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coffeescript

CoffeeScript is a little language that compiles into JavaScript. It provides a simple syntax without lots of braces and parentheses. The code compiles one-to-one into the equivalent JS, and there is no interpretation at runtime.

CoffeeScript is supported on both the client and the server. Files ending with .coffee, .litcoffee, or .coffee.md are automatically compiled to JavaScript.

This is a fork of the core Meteor coffeescript package. As the per the Meteor wiki:

For historical reasons, some packages that really ought to be in Atmosphere are currently in core, like less and coffeescript.

The goal of this fork is to fix this problem by moving the coffeescript package out of core, allowing the community to build on it without having to go through the Meteor release cycle.

Unwrapped helpers and events

Inspired by the mquandalle:jade package, coffee:script allows you to keep each template's events and helpers in their own files while avoiding boilerplate.

Just as mquandalle:jade let's you define your templates unwrapped using .tpl.jade files, coffee:script lets you do the same with events and helpers in .events.coffee and .helpers.coffee files, respectively.

Without this feature, you'd have to wrap your template's helpers and events in Template.<name>.events or Template.<name>.helpers blocks, thus repeating yourself and adding needless boilerplate to your code. But using coffee:script, if you save your helpers object in a file called <name>.helpers.coffee, that bit of boilerplate will be handled for you. This allows you to follow the "don't repeat yourself" (DRY) philosophy in the same way you may have gotten used to while using mquandalle:jade.

Namespacing and CoffeeScript

Here's how CoffeeScript works with Meteor's namespacing.

  • Per the usual CoffeeScript convention, CoffeeScript variables are file-scoped by default (visible only in the .coffee file where they are defined.)

  • When writing a package, CoffeeScript-defined variables can be exported like any other variable (see Writing Packages). Exporting a variable pulls it up to package scope, meaning that it will be visible to all of the code in your app or package (both .js and .coffee files).

  • Package-scope variables declared in .js files are visible in any .coffee files in the same app or project.

  • There is no way to make a package-scope variable from a .coffee file other than exporting it. We couldn't figure out a way to make this fit naturally inside the CoffeeScript language. If you want to use package-scope variables with CoffeeScript, one way is to make a short .js file that declares all of your package-scope variables. They can then be read, mutated, and extended in .coffee files.

  • If you want to share variables between .coffee files in the same package, and don't want to separately declare them in a .js file, we have an experimental feature that you may like. An object called share is visible in CoffeeScript code and is shared across all .coffee files in the same package. So, you can write share.foo for a value that is shared between all CoffeeScript code in a package, but doesn't escape that package.

Heavy CoffeeScript users, please let us know how this arrangement works for you, whether share is helpful for you, and anything else you'd like to see changed.