# Is it better for Discourse to use JavaScript or CoffeeScript?

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-it-better-for-discourse-to-use-javascript-or-coffeescript/3153>\
**Category:** Development\
**Created:** [February 15, 2013, 1:34pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-it-better-for-discourse-to-use-javascript-or-coffeescript/3153 "2013-02-15T13:34:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 15

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**Author:** ![simonlmn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/simonlmn/32/102865_2.png) [@simonlmn](https://meta.discourse.org/u/simonlmn)\
**Post date:** [February 15, 2013, 11:34pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-it-better-for-discourse-to-use-javascript-or-coffeescript/3153/15 "2013-02-15T23:34:09Z")

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> [@tomdale](#):
>
> CoffeeScript jeopardizes the ability to stay up-to-date with the web platform. Parts of CoffeeScript require new syntax that is incompatible with features coming in ES6 and ES7. By using CoffeeScript, you are locking yourself into always using ES4. One of the principles of TC39, 1JS, means that if you author ES4 code today, it will guarantee to continue working in the future, and be easy to upgrade when new features start landing in browsers.

I don’t understand the problem here. Which parts of CoffeeScript require “new syntax” in JavaScript? Isn’t the problem exactly the same if you were using “plain” JavaScript, that at some point in time, if some breaking change occurs in some future version of JavaScript, you would have to change your code? And who says that the CoffeeScript compiler couldn’t be updated to emit proper ES6/ES7/whatever code in the future, just like any compiler (C/C++/Java/…) is able to produce binaries for different platforms or is able to use different language versions.

As far as I understand it, the idea behind CoffeeScript is exactly to have some higher level language that just compiles to “some standard” JS. And if somehow CoffeeScript was abandoned and no one could update the compiler anymore, you still could just compile your CoffeeScript one last time and use the compiled JS in the future.

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