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CoffeeScript

3.3K
1.2K
+ 1
1K
Groovy

2.1K
776
+ 1
212
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CoffeeScript vs Groovy: What are the differences?

Developers describe CoffeeScript as "Unfancy JavaScript". CoffeeScript is a little language that compiles into JavaScript. Underneath that awkward Java-esque patina, JavaScript has always had a gorgeous heart. CoffeeScript is an attempt to expose the good parts of JavaScript in a simple way. On the other hand, Groovy is detailed as "A dynamic language for the Java platform". Groovy builds upon the strengths of Java but has additional power features inspired by languages like Python, Ruby and Smalltalk. It makes modern programming features available to Java developers with almost-zero learning curve.

CoffeeScript and Groovy belong to "Languages" category of the tech stack.

"Easy to read" is the primary reason why developers consider CoffeeScript over the competitors, whereas "Java platform" was stated as the key factor in picking Groovy.

CoffeeScript and Groovy are both open source tools. CoffeeScript with 15.2K GitHub stars and 1.99K forks on GitHub appears to be more popular than Groovy with 1.49K GitHub stars and 414 GitHub forks.

Code School, Zaarly, and thoughtbot are some of the popular companies that use CoffeeScript, whereas Groovy is used by Starbucks, Cask, and PedidosYa. CoffeeScript has a broader approval, being mentioned in 364 company stacks & 169 developers stacks; compared to Groovy, which is listed in 78 company stacks and 73 developer stacks.

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Pros of CoffeeScript
Pros of Groovy
  • 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
    I'm jobs I'm software engineer
  • 44
    Java platform
  • 33
    Much more productive than java
  • 29
    Concise and readable
  • 28
    Very little code needed for complex tasks
  • 22
    Dynamic language
  • 13
    Nice dynamic syntax for the jvm
  • 9
    Very fast
  • 7
    Can work with JSON as an object
  • 7
    Easy to setup
  • 6
    Supports closures (lambdas)
  • 6
    Literal Collections
  • 3
    Syntactic sugar
  • 3
    Optional static typing
  • 2
    Developer Friendly

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Cons of CoffeeScript
Cons of Groovy
  • 3
    No ES6
  • 1
    Corner cases in syntax
  • 1
    Parentheses required in 0-ary function calls
  • 1
    Unclear what will be grouped to {…}
  • 3
    Groovy Code can be slower than Java Code
  • 1
    Absurd syntax
  • 1
    Objects cause stateful/heap mess

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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 Groovy?

It is a powerful multi-faceted programming language for the JVM platform. It supports a spectrum of programming styles incorporating features from dynamic languages such as optional and duck typing, but also static compilation and static type checking at levels similar to or greater than Java through its extensible static type checker. It aims to greatly increase developer productivity with many powerful features but also a concise, familiar and easy to learn syntax.

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What companies use CoffeeScript?
What companies use Groovy?
See which teams inside your own company are using CoffeeScript or Groovy.
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What tools integrate with CoffeeScript?
What tools integrate with Groovy?

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What are some alternatives to CoffeeScript and Groovy?
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