2

I'm just now wrapping my head around Spine, Hem, CoffeeScript, etc. in an effort to build a browser-based application. I'm wanting to use a JavaScript graphing library in the application that I'm pretty sure isn't written in CoffeeScript (does that matter?), so I'm wondering how I'd go about mixing both CoffeeScript and JavaScript in my application... is it as simple as just mixing the two and letting Hem (which is what actually triggers the CoffeeScript to get compiled to JavaScript, right?) figure things out during compilation from CoffeeScript to JavaScript? Or is it something where I need to use special tags in my CoffeeScript when mixing in JavaScript?

I've Googled around for some examples of such a thing but to no avail... please advise.

Bryan
  • 2,205
  • 1
  • 23
  • 43
  • 1
    Just figure out how to write coffeescript that compiles to javascript that talks to your third party API properly. This involves actually understanding the isomorphism between coffeescript and javascript. If you know javascript this is trivial – Raynos Jan 19 '12 at 04:15
  • Raynos, thank you for your comment. It actually caused me to rethink the way I was Googling for information about this and I was then able to find some examples. – Bryan Jan 19 '12 at 16:09
  • You can also use [js2coffee](http://js2coffee.org/) to see what valid javascript is like in coffeescript – Raynos Jan 19 '12 at 16:09

2 Answers2

4

There should not be a problem. Coffeescript compiles down to JavaScript (and in a much more straight-forward way then, say, GWT). What the browser will see is just JavaScript.

You can just call Javascript from Coffeescript and vice-versa.

Do not mix the same in one file (have some .coffee and some .js files).

Make sure you understand how Coffeescript compiles (by default) into modules wrapped into their own scopes, and how to export symbols from them if needed.

I'm wanting to use a JavaScript graphing library in the application that I'm pretty sure isn't written in CoffeeScript (does that matter?)

Nope, does not matter at all. You can call that library from CoffeeScript just as easily as you can from other JavaScript.

figure things out during compilation from CoffeeScript to JavaScript?

When you compile CoffeeScript, it does not check if functions that it calls exist or not (that happens at run-time). So the compiler only looks at the .coffee files, and does not need to care about the other files in your project.

Thilo
  • 257,207
  • 101
  • 511
  • 656
  • 1
    Yep. CoffeeScript is for developers, and browsers have no idea you are using it. To quote the coffee script site: _The golden rule of CoffeeScript is: "It's just JavaScript". The code compiles one-to-one into the equivalent JS, and there is no interpretation at runtime. You can use any existing JavaScript library seamlessly from CoffeeScript (and vice-versa)._ – Alex Wayne Jan 19 '12 at 06:43
  • This quote is one thing, the practise is another. In Rails I can't mix JS with CoffeeScript because I get this: http://stackoverflow.com/a/9011182/504845 There are lots of answers telling me that I shouldn't mix JS and CS. I don't unserstand it. – Nowaker Jan 29 '12 at 22:41
  • 1
    @DamianNowak: You should not mix JS and CS *in the same file*. Also, some build tools like Rails may have limited support for using CS or mixing both, but that is not a problem with Coffeescript itself. Usually, you want to write all your code in Coffeescript, and JS will be used for third-party or legacy library code (both of which can usually be included as separate files). – Thilo Jan 30 '12 at 01:38
-2

first use unquote "`" to wrap your js code when your want to insert js to cs,like this:

`var ajax=new Ajax();`
do ajax.send

but this is not a good practice.

second: there a lot of libs which let you write .coffee only but service .js file for client.go ahead https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/Build-tools to find out.

island205
  • 1,730
  • 17
  • 28