Programming in CoffeeScript

by Mark Bates

Use CoffeeScript to Write Better JavaScript Code Than Ever Before! If you can do it in JavaScript, you can do it better in CoffeeScript. And, since CoffeeScript “compiles down” to JavaScript, your code will fit neatly into virtually any web environment. In Programming in CoffeeScript , Mark Bates shows web developers why CoffeeScript is so useful and how it avoids the problems that often make JavaScript code buggy and unmanageable. He guides you through every feature and technique you need to write quality CoffeeScript code and shows how to take advantage of CoffeeScript’s increasingly robust toolset. Bates begins with the absolute basics of running and compiling CoffeeScript and then introduces syntax, control structures, functions, collections, and classes. Through same page code comparisons, you’ll discover exactly how CoffeeScript improves on JavaScript. Next, you’ll put it to work in building applications that are powerful, flexible, maintainable, concise, reliable, and secure. Bates shares valuable tips for better development, illuminating CoffeeScript’s hidden gems and warning you about its remaining “rough edges.” The book concludes with a start-to-finish application case study showing how to code back-ends and front-ends and integrate powerful frameworks and libraries. Coverage includes Want a better way to create the JavaScript code your web applications need? CoffeeScript is the solution– and this book will help you master it !

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

It gets only three stars because there is not a whole lot to say on the subject so it is hard to say this is an awesome book. Coffeescript is pretty straight forward.

That said this book covers the language details really well and the flow of the book works nicely. I like how it displayed the generated javascript with walk throughs of what was going on.

The book also contains sections on NodeJS and Backbone. I only skimmed over this though. It would have been more valuable to me if the author spent more time on how you could combine some of the cool operators together to make things more readable and more succinct.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

The CoffeeScript chapters are perfunctory, but the chapters on Jasmine, Node, and Backbone would be good for beginners. There are some clever shortcuts (for example, stealing the sync from backbone-rails) that would probably not occur to pure JavaScript developers who are boning up on CoffeeScript.

Every CoffeeScript example has the compiled JavaScript as well, which gets to be tedious after the first 30 pages or so.

Also, there is a little sermon about how one should always test; but the only code with tests is the chapter on Jasmine . . .