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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

15 sources
tlrobinson·Nov 24, 2016
> JS is a terrible programming language [Citation needed] Sorry, JavaScript may have gotten lucky being the lingua franca of the web, and it might not be perfect or even great, but it's "good enough" for most purposes these days. If it were "terrible" you would expect at least one compile-to-JS [1] to have gained a non-trivial amount of traction by now. The supersets of JavaScript like Babel, TypeScript, and Flow are more popular than "not terrible" languages like ClojureScript, Elm, etc. 1. https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/wiki/list-of-langu...
In Electron considered harmful
pmoriarty·Oct 8, 2016
I've played both TIS-100, and their earlier game, Space Chem. Like Space Chem, which doesn't have a whole lot to do with real chemistry, TIS-100 doesn't have a whole lot to do with programming. They use chemistry and programming as window dressing for what are otherwise pretty uninspiring puzzle games. To my knowledge, the game that gets closest to real assembly language programming is Core Wars.[1][2] Also, it's not assembly language, but Screeps[3] uses real Javascript programming, or any language that compiles to Javascript.[4] [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corewar [2] - http://www.corewars.org/ [3] - https://screeps.com/ [4] - https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/wiki/list-of-langu...
In TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System
mncolinlee·Sep 14, 2016
These complaints are all valid and serious. I believe the solutions involve writing more readable code in languages that compile down to Javascript, CSS, and HTML. There are thousands of languages that compile down to JS. https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/wiki/List-of-langu... There are several languages that compile to CSS, like COMPASS and SASS. There are various document formats that freely convert to and from HTML, like Markdown and DocBook. However, HTML is probably the most readable of JS/CSS/HTML. While you can write native JS/CSS/HTML, you're inviting unintended complexity to your project whether or not you remember sending the invitation. There's nothing wrong with that, but you should be aware which choices are best for your team and for the scope and requirements of your project.
In Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?
onion2k·Jul 14, 2016
I don't think that's a valid complaint given the number of languages that can already be compiled to JS. Including COBOL ... https://github.com/ajlopez/CobolScript It's a long list: https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/wiki/list-of-langu... Also, ultimately, there will be code that you can't maintain because you don't understand it. That might be because it's written in a language you don't know, but it might also be because it's written in a style you don't understand, or with a framework you've never used, or because it's about a topic that you haven't spent time with. That's OK. You don't need to be able to do everything.
In WebAssembly Specification Prototype
bcherny·Jun 7, 2016
Same here. Personally I prefer ES6 for a few reasons: - Future compatible, more interoperable - ES6 classes can extend each other in a standards compliant way - CS arrow functions feel verbose compared to ES6 - Constants - More tooling support - More features - Upcoming features, like ES7 async/await have polyfills that you can use today (as opposed to CS - https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/pull/3813) Though I do miss a couple of things: - The last expression in a block is implicitly returned (nice sugar for functional programming) - Ranges ([1..10])
In Show HN: New calendar app idea
rev_bird·Apr 16, 2016
>I get this https://github.com/FreeCodeCamp/FreeCodeCamp pretty much every day for the past half a year This seems like a pretty perfect example of how outliers can make algorithms act funny -- Free Code Camp has more than 100,000 stars on GitHub. That's well over twice as many as Angular[1] and nine times as many as CoffeeScript[2]. I mean, it's still annoying, but I'd imagine they're collecting "+1"s faster than GitHub Explore can ignore them. [1] https://github.com/angular/angular.js [2] https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript
In Git-random: Chrome extension replaces new tab with random GitHub user's profile
edtechdev·Jan 9, 2016
The main thing stopping me from using Dart is the same thing as Java and Python and others. It isn't designed to compile in the browser. You have to use the command line or an IDE. I have no problems with those myself, but the apps I am interested in involve letting end users create their own apps/animations/simulations, etc. If they went forward with a Dart VM in the browser, that would be great, but it sounds like that was one of the first things they abandoned. There are so many other languages that do compile in the browser and can be used without relying on command line tools that there's no reason to pay any attention to dart at all, even though I like everything else about dart: https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/wiki/List-of-langu...
In Why I'm joining the Dart Team

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