"I Never Want to Write Plain JavaScript Again"

These are the words of legendary open-source JavaScript developer Sam Stephenson in a recent talk on CoffeeScript at FOWA 2011. The 45-minute presentation (video is here, slides are here) chronicles the evolution of higher-level approaches to JavaScript, including GWT, Pyjamas, Objective-J, and finally CoffeeScript. If you've been on the fence with CoffeeScript, this could be the one to tip you. If you're just learning CoffeeScript, it is a great, thoughtful, well-paced introduction to the language. Sam structures the rest of the talk around "10 Things I Love About CoffeeScript."

Here are Sam's top ten favorite things about CoffeeScript:

1. Function Syntax
2. Significant Whitespace
3. Bare Objects
4. Everything's an Expression
5. Comprehensions
6. Classes & Inheritance
7. Bound Functions
8. Conditionals
9. Destructuring Assignment
10. String Syntax

Source: http://www.coffeescriptlove.com/2012/01/i-never-want-to-write-plain-javascript.html