Soldering the pins in then requires getting soldering iron onto the top of the pins, but that path is blocked by the ESP8266. It's do-able, but considerably less pleasant than the other way around.
Espruino is a JavaScript interpreter for low-power Microcontrollers. This site is both a support community for Espruino and a place to share what you are working on.
I'm doing it just like you show here: http://www.espruino.com/ESP8266
Soldering the pins in then requires getting soldering iron onto the top of the pins, but that path is blocked by the ESP8266. It's do-able, but considerably less pleasant than the other way around.