As I mentioned in a previous post, I recent learnt about CoffeeScript, a quick way of writing nice clean Javascript. The CoffeeScript website has instructions for installing the compiler, first requiring installation of Node.js, which a lot of tutorials show you how to install from Git, and also requiring NPM which is usually installed by curling a shell script directly into bash(!). On Ubuntu, the install process is much simpler and less ripe for security holes:

  1. Only required if running 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx): <pre>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chris-lea/node.js sudo apt-get update</pre>

  2. sudo apt-get install nodejs npm
sudo npm install -g coffeescript

Check that CoffeeScript is installed correctly by running

coffee -v