How to create simple coffescript example without rails

Question

I am new to coffeescript. I saw a coffeescript video in Rails casts.com. From that episode I understand how to convert the normal Js and Jquery to coffeescript code and the usage of coffeescript.

I am trying to create a coffeescript example without rails. I wetn through the coffeescript site. They first install Node.js. I tried to install node.js in windows and ubuntu, but I had failures. I followed the instruction as per this site:

http://howtonode.org/how-to-install-nodejs#ubuntu

For ubuntu I got "bash: ./configure?: No such file or directory" error when I execute the following command

./configure

Can anyone help me to create simple coffescript example without rails?

One more thing - In Mac "By the help of homebrew I can see the compiled js of coffescript code through compiled and Display Js window". Are there any options available in windows and ubuntu?

Answer 1

I would bet the easiest way to install Node.js on Ubuntu is through APT:

$ sudo apt-get install nodejs

It probably will get some outdated version but it can be enough for some tests.

If you prefer the latest version (which is a reasonable preference), I bet it would be easier to install Node.js from the dist package. Just copy and paste this on terminal:

wget http://nodejs.org/dist/node-v0.5.0.tar.gz && \
tar zvxf node-v0.5.0.tar.gz && \
cd node-v0.5.0 && \
./configure && \
make && \
sudo make install

This line will:

• download the latest Node.js source code with wget http://nodejs.org/dist/node-v0.5.0.tar.gz
• uncompress the downloaded source code with tar zvxf node-v0.5.0.tar.gz
• enter into the source code with cd node-v0.5.0
• set the build parameters with ./configure
• effectively build the Node.js executable with make
• install the built Node.js in your path with sudo make install

The && means "execute the next command if the previous command succeeds" (for example wget http://nodejs.org/dist/node-v0.5.0.tar.gz && tar zvxf node-v0.5.0.tar.gz means that we will download the package with wget and iff the download succeeds we will unpack the download file with tar . The backslashes ( \ ) are here for allowing us to break all the series of commands in more than one line because, by default, we would have a big line:

wget http://nodejs.org/dist/node-v0.5.0.tar.gz && tar zvxf node-v0.5.0.tar.gz && cd node-v0.5.0 && ./configure && make &&  sudo make install

Then, you can install npm with this simple command, found in the own npm github page :

$ curl http://npmjs.org/install.sh | sudo sh

With npm , it will be too easy to install coffee, as you can see in the CoffeeScript page :

$ npm install coffee-script

Now, just run your tests:

$ coffee
coffee> a = key: 'value'
{ key: 'value' }
coffee> a.key
'value'

Does it look like to much work? You can try CoffeeScript in the language page . Just click in "Try CoffeeScript" and a console will appear to you.

Answer 2

For testing and demo purposes it may be sufficient to have your CoffeeScript compiled directly in browser. You can include the CoffeeScript compiler and your code in a tag.

This method is not efficient though so please use it for playing around.

Please see this section on how to set things up:

"text/coffeescript" Script Tags

Good luck!

Answer 3

Ubuntu 11.10 has an up-to-date package for CoffeeScript .

sudo apt-get install coffeescript