kesh VS coffeescript

I have something similar in kesh, where : is the assignment operator and the type/signature may be "assigned" before the value:

I'm not OP, in case you thought that :) kesh lives here. I tried incorporating some of the ideas discussed here, but posponed it to a later language, which I'm still thinking about.

This is a great idea that I've adopted for my PL. I took it a step further and also allow extensions of the core language to be specified, including profiles.

My (non-existing) language kesh, designed to compile to TypeScript, has expression blocks. That was one of my first decisions.

Still no work on a compiler, but more work on the documentation of kesh.

I'm working on kesh, but it's only at the design stage. I have tried to make it simple yet powerful, so I thought I'd mention it even though you can't use it.

I tried to distill down the most essential features of TS/JS (functional, prototypal) and then come up with new syntax and semantics that was minimal, orthogonal and hopefully easy to learn and use. The result is kesh and na.

I like the way you think. I had the same goal with kesh. A minimal syntax is easier on the eye and lets you focus on the actual code.

I'm only at the drawing board stage of kesh, a simple little PL that one day might possibly transpile to TypeScript. Not a single line of compiler code has been written so far, it's still all about syntax design and exploring ideas. kesh is mostly a pastime activity and something I can ponder over when I'm bored or can't sleep (which may be the reason I can't sleep).

That said, there are ways to embrace the JS ecosystem without actually using JavaScript. Many popular languages have transpilers that will convert code written in that particular language into something that will run natively in a web browser (in other words, JavaScript). Even TypeScript is a language that gets transpiled into JavaScript, so it's not that outrageous of a concept, it just gets more difficult to do the further you get away from languages that don't already look like JavaScript.

As a front-end web developer, do you still use CoffeeScript or jQuery? Unlikely, as TypeScript, ES/TC39 and Babel (and the retirement of Internet Explorer thanks to @codepo8 and his EDGE team) have helped to transform JavaScript into some kind of a modern programming language.

CoffeeScript

On the other hand, companies choose React because that's where all the developers are. If you want to build something that can be maintained years from now, you better not choose the next hype train that goes straight to nowhere (remember CoffeeScript ?). You want something battle tested that has stood the test of time, where you won't have trouble finding developers to scale once you need to. And nobody ever got fired for choosing React.