If you write a project for yourself, or develop a startup or an MVP it's often not worth it.
Late-binding dynamically typed languages are underrated, if you can hold the mental picture of types in tour working memory, that is.
Ask HN: Is TypeScript worth it?
11–20 of 469 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is TypeScript worth it?
#12It's lipstick on a pig, and yet another layer of complexity on top of the myriad of modern web development.
The solution to better web development is staying as far away from JavaScript as possible, not polishing what is frankly a turd.
I think it's masochism to have a Javascript project that big that benefits from strict typing.
Re: Ask HN: Is TypeScript worth it?
#13I don't like Typescript. I just like it more than Javascript.
Re: Ask HN: Is TypeScript worth it?
#14i) TS isn't a framework. And you don't have to use it everywhere in your system. You can decide how heavily to leverage it, developing a 'core' TS subset that powers a broader JS layer (or the opposite, or something different)
ii) Lots of libraries are extremely well documented and typed. This is the same in any language not just for types but also for docs, capability, perf etc. This argument applies to all software everywhere so it doesn't make sense to single out TS
iii) Error messages can sometimes be hard to follow. But you get better at parsing them very quickly when they get gnarly.
iv) Transpilation is nearly always a required step anyway. Adding TS support is minimal. There are plenty of tools that do TS to JS on an order of magnitude of MS.
All decisions are tradeoffs.
What benefits does it bring (ignoring the biggest one of them all)?
TS makes it easier to maintain software across large teams by providing a mechanism to express relationships in a codebase.
They are self documenting and replace a lot of JSDoc needs (letting you focus docs on more useful info like intent, design choices, example usage, etc).
Types can also replace the majority of unit tests validating code is correct saving time on running fewer unit tests and letting devs focus on integration tests.
Lastly, I've never seen or experienced something breaking from upgrading the Typescript version in a project. Even when a TS upgrade has 'breaking changes' they never actually break anything in practice that I've seen.
Re: Ask HN: Is TypeScript worth it?
#15> It's a framework, with all the usual framework downsides > For example, a new package you install can require a new TypesScript version. Once installed, you then may need to update your source code. This can place quite a high tax on the developer, where perhaps a 10 minute change becomes hours long. No. It's a language compiler. You can upgrade it safely without changing a single line in your codebase. If there is…
> No. It's a language compiler. You can upgrade it safely without changing a single line in your codebase. If there is a breaking change (sometimes, regarding the strictness) there's also a configuration option that lets you keep the previous behavior.
I am currently stuck on a very difficult issue because of a TypeScript upgrade. The upgrade caused a type mismatch with a dependency that wasn't previously an issue, and due to the lack of documentation on that dependency I am currently trawling through source code.
> And so you're going to lose any and all typing as your solution? I don't understand. Undocumented but typed >>> undocumented and untyped.
No documentation of types means going into source code to see what is there. Sometimes there could be multiple types that could be used for something, and it's not clear which should be used. Most libraries have clear docs to show me how to use a function, I'll take that any day over the uncertainty of which type may be correct in many places in my codebase.
> Doesn't matter. Use SWC or esbuild for sub-100ms compilation times. Your CI is a long running job due to tests and lint anyways. Nobody is writing pure uncompiled JS these days - you can't use NPM libraries that way, so there's always some (Web)pack step. I haven't seen a single developer who liked having to care about browser versions and wants to go back to that - but if you add a compilation step you get that for free and can write the latest and greatest.
Not arguing for no transpilation though browser compatibility isn't much of an issue these days unless you are using some super new features of the language (the reason is more about bundling the code together and jsx as far as I understand). I am arguing that each transpilation step adds yet more config that needs to be built, understood and maintained. TypeScript is probably the worst offender, almost as much work as maintaining another webpack config in your projects.
Re: Ask HN: Is TypeScript worth it?
#16I don't have a lot to add except that my experience with it has been very positive; your complaints are mostly valid, but for me those pain points disappear in the shadow of all the things I no longer have to spend time stressing about or debugging
So much this.
If you’re learning JavaScript or any components of the language, you’re better off just starting with typescript (given the technical acumen up front).
It’s absolutely a no brainer, long term roi. If presented the opportunity to integrate or use now vs later.
The community is also very active, and it’s under Microsoft - and has been well maintained and quite active. Lots of libraries.
Re: Ask HN: Is TypeScript worth it?
#17I won't defend TypeScript. Mainly because I'm not interested in doing such a thing; I don't like it that much, clearly not enough to care. But even so, I will say a couple of things about your arguments. Regarding i) , no, it's not a framework. But then again, I don't think that's what your argument expresses anyway. You seem to be saying "it's yet another dependency you need to keep up with". This would be correct a…
Regarding iv), I disagree that one should not expect this to happen. There's a stage 1 ES proposal for allowing TS-like syntax in the browser: https://github.com/tc39/proposal-type-annotations So there's good reason to believe this may actually happen in the next couple of years.
Re: Ask HN: Is TypeScript worth it?
#18If you are doing JS then you should certainly be using Typescript.
The best choice however is to simply use a better ecosystem entirely.
IMO JVM+Kotlin is great general purpose combo, Rust is good if you don't write the sort of code that needs GC'd structures, etc. Between those two I rarely need to consider anything else.
Re: Ask HN: Is TypeScript worth it?
#19The answer to "is {{tool}} worth it" is almost always "sometimes"
Typescript is a wonderful tool for many situations. Typescript may not be needed for all situations. There's upfront cost to configuration and tooling. But you get type safety and automatic documentation.
In all my new non-trivial projects, I default to typescript. It has caught so many issues and saved me a lot of time. Not having it feels like driving without a rear-view mirror. But, if I'm just writing a little script, I might omit it.
Re: Ask HN: Is TypeScript worth it?
#20I find TypeScript very helpful! As a self taught developer I always used to just use JavaScript, but after joining a big company and working with TypeScript I prefer it now. I like how I always know "what's in the box" now when working with different objects and whatnot.