Advantages of CoffeeScript When Working with jQuery Templates

Working with jQuery Templates in CoffeeScript is very similar to working with them in JavaScript. However, there are a couple of CoffeeScript features that can make it even easier.

Here's a simple example (based on an example in the jQuery Template documentation):


As you can see, it's pretty similar to its JavaScript counterpart.

How can CoffeeScript make this better?

Enter Heredoc and String Interpolation...

Heredoc: Heredocs allow you to specify multi-line, formatted text. This can be useful when defining the template markup.

With heredocs, the markup from the previous example changes to this:


String Interpolation: CoffeeScript also provides Ruby style string interpolation. Here's an example of the markup after taking advantage of the string interpolation feature (Note: String interpolation only occurs within double-quoted strings and double-quoted heredocs):


Want to see it in action?

Go to http://tinkerbin.com/w0QoscT9, change the JavaScript Format drop down to CoffeeScript, then click the Run button.