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LiveScript VS CoffeeScript

Compare LiveScript VS CoffeeScript and see what are their differences

LiveScript logo LiveScript

LiveScript is a language which compiles down to JavaScript.

CoffeeScript logo CoffeeScript

Unfancy JavaScript
  • LiveScript Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-03-23
  • CoffeeScript Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-31

We recommend LibHunt CoffeeScript for discovery and comparisons of trending CoffeeScript projects.

LiveScript features and specs

  • Syntactic Sugar
    LiveScript offers a lot of syntactic sugar over JavaScript, making the code more concise and expressive. This includes cleaner function syntax, implicit returns, and significant whitespace, which can lead to faster development and more readable code.
  • Functional Programming
    LiveScript is designed with an emphasis on functional programming. It includes features like pattern matching, destructuring assignment, and first-class functions, which make it easier to write functional code compared to traditional JavaScript.
  • Compilation to JavaScript
    LiveScript compiles to JavaScript, which means it can be used anywhere JavaScript runs. This ensures compatibility with any JavaScript environment, including browsers and Node.js.
  • Extensive Built-in Functions
    The language includes a wide array of built-in higher-order functions which make operations like map, filter, and reduce easier to implement without needing to rely on external libraries.
  • Community and Ecosystem
    Benefiting from the JavaScript ecosystem, LiveScript has access to the vast array of JavaScript libraries and tools, making it versatile and largely adaptable to various projects.

Possible disadvantages of LiveScript

  • Small Community
    LiveScript has a smaller user base compared to other JavaScript transpilers like TypeScript or CoffeeScript, leading to fewer resources, less community support, and limited third-party integrations.
  • Learning Curve
    For developers used to traditional JavaScript, LiveScript’s unique syntax and functional programming style can pose a steep learning curve, requiring a shift in thinking and additional time to master.
  • Debugging Challenges
    Debugging LiveScript can be more challenging because developers often have to interpret the compiled JavaScript output rather than the original LiveScript code, which can be time-consuming and complex.
  • Lack of Type Safety
    Unlike TypeScript, LiveScript does not offer built-in static type checking, which can lead to runtime errors that might have been caught during a compile-time check in a language with stronger type support.
  • Adoption and Maintenance
    LiveScript is not as widely adopted as other languages that transpile to JavaScript, which raises concerns about its long-term maintenance and the potential for becoming obsolete if not actively maintained.

CoffeeScript features and specs

  • Concise Syntax
    CoffeeScript offers a more concise and readable syntax compared to vanilla JavaScript, making it easier to write and understand code quickly.
  • Less Boilerplate
    Eliminates much of the boilerplate code that is common in JavaScript, such as curly braces and semicolons, leading to cleaner code.
  • Class Syntax
    Provides a simplified syntax for defining classes and inheritance, which can make object-oriented programming more straightforward.
  • Function Binding
    Automatically binds the value of `this` to the current context in functions, reducing the need for workarounds or additional code to manage scope.
  • List Comprehensions
    Offers powerful list comprehension features, allowing developers to create complex arrays and objects more easily.
  • Syntactic Sugar
    Adds syntactic sugar to improve code aesthetics and readability, such as the `fat arrow` for functions and destructuring assignments.
  • Interoperability
    Generates clean and readable JavaScript, which makes it easy to integrate with existing JavaScript codebases and libraries.

Possible disadvantages of CoffeeScript

  • Learning Curve
    Although inspired by JavaScript, CoffeeScript has its own unique syntax and features, requiring developers to learn and adapt to a new way of writing code.
  • Debugging
    Debugging can be challenging because error messages and stack traces often refer to the compiled JavaScript rather than the original CoffeeScript code.
  • Tooling
    Although many modern tools and editors support CoffeeScript, it doesn't have as wide an ecosystem or as many support resources compared to JavaScript.
  • Performance Overhead
    The compilation step introduces a performance overhead in the development workflow, potentially slowing down the build process.
  • Declining Popularity
    With the advent of ES6 and TypeScript, CoffeeScript's popularity has waned, leading to fewer community contributions and less frequent updates.
  • Compatibility
    Certain newer JavaScript features may not be directly supported in CoffeeScript, requiring developers to wait for updates or use workarounds.
  • Maintenance
    Maintaining a CoffeeScript codebase may become increasingly difficult as the language becomes less commonly used, making it harder to find developers proficient in it.

LiveScript videos

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CoffeeScript videos

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to LiveScript and CoffeeScript)
Programming Language
42 42%
58% 58
OOP
44 44%
56% 56
Web Scraping
0 0%
100% 100
Gaming
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, CoffeeScript should be more popular than LiveScript. It has been mentiond 25 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

LiveScript mentions (8)

  • Oracle justified its JavaScript trademark with Node.js–now it wants that ignored
    That's an interesting idea. Just to mention though: LiveScript is a really great language that compiles to JavaScript. https://livescript.net/. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • Oracle justified its JavaScript trademark with Node.js–now it wants that ignored
    It was a better name for JavaScript. It is a better name for another project that is better named than JavaScript and owns the name LiveScript now. https://livescript.net/. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • Civet: A Superset of TypeScript
    I know this hasn't been updated, and I know it's a fork of CoffeeScript, but https://livescript.net/ has had a lot of the "magic" syntax here for quite a while. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Netscape and Sun announce JavaScript (1995)
    Fun fact: LiveScript is a FP-oriented language which compiles to JavaScript. It's been around for a while now :-) https://livescript.net/. - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • Dear Oracle, Please Release the JavaScript Trademark
    Too late. The name was taken when it was free. https://livescript.net/ (But seems inactive judging by GitHub). Actually a mostly quite nice little toy language. (Only the OOP part seems messed up a little bit; but besides that it looks quite clean). - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
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CoffeeScript mentions (25)

  • Ask HN: Why don't browsers just build a non-JS interpreter?
    JS isn't perfect, but it's good enough. And there is ongoing effort to make it even better. Also, many other languages compile to JS (without WASM). Notably: - https://www.typescriptlang.org/ - https://coffeescript.org/ - https://clojurescript.org/ - https://www.transcrypt.org/ I wrote https://multi-launch.leftium.com, which is only 6% JS. The majority is Svelte (65%) + TypeScript (27%). ( - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Vanilla+PostCSS as an Alternative to SCSS
    As a front-end web developer, do you still use CoffeeScript or jQuery? Unlikely, as TypeScript, ES/TC39 and Babel (and the retirement of Internet Explorer thanks to @codepo8 and his EDGE team) have helped to transform JavaScript into some kind of a modern programming language. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • Why React isn't dying
    On the other hand, companies choose React because that's where all the developers are. If you want to build something that can be maintained years from now, you better not choose the next hype train that goes straight to nowhere (remember CoffeeScript ?). You want something battle tested that has stood the test of time, where you won't have trouble finding developers to scale once you need to. And nobody ever got... - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • Civet: The CoffeeScript of TypeScript
    Http://coffeescript.org/#expressions this comes from Lisp and makes a lot of things easier. Obviously this was not implemented in ES6 because it would break compatibility and there is also some problems with implicit returns that made the feature a bit weird I wonder if a syntax like this for JS would work: const eldest = if (24>41) { escape "Liz" } else { escape "Ike" } with "escape" working like a mix of "break"... - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • Civet: The CoffeeScript of TypeScript
    Coffeescript[1] was a flavour of JS syntax meant to look similar to Ruby syntax. You just compiled it back to JS. It was nice for working on Rails projects since it made everything feel more “cohesive”. I assume this project is here for older Coffeescript[1] projects who want to start using typescript, and need access to interfaces/types that were present in old CS files. [1] https://coffeescript.org/. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing LiveScript and CoffeeScript, you can also consider the following products

Typescript - TypeScript allows developers to compile a superset of JavaScript to plain JavaScript on any browser, host, or operating system.

JavaScript - Lightweight, interpreted, object-oriented language with first-class functions

Octoparse - Octoparse provides easy web scraping for anyone. Our advanced web crawler, allows users to turn web pages into structured spreadsheets within clicks.

Kotlin - Statically typed Programming Language targeting JVM and JavaScript

Diggernaut - Web scraping is just became easy. Extract any website content and turn it into datasets. No programming skills required.

Kaffeine JS - Kaffeine is a set of extensions to the Javascript syntax that attempt to make it nicer to use.