity (steep learning curve included). Backbone.js is actually a minimalistic (meta-)library: simple, elegant, additive, and is where JS programmers can excel and great for large-scale. AngularJS I think is great for small-to-medium scale and prototypes. Purist JS devs think frameworks should never go to production, and certainly not for large-scale. Some links: Great click-through on large-scale JS: https://speakerdeck.com/coodoo/backbone-rocks-large-scale-si... High level AngularJS from the ground up: http://alicial.github.io/leveling-up-angular-talk/#/, http://alicial.github.io/leveling-up-angular
Read the rest
-talk/examples/d... Really good code samples and comparisons between Angular, Backbone, and Ember: http://prezi.com/sxv2t_nambyd/client-side-mvc-backbonemarion... JS Languages TypeScript really adds value to non-front-end developers who are interested in JS as a replacement language and still want static typing and interfaces. Though many other "compile-to-JS" implementations have static typing, TypeScript has the backing of Microsoft — so, IntelliSense is baked in. CoffeeScript is more elegant, Pythonic, and is influencing ECMAScript 6's syntax. It's important to note that the Leaders of the modern JS movement actually believe that dynamic typing is one of JavaScript's best features; CoffeeScript embraces this opinion, and tries to enhance the language around it. Some links: http://prezi.com/zkhsz49ownaw/coffeescript-vs-typescript/ https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-lang...
In JavaScript: Help me select MVC (or MV*) Framework?
jashkenas·Oct 29, 2013
> Have you considered porting Ruby directly to JavaScript? No. It's been attempted before, and it doesn't turn out to be terribly useful in the end, because of the vast semantic mismatch between the two languages. See: https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-lang... > I've never gotten over the usage of "->" or "=>" to signify a function. Give it a try, perhaps. It's critical not to use "def" and "do" when your functions are first-class values that can be passed as arguments, or assigned to variables. It's for this reason that Ruby 1.9 has a new lambda syntax that looks a great deal similar to CoffeeScript's. For example: request(url, def callback(response) do ... end) ... that kinda thing is no good. The reason it's an arrow is because in any decent function, the input determines the output, eg. input
Read the rest
points to output. And therefore, the CoffeeScript syntax: (input) -> output
In For modern development Javascript indeed is a shit language
graue·Oct 22, 2013
That couldn't be a less accurate description of Firefox OS. aimed solely at content consumers: No. FxOS phones can't do as much as a Nexus 4 or iPhone, but they aren't meant to compete with those. Mozilla's targeting emerging markets where most people don't have smartphones or maybe even computers at all. At $80 unsubsidized, the ZTE Open is approaching feature-phone price and it can do a lot more than a feature phone (and will do more still once FxOS matures). neutered only to run web browsers: It has full-fledged apps. Using web technology under the hood isn't the same as running in a browser. NIH development environments: You can't get much less NIH than adopting the web itself, which everyone already uses and develops for, as your platform. If you look in the Firefox Marketplace, many of the apps you see now are web apps, written with
Read the rest
out FxOS in mind at all, with maybe 15-45 minutes of effort to package them for the marketplace. tied down to specific languages: There are hundreds of languages that compile to JavaScript[1], and some, like ClojureScript, are already seeing real-world use in commercial apps[2]. With Emscripten, you can use any language that compiles to native. There are performance and debugging challenges but they're getting addressed with efforts like Asm.js and source maps. In 2013 you don't have to write JavaScript to use the web as a platform. 1. https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-lang... 2. http://keminglabs.com/blog/angular-cljs-weather-app/
In Unboxing and setting up the Firefox OS ZTE
jashkenas·Aug 18, 2013
As CoffeeScript also went through this same process, bootstrapping itself away from an original Ruby-based compiler (at this moment: https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/commit/6446e0004c...), Kal is now in some sense "two self-hosted steps" away from a "normal" language. That's pretty neat. GorillaScript (here: https://github.com/ckknight/gorillascript/tree/master/src), Coco (here: https://github.com/gkz/LiveScript/tree/master/src) et al, are also implemented in themselves. I hope that this trend of compile-to-JS languages tending to self-host continues.
In How Kal Compiles Itself

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