Maybe I'm just feeling cynical this morning but I don't understand why the OP came to his conclusion. I read it as him making a bunch of mistakes which led him to conclude he shouldn't use CoffeeScript.
He took on a large project on short notice with a tight deadline, browser compatibility issues, and growing requirements (client is a big company after all) using a language he's "not terribly confident with". This alone is a really Bad Idea. But I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he recognizes this in hindsight and felt he could handle it at the time.
Then he decides to do it in CoffeeScript, something he has never used before. It seems he had expectations that CS was much more heavy handed, providing library-like code structure and compensating for his lack of JS knowledge. Mistake #2.
He finds a bug and some other small annoyances. This is understandable. There are some things about CS that annoy me too. Every language has its problems. I suppose this alone could be enough to drive someone away from a language. Personally I find the trade offs worth it for increased productivity, but that's just my opinion.
His conclusion about CoffeeScript is that "it just doesn’t feel quite robust enough (as a language or as a tool) that I’m confident in it at this sort of scale, and at smaller scales it doesn’t confer enough benefit to be worth the added complexity." Again, problems with confidence.
My suggestion? Be confident with JavaScript first, then use CoffeeScript. Not understanding the underlying language is just going to lead to problems like this.
He took on a large project on short notice with a tight deadline, browser compatibility issues, and growing requirements (client is a big company after all) using a language he's "not terribly confident with". This alone is a really Bad Idea. But I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he recognizes this in hindsight and felt he could handle it at the time.
Then he decides to do it in CoffeeScript, something he has never used before. It seems he had expectations that CS was much more heavy handed, providing library-like code structure and compensating for his lack of JS knowledge. Mistake #2.
He finds a bug and some other small annoyances. This is understandable. There are some things about CS that annoy me too. Every language has its problems. I suppose this alone could be enough to drive someone away from a language. Personally I find the trade offs worth it for increased productivity, but that's just my opinion.
His conclusion about CoffeeScript is that "it just doesn’t feel quite robust enough (as a language or as a tool) that I’m confident in it at this sort of scale, and at smaller scales it doesn’t confer enough benefit to be worth the added complexity." Again, problems with confidence.
My suggestion? Be confident with JavaScript first, then use CoffeeScript. Not understanding the underlying language is just going to lead to problems like this.