> It would be interesting to see what thought process 
    > went into deciding to include certain constructs. 

Happy to oblige. There's plenty of reading material and conversations about most language decisions available here:

https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/issues?direction=...

As to the existence of (optional) postfix "unless" and "if" -- does it also sound backwards to you when someone says:

    "Call your mother if it's her birthday."

... in English? If that doesn't sound so crazy, then consider the CoffeeScript:

    call mom if mom.birthday.isToday()

It's a little thing, that hopefully you can take advantage of to make short conditionals more readable then the JSLint-style JavaScript:

    if (mom.birthday.isToday()) { call(mom); }