[showell30]

CoffeeScript's approach toward top-level variables is quite elegant and simple. When you declare a variable at top-level scope, it is equally available to all code within that file for both reading and writing, with no strange "nonlocal" or ":=" syntax to complicate manners.

Once you understand the reach of CoffeeScript's top-level variables, it is easy to write bug-free code. Since you know that top-level variables have wide scope, you simply need to be judicious about putting variables at top-level scope. If a variable is not needed at top level scope, don't put it there.

[the_mitsuhiko]

Way to miss the issue. I was not suggesting ":=" for global variables at all. I was suggesting ":=" as a replacement for the nonlocal keyword that Python 3 has to solve the issue I was demonstrating.

[showell30]

Nope, I get it, you were suggesting ":=" as a replacement for the "nonlocal" keyword in Python. I'm not sure how my comments demonstrate any lack of reading comprehension. All I said about ":=" and "nonlocal" is that they are overly complicated once you accept that top-level variables can have wide scope.

Obviously, plenty of folks managed to write bug-free code in Python before "nonlocal" was invented. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but you can avoid bugs without it.

[the_mitsuhiko]

> Obviously, plenty of folks managed to write bug-free code in Python before "nonlocal" was invented.

Python has the inverse behavior of CoffeeScript. So that was never an issue.

[showell30]

Well, fine, but Python2 had the inverse problem--you couldn't mutate top-level variables without awkward "global" statements.

[notSorella]

That's a whole different matter, which can't make you shoot yourself in the foot without knowing it for any non-trivial code.

CoffeeScript's scoping forces you to always keep track of whatever is enclosing the current scope ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP. This is way too much when your function doesn't need to access outer variables (which should be the minority of the cases).

So, problem is, you either make all your functions have non-free variables (but Jashkenas seems to dislike functions shadowing outer variables too, which is just... overtly weird), or you keep track of all variables above the current scope.

The former is not too unreasonable, until you remember it makes no sense with closures :3

[cheald]

I actually agree with his stance against shadowing variables, just on philosophical grounds. It encourages good, descriptive naming. On the other hand, I acknowledge that sometimes it's desirable to shadow outer variables. I think it should be discouraged, but not prevented.

I think the big problem with Coffeescript's behavior is that it can introduce some damn subtle bugs that can be really hard to track down if you don't know what you're looking for, because you're not able to explicitly specify scope semantics. It's even worse if you're polluting higher-scope variables of the same type, because it becomes even less obvious where the error comes from.

Coffeescript more or less shares Ruby's scoping rules, but there's a cultural difference between the Ruby and Javascript communities that makes it a little less workable in Javascript. Specifically, Ruby's "everything is an object", aggressive use of namespacing, and the general idiom that only constants go into the global namespace tends to limit scope issues that could arise from mix-ins.

Coffeescript does attempt to mimic this by providing class semantics and wrapping everything in anonymous functions to limit scope leak, but there's still a lot of temptation to just create a bunch of top-level functions, and that leads to situations like the one described in the blog post.

[Avshalom]

The problem is actually worse. You also have to keep track of all the variables BELOW the current scope as well so you don't accidentally (as in the case of the article) turn a declaration into a reassignment.

[showell30]

You are correct that variable scoping goes all the way to the top, but nobody is forcing you to create top-level variables with overloaded names like "log". Seriously, if you have a file that uses log files and logarithms, just take some care to distinguish the concepts. Use "log_file" for log files; use "logarithm" or "Math.log" for inverse exponentation.

[nas]

Yes, and it's very uncommon that you need to do that. I learned Scheme years ago before I learned Python (in 1993, I think). At first I was dismayed by Python's lack of non-local assignment. However, in years of Python programming I can count the times I needed the ability on one hand. I haven't yet found a need for 'nonlocal'.

Obviously it depends on programming style. In Coffeescript you don't have something akin to 'self' and so assigning to a non-local happens a lot.

[masklinn]

> However, in years of Python programming I can count the times I needed the ability on one hand. I haven't yet found a need for 'nonlocal'.

Might have to do with Python itself as well: because it's function-scoped and it tends to avoid higher-order function (in part due to the limitations of its anonymous functions), there are far less occasions write to lexical closures than in Scheme, Smalltalk or Ruby.