Jeremy Ashkenas is an American programmer known for creating CoffeeScript, Backbone.js, and Underscore.js. His work in the early 2010s shaped JavaScript development and influenced the language’s evolution.
DocumentCloud
Ashkenas created his major projects while at DocumentCloud, a tool for journalists to analyze documents. Building complex document analysis UIs drove the need for both a better JavaScript syntax and structured application architecture.
Creating CoffeeScript
CoffeeScript (2009) addressed JavaScript’s syntax pain points with Ruby and Python-inspired improvements. Its popularity demonstrated developer demand for features that JavaScript later adopted in ES6.
Creating Backbone.js
Backbone (2010) provided minimal structure for JavaScript applications: models, views, collections, and routers. It was one of the first client-side MVC frameworks and influenced all frameworks that followed.
Creating Underscore.js
Underscore.js provided utility functions for working with collections, objects, and functions. It became a foundation for JavaScript development until lodash and native methods supplanted it.
Legacy
Ashkenas’s projects shared a philosophy: provide what JavaScript lacked with minimal overhead. All three projects eventually became less necessary as JavaScript evolved—perhaps the highest compliment to their influence.