That's a great point. It's possible it didn't occur to me because most of the 'raw' javascript libraries I've looked at seem pretty ugly already - I didn't think of compiled coffeescript as looking much worse. But it really does.

Since the coffeescript compiler is self-hosted and compiles to the target, at least that dependency seems like a non-issue.

And, frankly, that's about enough for me.

But the other - and probably more important one:
It gets compiled into.

Some higher level, less nasty thing (C, CoffeeScript, Dart, Java, Clojure, whatever) gets compiled into something (asm, javascript, bytecode) that runs on your chosen platform (x86, ARM, web browser, node, JVM).

The assembly equivalents in this case are ASM, javascript, bytecode.

Sure, javascript is a high level language. Someone once thought of assembly as high level when compared to machine code.

It's pretty easy to think of bytecode as the assembly of the JVM. Not much of a stretch to think of javascript as the assembly of the web, if you think of it as a crappy low level language that you'd rather not deal with - which I do.

Maybe that's just my tastes and vivid imagination...

I understand not liking coffeescript - to each their own.

But I don't understand the dependency thing. coffeescript compiles 100% to javascript. Why do you care what it was written in?

I was speaking to a friend of mine the other day, who said "Don't you find it bizarre that Javascript has become the assembly language of the web?"

And that's just it: I think javascript sucks, and I avoid it whenever possible. Instead I use CoffeeScript, which I find unobjectionable. Sure, it "compiles" into javascript - and I don't much care.

I pointed out that I never really learned assembly when I was cutting my teeth (decades ago), and so I really didn't care what was down there. It's kind of nice that I know enough Javascript to debug tricky issues when the need arrises.

I thought that coding in assembly sucked, too - still do. The higher the language, the more I tend to like it. Besides CoffeeScript, I'm keeping an eye on Dart.

So, yeah, it's bizarre that javascript has become the assembly of the web world. But it runs all over the place because it runs all over the place. Whatever. As long as there's something better to write code in than javascript, it doesn't bother me...

That seems about as likely as "the degenerates" deciding that since marriage is no longer just between man and woman that they should be able to marry their dog (to quote a sometimes used argument in favor of things like DOMA).

ie. when it happens (and sure it probably would - because there is always someone in need of attention) the volume would be about 1/1,000,000 the marriage issue and pretty easy to ignore.

It's very easy to find a person of religious persuasion that will tell you that marriage is defined by God.

That's a large part of why we are in this mess.

If the government deals only with civil unions then the entire religious war issue is removed. The argument becomes mostly a personal religious issue instead of a civil issue.

Poof.

You can continue to argue that marriage can mean different things to different people and that we should all get along. Let me know how that works out for you.

What's more, if your roof (for example) can only hold 20 modules, it may be worthwhile for you to get 9% of the energy even if it costs you 5 times what the 3% module would cost.

If you have unlimited space, limited funds, and limited power demands, then you go for the 3% solution.

Art is as many things as there are things. But I guess I like a little entertainment in my art, too :-)

Carnival. Inspire young people.

How much of drawing and painting is describing our surroundings? How much of science is not that same thing at a different level? Is there any overlap?

How much is music steeped in math? What is not steeped in math? Why would you not use music to appeal to someone's mathematical curiosity?

I, for one, am happy to have a little entertainment in my education.

States are passing laws. I have to think that the NHTSA has noticed. And even if they haven't said anything good about 'em, they haven't said anything forbidding 'em, either.

I don't get it. You're saying that having more computer controlled cars on the road is going to make it harder for computer controlled cars to function? Why?

It's true, and it would sure be interesting to know how often that happens. But 300K miles is a pretty awesome track record for any driver under any circumstances.

I believe that snow/sleet/ice are known issues, and google is avoiding 'em for now.

As for the difference between sanfran, ny, and boston - they don't feel all that different to me.

Of the things you mentioned, I have to think that construction is one of the oddest cases - and vegas is no stranger to that.

But the point is: they're on the roads, now. And they're doing really well. And it is a technology in its infancy.

To believe "it's never gonna happen" seems pretty foolish to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_driverless_car

More miles than most drivers rack up in 20 years, and without having caused an accident. Laws passed in 3 states.

This is a lot closer than positive net output fusion, for example.

I think chargers are a pretty reasonable solution to a relatively rare problem: how to recharge your car when you want to drive more than a couple of hundred miles at a stretch.

What's more, the batteries weigh quite a bit (http://www.roperld.com/science/TeslaModelS.htm) 1200lbs for the S. Anyone can plug a car in. 1200lbs of battery would be a bit rough to handle. Even 1/10th that would be too much to deal with.