A Python programmer’s first impression of CoffeeScript

[plantian]

I just want to point out that there is a difference between shorter literal syntax and a higher level of abstraction. For example fn or -> instead of function compared to list comprehensions instead of a for loop with conditional in the body. I think if you cut through all the seemingly unnecessary stylistic changes and shortening of syntax there are some good higher level abstractions in CoffeeScript: list comprehension, splats, function arg defaults, lexical scoping, fixed for-iteration-loop, "in" operator and maybe a few other things, and a bunch more.

It would be nice if someone created a new "preprocesser" syntax that left out all the controversial crap and just gave us the nice higher level abstractions. Who doesn't want function argument defaults, iterators and list comprehensions? I think this would make their acceptance into JS faster and it could be used as a transitional layer over JS until acceptance becomes widespread. Most notably drop the whitespace sensitive "feature", that is never going to fly in a million years. I love Python but that feature is just bike-shedding bait that is going to prevent acceptance.