[jondubois]

I dislike all JavaScript transpilers. I still cannot get my head around how CoffeeScript ever got so popular. The complexity and friction that transpilers add is not worth the tiny benefits that they offer. I've worked on many projects where I had to wait for like 20 seconds for the code to compile each time I made a change to it.

From my point of view, it sounds like the author of this article is merely feeling the reality catching up to the hype.

Transpilers like CoffeeScript and Babel should never have become popular to begin with. Something unnatural happened in the evolution of those projects which allowed them to capture a lot of attention very quickly; and much of the initial adoption was driven by hype and network effects instead of real needs.

[rudolf0]

Just to provide a contrasting point of view: CoffeeScript is the only reason I ever wrote, and ever write, JavaScript. Period. Transpilers do add a layer of complexity, but all of the syntax sugar advantages make it more than worth it to me.

I would not ever write JavaScript if CoffeeScript or similar languages did not exist. Before it existed, I never touched the language. I now use CoffeeScript daily and have never been happier. A watchdog script automatically transpiles the code upon updates, and everything is completely seamless for me.

[jondubois]

The real problem that CoffeeScript solves is developer stubbornness.

Some developers decided a long time ago that JavaScript is terrible and so CoffeeScript gave them a way to program in JavaScript without changing their minds about how terrible JavaScript is.

The reality is that it would have been easier if developers weren't so stubborn to begin with.

[rudolf0]

It would have been easier if JavaScript weren't so terrible to begin with.