JavaScript is among the most popular interpreted, lightweight, and compiled programming languages. It is single-threaded and synchronous in nature. Programs in JavaScript(Script) are executed as plain text. You can either write directly on our page or in an external JavaScript file. JavaScript can execute on any device having a program called the JavaScript Engine, be it Browser. JavaScript can be used either for a client or server-side developments or both.
JavaScript is by default supported by all the browsers. Click here to enable it manually, if not already.
CoffeeScript is a lightweight language that compiles into JavaScript. It provides simple and easy-to-learn syntax avoiding the complex syntax of JavaScript. CoffeeScript is influenced by JavaScript, Ruby, YAML, Haskell, Perl, Python and has influenced MoonScript, LiveScript, and JavaScript.
Installation of CoffeeScript:
- Install locally for a project:
npm install --save-dev coffeescript
- Globally install to execute the .coffee files anywhere:
npm install --global coffeescript
Advantages of CoffeeScript over JavaScript :
- Easy Maintenance and Readability: It becomes easy to maintain programs written in CoffeeScript.It provides the concept of aliases for mostly operators that makes the code more readable.
- Easy To Understand Code: The syntax of CoffeeScript is just a simple form of JavaScript, the code is clean and easy to understand. Using it we can write clear, clean, and easily understandable codes.
- Reliability: CoffeeScript is a safe and reliable language to make dynamic web pages.
- No use of symbols: CoffeeScript uses whitespaces to differentiate the code instead of using symbols like semicolons, parenthesis, and curly braces.
- No Scope Issues: CoffeeScript avoids scope declaration issues in a program as unlike JavaScript the use of the var keyword before declaring a variable is not required. No need to actually declare variables, just use desired variables and they would be declared for us in the output.
- Less Code: As compared to JavaScript, the line for the same particular code reduces to around half in CoffeeScript(about 55% less). Less code reduces the overall complexity of the program.
- Rich Libraries: Programmers get to explore CoffeeScript’s vast libraries of JavaScript and vice versa which help them to carry out tasks easily with the help of predefined functions.
- Classed-based inheritance: Instead of providing classes JavaScript provides confusing yet powerful prototypes. Unlike JavaScript, classes can be created and inherited in CoffeeScript. In addition, it also provides static properties as well as mixins.
Let’s see the difference between JavaScript and CoffeeScript with help of the table:
|
JavaScript |
CoffeeScript |
| In JavaScript, scope issues occur. |
No Scope Issues occur as no need to actually declare variables. |
| Complex code and less readable. |
Less Code and more readability(around 55% less than JavaScript) |
|
Use symbols like semicolons, curly braces, etc to differentiate the code. |
Use of whitespaces to differentiate the code. |
|
The syntax mistakes given by the JavaScript compiler are often less as compared to CoffeeScript. |
The syntax mistakes given by the CoffeeScript compiler are often problematic. |
| No dependencies on other languages. |
Dependency on JavaScript to understand some section of code if it doesn’t work as expected. |
