Jeremy Ashkenus: The Developer Who Transformed JavaScript

TechThe forgotten developer who saved JavaScript...

TL;DR

Jeremy Ashkenus single-handedly revolutionized JavaScript through underscore.js, CoffeeScript, and Backbone.js, transforming it from a universally despised language into a viable platform for serious application development.

Key Takeaways

1In 2009, JavaScript was poorly designed with no standard library, inconsistent browser support, and no established patterns for building large applications
2Underscore.js (2009) provided 60+ utility functions that filled critical gaps in JavaScript's standard library, eventually influencing official language features
3CoffeeScript (2010) created a cleaner syntax that compiled to JavaScript, introducing classes, arrow functions, and destructuring years before they became official standards
4Backbone.js (2010) was the first framework to bring MVC architecture to client-side JavaScript, enabling developers to build serious applications without code collapse
5Jeremy Ashkenus's innovations were so influential that their core ideas were absorbed into JavaScript itself and successor frameworks like React and Angular
6Modern JavaScript features (classes, arrow functions, default parameters, spread operators, template literals) owe their existence to CoffeeScript's proof of concept

Notable Quotes

“The JavaScript in 2009 was very different than it is today. There were no classes, so inheritance was done through a pattern where you'd manually attach properties to a hidden object called prototype.”

“For the first time, you could build a serious clientside app without it collapsing under its own weight.”

“It's easy to forget how bad JavaScript used to be, and even easier to forget the people who fixed it. But the modern web was built on top of ideas that Jeremy Ashkenus pioneered, even if no one remembers him.”

Chapters

1. JavaScript in 2009: A Language in Crisis

The speaker sets the context for why JavaScript desperately needed improvement in 2009, highlighting its lack of standard library, inconsistent browser support, prototype-based inheritance confusion, and ugly syntax requiring the word 'function' repeatedly.

2. Underscore.js: Filling the Standard Library Gap

Jeremy Ashkenus released underscore.js to provide 60+ utility helper functions for arrays and objects, solving the problem of browsers like Internet Explorer lacking standard array methods like map, reduce, and forEach.

3. CoffeeScript: Creating a Better Syntax

Instead of just augmenting JavaScript, Jeremy created CoffeeScript, a new language that compiled to JavaScript and fixed syntax problems like verbose function declarations, prototype-based inheritance, and variable scoping issues. It became the default in Rails 3.1 and was adopted by major companies like GitHub and Dropbox.

4. Backbone.js: Enabling Serious Client-Side Applications

Jeremy released Backbone.js in 2010 as a lightweight MVC framework for the front end, introducing models, collections, views, and event systems that allowed developers to build large client-side applications without code collapse. It powered early versions of Trello, Airbnb, and Pinterest.

5. Legacy and Obsolescence: Ideas Live On

While underscore.js, CoffeeScript, and Backbone.js are now obsolete, their core ideas were absorbed into modern JavaScript and frameworks like React and Angular, proving Jeremy's innovations fundamentally reshaped web development despite being forgotten.

Key People & Entities

Jeremy Ashkenus: Developer who created underscore.js, CoffeeScript, and Backbone.js, fundamentally transforming JavaScript development
Brendan Eich: Original creator of JavaScript, designed the language in 10 days
DHH: Co-founder of Basecamp who adopted CoffeeScript early and shipped it as default in Rails 3.1
Clerk: Authentication platform sponsor providing CLI tools for setting up end-to-end authentication

Glossary

Polyfill: Code that implements a feature for browsers that don't natively support it, allowing developers to use modern functionality across older browsers
Prototype-based Inheritance: A JavaScript object model where inheritance is achieved by attaching properties to a prototype object, as opposed to class-based inheritance
MVC (Model-View-Controller): An architectural pattern that separates an application into three interconnected components: models (data), views (UI), and controllers (logic)
Hoisting: JavaScript behavior where variable and function declarations are moved to the top of their scope during compilation, regardless of where they appear in the code
Type Coercion: The automatic conversion of one data type to another in JavaScript, often causing unexpected behavior when comparing values
Client-side Application: Web application where significant processing logic and state management occurs in the browser rather than on the server

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