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CoffeeScript vs Haskell: What are the differences?
CoffeeScript: 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; Haskell: An advanced purely-functional programming language. .
CoffeeScript and Haskell belong to "Languages" category of the tech stack.
"Easy to read" is the top reason why over 197 developers like CoffeeScript, while over 72 developers mention "Purely-functional programming " as the leading cause for choosing Haskell.
CoffeeScript is an open source tool with 15.2K GitHub stars and 1.99K GitHub forks. Here's a link to CoffeeScript's open source repository on GitHub.
According to the StackShare community, CoffeeScript has a broader approval, being mentioned in 364 company stacks & 170 developers stacks; compared to Haskell, which is listed in 33 company stacks and 47 developer stacks.
We have a lot of experience in JavaScript, writing our services in NodeJS allows developers to transition to the back end without any friction, without having to learn a new language. There is also the option to write services in TypeScript, which adds an expressive type layer. The semi-shared ecosystem between front and back end is nice as well, though specifically NodeJS libraries sometimes suffer in quality, compared to other major languages.
As for why we didn't pick the other languages, most of it comes down to "personal preference" and historically grown code bases, but let's do some post-hoc deduction:
Go is a practical choice, reasonably easy to learn, but until we find performance issues with our NodeJS stack, there is simply no reason to switch. The benefits of using NodeJS so far outweigh those of picking Go. This might change in the future.
PHP is a language we're still using in big parts of our system, and are still sometimes writing new code in. Modern PHP has fixed some of its issues, and probably has the fastest development cycle time, but it suffers around modelling complex asynchronous tasks, and (on a personal note) lack of support for writing in a functional style.
We don't use Python, Elixir or Ruby, mostly because of personal preference and for historic reasons.
Rust, though I personally love and use it in my projects, would require us to specifically hire for that, as the learning curve is quite steep. Its web ecosystem is OK by now (see https://www.arewewebyet.org/), but in my opinion, it is still no where near that of the other web languages. In other words, we are not willing to pay the price for playing this innovation card.
Haskell, as with Rust, I personally adore, but is simply too esoteric for us. There are problem domains where it shines, ours is not one of them.
Pros of CoffeeScript
- Easy to read199
- Faster to write179
- Syntactic sugar126
- Readable104
- Elegant104
- Pretty73
- Javascript the good parts53
- Open source48
- Classes44
- "it's just javascript"35
- Compact code16
- Easy15
- Simple13
- Not Javascript13
- Does the same with less code2
- I'm jobs I'm software engineer1
Pros of Haskell
- Purely-functional programming90
- Statically typed66
- Type-safe59
- Open source39
- Great community38
- Built-in concurrency31
- Built-in parallelism30
- Composable30
- Referentially transparent24
- Generics20
- Type inference15
- Intellectual satisfaction15
- If it compiles, it's correct12
- Flexible8
- Monads8
- Great type system5
- Proposition testing with QuickCheck4
- One of the most powerful languages *(see blub paradox)*4
- Purely-functional Programming4
- Highly expressive, type-safe, fast development time3
- Pattern matching and completeness checking3
- Great maintainability of the code3
- Fun3
- Reliable3
- Best in class thinking tool2
- Kind system2
- Better type-safe than sorry2
- Type classes2
- Predictable1
- Orthogonality1
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Cons of CoffeeScript
- No ES63
- Corner cases in syntax1
- Parentheses required in 0-ary function calls1
- Unclear what will be grouped to {…}1
Cons of Haskell
- Too much distraction in language extensions9
- Error messages can be very confusing8
- Libraries have poor documentation5
- No good ABI3
- No best practices3
- Poor packaging for apps written in it for Linux distros2
- Sometimes performance is unpredictable2
- Slow compilation1
- Monads are hard to understand1