js2coffee: JavaScript to CoffeeScript written in CoffeeScript

A few weeks back we talked with Sam Stephenson on episode 0.6.4 about JavaScript and CoffeeScript as well as many other things such as Pow, the Rails 3.1 asset pipeline and 37signals’ (yet to be released) Cinco.

During the call, I had mentioned that I’ve been learning more JavaScript but was wondering if someone should just bypass JavaScript and learn CoffeeScript or if he could share any tips or resources to learning the two in parallel.

Well, js2coffee, a project of Rico Sta. Cruz, can help you do that. js2coffee compiles JavaScript code into CoffeeScript so you can write some code as you learn and compile it to CoffeeScript to see both codes side by side. Of course you can also migrate your JavaScript code over to CoffeeScript using js2coffee. It’s got a fantastically simple web interface and is also available as a Node.JS module.

Installation

npm install js2coffee

Check out the source on GitHub and the website to try it out for yourself.