A Word on altJS

A number of languages compile to JavaScript, making code easier to write. (You can find a fairly comprehensive list at http://altjs.org.) This book isn’t about them. It’s about writing the best JavaScript code we can without the use of a precompiler. I have nothing against altJS (see the next section), but I believe it’s important to understand the underlying language.

Some altJS languages are aimed specifically at “taming” async callbacks by allowing them to be written in a more synchronous style. I’ve included an overview of these languages in Appendix 1, ​Tools for Taming JavaScript​.

CoffeeScript

It’s no secret that I ♥ CoffeeScript, a beautiful and expressive language that compiles to JavaScript. I ...

Get Async JavaScript now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.