3 Review(s)

This little book shows JavaScript developers how to build superb web applications with CoffeeScript, the remarkable little language that’s gaining considerable interest. Through example code, this guide demonstrates how CoffeeScript abstracts JavaScript, providing syntactical sugar and preventing many common errors. You’ll learn CoffeeScript’s syntax and idioms step by step, from basic variables and functions to complex comprehensions and classes. Written by Alex MacCaw, author of JavaScript Web Applications (O’Reilly), with contributions from CoffeeScript creator Jeremy Ashkenas, this book quickly teaches you best practices for using this language—not just on the client side, but for server-side applications as well. It’s time to take a ride with the little language that could.     Discover how CoffeeScript’s syntax differs from JavaScript     Learn about features such as array comprehensions, destructuring assignments, and classes     Explore CoffeeScript idioms and compare them to their JavaScript counterparts     Compile CoffeeScript files in static sites with the Cake build system     Use CommonJS modules to structure and deploy CoffeeScript client-side applications     Examine JavaScript’s bad parts-including features CoffeeScript was able to fix About the Author Alex MacCaw is a Ruby/JavaScript developer & entrepreneur. He has written a JavaScript framework, Spine and developed major applications including Taskforce and Socialmod, as well as a host of open source work. He speaks at Ruby/Rails conferences in NYC, SF and Berlin. In addition to programming he is currently traveling round the world with a Nikon D90 and surfboard. Table of Contents Chapter 1 CoffeeScript Syntax     Variables and Scope     Functions     Object Literals and Array Definition     Flow Control     String Interpolation     Loops and Comprehensions     Arrays     Aliases and the Existential Operator Chapter 2 CoffeeScript Classes     Instance Properties     Static Properties     Inheritance and Super     Mixins     Extending Classes Chapter 3 CoffeeScript Idioms     Each     Map     Select     Includes     Property Iteration     Min/Max     Multiple Arguments     And/Or     Destructuring Assignments     External Libraries     Private Variables Chapter 4 Compiling CoffeeScript     Cake     Creating Applications Chapter 5 The Good Parts     The Unfixed parts     The Fixed Parts     JavaScript Lint Chapter 6 The Little Conclusion     Philosophy     It’s Just JavaScript     Build Your Own JavaScript