when the average ASP.net C# programmer (with very poor JavaScript knowledge other than scripting some hide() show() effects) would have to switch from building ASP.net WebForms apps to a RIA JavaScript application (client-server architecture like).
What would probably be less pain for him:
- Learn CoffeeScript and use it for “coding JavaScript”??
- Properly learn JavaScript and use that directly??
I’m thinking about
- Proper debugging
- Coding syntax
- …
Does anyone have experiences in a similar scenario??
We had a pretty long discussion about that topic in the Stackoverflow Javascript Chat over the past days. General conclusion was, that CoffeeScript is a nice tool which might create "ok" javascript code. However, if you know what you’re doing you probably want to code directly in javascript without a ‘higher level’ language which semi compiles down to it.
I’m not really experienced with CoffeeScript so if I’m saying something wrong I’d be happy to get corrected. For instance, I can’t tell how CoffeeScript reacts on ECMAscript3 to 5 (maybe even to 6) differences. Does CoffeeScript automatically create fallback code for each or does it just produce ES3 code ?
All those questions and doubts are one reason for me to go with plain Javascript as far as possible. If you not care so much whats going on under the hood and you need quick results, it’s probably a good way to go.