CoffeeScript: The Good Parts

Abstract:

It’s not a secret that the topic of CoffeeScript is controversial to say the least. Many reputable JavaScript and Node.js developers just hate CoffeeScript, but there are lessons we can all learn from its good parts! However, many developers just won’t go back to plain JavaScript after building something relatively serious with CoffeeScript.

My own story is going from making fun to loving it after a year developing an enterprise product. As with the famous JavaScript: The Good Parts book, we'll look at what's good in CoffeeScript (and it’s quirks too). This talk will share experiences from the trenches of using CoffeeScript in production.

Azat Mardan

Azat Mardan has over 12 years of experience in web, mobile and software development. With a Bachelor’s Degree in Informatics and a Master of Science in Information Systems Technology degree, Azat possesses deep academic knowledge as well as extensive practical experience. Currently, Azat works as a Team Lead / Senior Software Engineer at DocuSign, where his team rebuilds 50 million user product (DocuSign web app) using the tech stack of Node.js, Express.js, Backbone.js, CoffeeScript, Jade, Stylus and Redis. Recently, he worked as an engineer at the curated social media news aggregator website, Storify.com (acquired by LiveFyre) which is used by BBC, NBC, CNN, The White House and others. Storify runs everything on Node.js unlike other companies. It’s the maintainer of the open-source library jade-browser. Before that, Azat worked as a CTO/co-founder at Gizmo — an enterprise cloud platform for mobile marketing campaigns, and has undertaken the prestigious 500 Startups business accelerator program. Prior to this, Azat was developing he developed mission-critical applications for government agencies in Washington, DC, including the National Institutes of Health, the National Center for Biotechnology Information, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, as well as Lockheed Martin. Azat is a frequent attendee at Bay Area tech meet-ups and hackathons (AngelHack hackathon ’12 finalist with team FashionMetric.com). In addition, Azat teaches technical classes at General Assembly, Hack Reactor, pariSOMA and Marakana (acquired by Twitter) to much acclaim. In his spare time, he writes about technology on his blog: webAppLog.com which is number one in “express.js tutorial” Google search results. Azat is also the author of Express.js Guide, Rapid Prototyping with JS and Oh My JS; and the creator of open-source Node.js projects, including ExpressWorks, mongoui and HackHall. Personal web page: azat.co Facebook: facebook.com/azat.mardanov Twitter: @azat_co Hacker News: azat_co GitHub: azat-co