I wanted to take a break from my usual .Net and Drupal stuff for a weekend, and try to learn something new. So I started reading Jump Start CoffeeScript today. CoffeeScript is a language, somewhat similar to Python in terms of syntax, that compiles into JavaScript. In theory, it makes JavaScript easier to use, and easier to read. I’m not entirely sold on it yet, but it’s interesting.
The book I’m reading is supposed to be a quick start, that you can get through in a weekend. It walks you through a sample application, an HTML5 game. I’m finding the sample code less useful than I’d like. It’s mostly drawing on the HTML5 canvas. I think I’d rather see code doing more typical stuff that you’d see being done on a typical web site. It’s hard to relate the canvas stuff to anything I’ve actually done before.
That said, it’s a pretty well-written book, and kind of fun. I had hoped to finish it tomorrow, but it looks like I need to take a trip into NYC tomorrow, and I’ll have company, so I won’t be reading on the train. And I’m working on New Year’s Eve, but maybe I can finish it on New Year’s Day!