I just learnt Coffeescript, and as a Python programmer loved being able to write Javascript in a Python like language. Coffeescript is inspired by Python/Ruby and is very close to these languages. Writing Coffeescript and reading the compiled Javascript also improved my understanding of Javascript. Without much ado here is translation of some Python code to Coffeescript to get you started.

Defining a variable

Python a = 10 Coffeescript a = 10

Setting scope is done via whitespaces.

Python if i == 10: foo() Coffeescript if i == 10 foo()

No semicolons

List comprehensions

Python languages = ["Python", "Coffeescript", "Java", "Ruby", "Haskell"] languages = [lan.lower() for lan in languages] Coffeescript languages = ["Python", "Coffeescript", "Java", "Ruby", "Haskell"] languages = (lan.lowerCase for lan in languages)

Get a range

Python tillTen = range(1, 10) CoffeScript tillTen = [1...10]

String Interpolation

Python language = "Python" greet = "I love %s" % language Coffeescript language = "Coffescript" greet = "I love #{language}"

Multi Line String

Python """ The Quick Brown Fox, Jumps over The lazy Dog """ Coffeescript """ The Quick Brown Fox, Jumps over The lazy Dog """

Defining a function

Python def double(x): return 2 * x Coffeescript double = (x) -> 2 * x

Here is a larger python script converted to Coffeescript.

You will see that they are very similar and if you know Python learning (and loving) Coffeescript won’t take you a long time. Excited? Get started here.

Resources

Can you believe that it has been only an year since the 1.0 release!

Thank you for reading the Agiliq blog. This article was written by shabda on Dec 24, 2011 in coffeescript . You can subscribe ⚛ to our blog. We love building amazing apps for web and mobile for our clients. If you are looking for development help, contact us today ✉.