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CoffeeScript vs Flow (JS): What are the differences?

  1. Syntax: CoffeeScript is a language that compiles into JavaScript and has a more concise and clean syntax compared to traditional JavaScript, making it easier to write and read code. On the other hand, Flow is a static type checker that can be used with JavaScript to add type annotations, allowing developers to catch potential bugs early in the development process.

  2. Type System: CoffeeScript does not introduce a new type system, whereas Flow allows developers to add static type annotations to JavaScript code, enabling type checking at compile time to improve code safety and maintainability. This means that Flow provides more robust type checking capabilities compared to CoffeeScript.

  3. Compatibility: CoffeeScript is a superset of JavaScript, meaning that all valid JavaScript code is also valid CoffeeScript code. In contrast, Flow is not a superset of JavaScript, and developers need to add type annotations to their JavaScript code for it to work with Flow. This difference impacts how developers can integrate these languages into existing JavaScript projects.

  4. Tooling Support: CoffeeScript has its own compiler that translates CoffeeScript code into JavaScript, making it easy to use and integrate with existing JavaScript projects. Conversely, Flow relies on the Babel transpiler to incorporate type annotations and perform type checking in JavaScript code, adding an extra tooling layer for developers to manage.

  5. Community Adoption: CoffeeScript has been around for longer and has a more established community compared to Flow, which is a newer technology. This means that CoffeeScript has more resources, libraries, and support available for developers, while Flow may still be catching up in terms of adoption and community contributions.

  6. Primary Purpose: CoffeeScript primarily focuses on improving the syntax of JavaScript and enhancing developer productivity by reducing boilerplate code, while Flow is designed to enhance JavaScript code quality and maintainability through static type checking. This difference in focus reflects the distinct goals and strengths of each language.

In Summary, the key differences between CoffeeScript and Flow lie in their syntax, type systems, compatibility, tooling support, community adoption, and primary purposes.

Advice on CoffeeScript and Flow (JS)
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TypeScriptTypeScript
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Flow (JS)Flow (JS)

From a StackShare community member: "We are looking to rewrite our outdated front-end with TypeScript. Right now we have a mix of CoffeeScript and vanilla JavaScript. I have read that adopting TypeScript can help enforce better code quality, and best practices. I also heard good things about Flow (JS). Which one would you recommend and why?"

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Replies (14)
Recommends
on
TypeScriptTypeScript

I use TypeScript because:

  • incredible developer tooling and community support
  • actively developed and supported by Microsoft (yes, I like Microsoft) ;)
  • easier to make sense of a TS codebase because the annotations provide so much more context than plain JS
  • refactors become easier (VSCode has superb support for TS)

I've switched back and forth between TS and Flow and decided a year ago to abandon Flow completely in favor of TS. I don't want to bash Flow, however, my main grievances are very poor tooling (editor integration leaves much to be desired), a slower release cycle, and subpar docs and community support.

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Recommends
on
TypeScriptTypeScript

I use TypeScript because it isn't just about validating the types I'm expecting to receive though that is a huge part of it too. Flow (JS) seems to be a type system only. TypeScript also allows you to use the latest features of JavaScript while also providing the type checking. To be fair to Flow (JS), I have not used it, but likely wouldn't have due to the additional features I get from TypeScript.

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David Koblas
VP Engineering at Not disclosed · | 9 upvotes · 169.1K views
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on
TypeScriptTypeScript
at

We originally (in 2017) started rewriting our platform from JavaScript to Flow (JS) but found the library support for Flow was lacking. After switching gears to TypeScript we've never looked back. At this point we're finding that frontend and backend libraries are supporting TypeScript out of the box and where the support is missing that the commuity is typically got a solution in hand.

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Forrest Norvell
engineering manager at self-employed · | 6 upvotes · 258.3K views
Recommends
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TypeScriptTypeScript

I use TypeScript because the tooling is more mature (the decision to discontinue TSLint in favor of moving all its checks to ESLint is a thoughtful and mature decision), there's a ton of examples and tutorials for it, and it just generally seems to be where the industry is headed. Flow (JS) is a fine tool, but it just hasn't seen the uptake that TS has, and as a result is lacking a lot of the nicer small things, like thorough Visual Studio Code integration, offered by TS.

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Recommends
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TypeScriptTypeScript

We currently use TypeScript at work. Previously we used Flow (JS) but it was sometimes really difficult to make the types work the way you want. Especially non-trivial types were problematic. And the IDE support wasn't good, Flow took too much resources and sometimes remain stuck and do not show errors (I use Visual Studio Code). With TypeScript we almost do not have these problems. IDE support is superb, working with types is much easier and typing system seems more mature and powerful. There are some downsides (like partion inheritance etc.), but TS team is still pushing it forward. So for me TypeScript is clear winner.

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Tim Abbott
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UnderscoreUnderscore
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We use Underscore because it's a reasonable library for providing all the reasonable helper functions missing from JavaScript ES5 (or that perform poorly if you use the default ES5 version).

Since we're migrating the codebase to TypeScript , we'll likely end up removing most usage of it and ultimately no longer needing it, but we've been very happy with the library.

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Recommends
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TypeScriptTypeScript

I use TypeScript because it's adoption by many developers, it's supported by many companies, and it's growth. AngularJS, React, @ASP.NET Core. I started using it in .NET Core, then for a job. Later I added more Angular experience and wrote more React software. It makes your code easier to understand and read... which means it makes other people's code easier to understand and read.

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Recommends
on
TypeScriptTypeScript

I use TypeScript for Web Applications and for both frontend and backend because it has a lot of tooling around it and they really got the types and type safety right. Flow (JS) on the other hand lacks tooling and most of the times I scramble to find the right way of building my contracts in which TypeScript is very intuitive and natural. Additionally TypeScript is very similar to Java so your backend engineers and full stack engineers can work with it without much of context switch.

The only time I think Flow shines is (based on probably my outdated knowledge) Flow is/was the only option if you want/wanted to build a React Native application mainly because React Native transpiler at the time I was working with it would only work with flow.

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Frédéric MARAND
Core Developer at OSInet · | 2 upvotes · 140.5K views
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TypeScriptTypeScript

I use TypeScript because I tried both on a Meteor project, and found the quantity of errors it enabled us to catch and the simplification of code it allowed was higher than Flow (JS).

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Recommends
on
TypeScriptTypeScript

I use TypeScript because of broad support, on tools, repos, community ... the only reason to consider flow is if you're a facebook employee

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Recommends
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TypeScriptTypeScript

If you will start a project from scratch I recommend to use TypeScript. But, If you work with legacy projects written in JavaScript I recommend Flow (JS). Both tools have the same objective: reduce the bad code (which create illegible code, generate bugs e problems to maintenance). Flex helps you to avoid fall in bad codes, but TypeScript prevent you to c you to create bad codes. I believe cause this some JavaScript fans don't like TS, because TS block you to write some types o code. This is the fundamental difference between TS and Flow: Flow avoid problems, but no force. TS force you to prevent problems.

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TypeScriptTypeScript

I use TypeScript because it's the most mature/issue-free Javascript type-checker available, as far as I've seen.

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Damian Esteban
CTO @ betterPT at BetterPT · | 1 upvotes · 128.3K views
Recommends
on
TypeScriptTypeScript
at

I recommend TypeScript. When used correctly, TypeScript can enable your application to be scalable, easy to refactor, safe, and stable. One of the biggest draws of working with any typed language is that it forces you to think about your functions' inputs and outputs. This is invaluable as it can lead to more declarative, functional style code that ultimately can be easier to reason about.

TypeScript is however not a silver bullet. Just like anything new it takes time to fully understand the concepts of types, interfaces, abstract classes, and enums. In my experience engineers who excel when using TypeScript are those who have experience working with a statically typed language.

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Rafael Avaria
Ingeniero civil en electrónica · | 1 upvotes · 127K views
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TypeScriptTypeScript

I use TypeScript because i love to program in Angular and used in node as well

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Decisions about CoffeeScript and Flow (JS)
Vladyslav Holubiev
Sr. Directory of Technology at Shelf · | 3 upvotes · 146.2K views

As our codebase grew in size, we were looking for ways to improve code quality. We chose TypeScript over Flow due to its rapid industry adoption and overall tools support.

We noticed how different open-source projects were migrating from Flow to TypeScript. Most notably, it was Jest, even though Jest and Flow were both developed by Facebook. See this HN thread if you want to dive into an interesting discussion around this move.

Additionally, at the beginning of 2019, both Babel and ESLint enabled seamless TypeScript support, which allowed easy migration path in a backward-compatible way.

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Oleksandr Fedotov
Senior Software Engineer at joyn · | 4 upvotes · 125.6K views

Initially making a decision to use Flow vs Typescript we decided to go with flow as we wanted our code to run in a way we wrote it, because when using Flow types are simply removed from the code without modifying the code itself. Sadly, the type system of Flow was in some cases very hard to understand and declare the types correctly, especially in cases when the structure is very dynamic (e.g. object keys and values are created dynamically). Another reason was bad integration with IDE and frequent crashes which made DX very poor. Therefore, we made another evaluation of Typescript and decided to move towards it. As our code base was pretty big when we decided to migrate to TS we couldn't just stop and re-write everything, that's why we started writing new modules in Typescript as well as transforming old components. To make that possible we had to configure Webpack loader to support simultaneous bundling of Flow&JS and Typescript. After around 2 months of the transformation we have around 40% of code being written in Typescript and we are more than happy with integration TS has with IDE, as well as ease of declaring types for dynamic modules and functions.

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Pros of CoffeeScript
Pros of Flow (JS)
  • 199
    Easy to read
  • 179
    Faster to write
  • 126
    Syntactic sugar
  • 104
    Readable
  • 104
    Elegant
  • 73
    Pretty
  • 53
    Javascript the good parts
  • 48
    Open source
  • 44
    Classes
  • 35
    "it's just javascript"
  • 16
    Compact code
  • 15
    Easy
  • 13
    Simple
  • 13
    Not Javascript
  • 2
    Does the same with less code
  • 1
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    Cons of CoffeeScript
    Cons of Flow (JS)
    • 3
      No ES6
    • 1
      Corner cases in syntax
    • 1
      Parentheses required in 0-ary function calls
    • 1
      Unclear what will be grouped to {…}
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      What is CoffeeScript?

      It adds syntactic sugar inspired by Ruby, Python and Haskell in an effort to enhance JavaScript's brevity and readability. Specific additional features include list comprehension and de-structuring assignment.

      What is Flow (JS)?

      Flow is a static type checker for Javascript created by Facebook.

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      What companies use CoffeeScript?
      What companies use Flow (JS)?
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      What tools integrate with Flow (JS)?

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      What are some alternatives to CoffeeScript and Flow (JS)?
      JavaScript
      JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.
      TypeScript
      TypeScript is a language for application-scale JavaScript development. It's a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript.
      ES6
      Goals for ECMAScript 2015 include providing better support for large applications, library creation, and for use of ECMAScript as a compilation target for other languages. Some of its major enhancements include modules, class declarations, lexical block scoping, iterators and generators, promises for asynchronous programming, destructuring patterns, and proper tail calls.
      Babel
      Babel will turn your ES6+ code into ES5 friendly code, so you can start using it right now without waiting for browser support.
      jQuery
      jQuery is a cross-platform JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML.
      See all alternatives