JavaScript libraries should be written in TypeScript • Hacker News Board

Re: JavaScript libraries should be written in TypeScript

#151

Post by nothrabannosir » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 3:26 PM UTC

Hurtak wrote: post #142

radicalbyte wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used TypeScript? Try it out for a month or two on a real project. It's the best thing that has happened to web development in recent years - it improves Javascript in a completely compatible and future proof way. The most amazing thing is that Microsoft created it. It's the polar opposite of Old Microsoft - standards are being followed (not subverted), it's simple pragmatic and has no lock-in.

Is TypeScript really future proof? I mean unless types, exactly implemented as they are in TypeScript, will become part of the spec, we can't really call it future proof. Also how is it compatible with anything, JavaScript is compatible with TypeScript, since TypeScript is superset of JS, but it is not compatible the other way around.

Yes, it is. Compiling TS just removes type annotations; the compilation output (.js) is as readable as your original .ts. It has the same structure, same indentation, same variable names, same whitespace, same comments, same everything. This also makes debugging the code in the browser very easy.

TS does not add any semantic features, it only adds type annotations. Which it checks at compile time, and then removes. That's it.

Want to switch away from TS? Compile all your .ts files, save the .js, check that into your repo and continue from there.

(As other commenters sort-of pointed out: you will need to keep Babel in your pipeline.)

Re: JavaScript libraries should be written in TypeScript

#152

Post by mythz » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 3:27 PM UTC

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #90

icholy wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reads like knee-jerk reaction from someone who's never tried TypeScript.

I've used it but never in a serious project. Like I said when it can be compiled into WebAssembly then count me in I'll certainly give it another shot. But until then I just don't want to deal with an, albiet probably rare but possible, transpiling bug. Plus there is huge value, in my opinion, in writing an API in the same language it's going to be consumed in. It lets me dogfood more effectively and write better, re…

This is a biased and uninformative opinion. You haven't seriously tried it, yet you're already strongly against it and your biases suggest there are obscure transpiling bugs when I've yet to see any in practice. Had you used it for any length of time you would've noticed it catches several bugs which you otherwise wouldn't discover until runtime.

You're also waiting for the "magical" WebAssembly target that makes everything better, but instead WebAssembly would end up generating much more unreadable code that runs much slower for JavaScript which already benefits from highly optimized JS VM's in Browsers. It would also much larger in size as it would require embedding its own GC and be littered with numerous type-checks in order to support a highly dynamic language like JavaScript.

Re: JavaScript libraries should be written in TypeScript

#153

Post by webbore » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 3:35 PM UTC

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #48

Absolutely not. This is the opposite of what you should do in my opinion. If you're writing an API to be consumed in language X then you need to write the API itself in language X. This will help you capture and handle edge cases, language idiosyncrasies and other similar issues the way you want. Using a different language that gets transpiled into a target language also increases your surface area for bugs because n…

I do quite a bit of library development in TypeScript and one of the biggest wins is with new developers doing their first non-trivial bug fix or refactoring. The compiler has saved us from introducing all sorts of edge-case bugs because it catches downstream impacts that developers who are not intimately familiar with all of the code can introduce. A nice bonus feature is single line jsDoc comments replacing giant blocks of descriptive text.

Re: JavaScript libraries should be written in TypeScript

#154

Post by minionslave » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 3:38 PM UTC

Hurtak wrote: post #142

radicalbyte wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used TypeScript? Try it out for a month or two on a real project. It's the best thing that has happened to web development in recent years - it improves Javascript in a completely compatible and future proof way. The most amazing thing is that Microsoft created it. It's the polar opposite of Old Microsoft - standards are being followed (not subverted), it's simple pragmatic and has no lock-in.

Is TypeScript really future proof? I mean unless types, exactly implemented as they are in TypeScript, will become part of the spec, we can't really call it future proof. Also how is it compatible with anything, JavaScript is compatible with TypeScript, since TypeScript is superset of JS, but it is not compatible the other way around.

It is, you just need to define a d.ts file. I was able to use plain jquery with typescript. Check out DefinitelyTyped. It's a project that makes it easy.

Re: JavaScript libraries should be written in TypeScript

#155

Post by echelon » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 3:38 PM UTC

awjr wrote: post #131

radicalbyte wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used TypeScript? Try it out for a month or two on a real project. It's the best thing that has happened to web development in recent years - it improves Javascript in a completely compatible and future proof way. The most amazing thing is that Microsoft created it. It's the polar opposite of Old Microsoft - standards are being followed (not subverted), it's simple pragmatic and has no lock-in.

I cannot vote this up enough. It really is such a different experience to developing in "plain" JavaScript.

It's so much more pleasant to write and maintain than wild, un(type)safe javascript.

Re: JavaScript libraries should be written in TypeScript

#156

Post by BinaryIdiot » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 3:39 PM UTC

nteon wrote: post #134

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used it but never in a serious project. Like I said when it can be compiled into WebAssembly then count me in I'll certainly give it another shot. But until then I just don't want to deal with an, albiet probably rare but possible, transpiling bug. Plus there is huge value, in my opinion, in writing an API in the same language it's going to be consumed in. It lets me dogfood more effectively and write better, re…

Can you describe an example of a better, real-world unit test you have in mind? Do you also advocate against writing ES6 and using Babel?

> Can you describe an example of a better, real-world unit test you have in mind?

Considering the output is a JavaScript library people will be using it in that context more than with TypeScript and many of the others. So I don't have a specific real-world unit test example but in general your unit tests have to test the various ways people are going to use your API from the target language. So you'll need to make sure it behaves in the expected ways with valid and invalid input.

At the very least I'd expect unit tests to be written in JavaScript to hit a TypeScript library to help eliminate any weirdness that could have been missed.

> Do you also advocate against writing ES6 and using Babel?

Yup. ECMAScript 6 is great but the support is still not entirely there (especially in older browsers) and many of the transpilings are not quite equivalent. Granted Babel is pretty high quality (minus their whole decided not to ship any transpilers in the default package anymore) and I would expect it to be close enough. But after being bit by CoffeeScript so many years ago I'd rather not deal with transpilers and use the real thing when I can.

Coding in ECMAScript 5 is guaranteed compatible with ECMAScript 6, most web browsers and most versions of node. So I look at it like this: why add the extra complexity just for a few extra, nice, syntax improvements?

Re: JavaScript libraries should be written in TypeScript

#157

Post by nickbauman » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 3:43 PM UTC

vchynarov wrote: post #97

nickbauman wrote: post #79

People make basic mistakes routinely with types. Even with very sophisticated type systems, like the one used in Haskel. There's evidence that in rare cases where people could have been "helped" by a type system, the cost of finding and fixing such a bug is far lower than using a type system to enforce correctness in the first place. You will write automated tests whether you're using a type system or not.

I am hesitant to start the whole typed vs untyped debate here, but this is exactly what your comment is highlighting. Where does all this evidence come from? I have recently started using Scala and while initially the learning curve was quite high, I have been so happy to have such a comprehensive type system.

This is a more recent one: http://games.greggman.com/game/dynamic-typing-static-typing/

There's actually very little real research that has been done that proves or disproves whether static or dynamic typing is better. Anecdotally, I've spent most of my career using statically typed languages. One day I looked up and saw that I had spent most of the day trying to satisfy a compiler rather than having a compiler satisfy me. I've never really looked back. I program almost entirely in dynamic languages these days. Otherwise, I use Java, Swift and Go only when I'm forced to.

Re: JavaScript libraries should be written in TypeScript

#158

Post by jhall1468 » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 3:43 PM UTC

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #48

Absolutely not. This is the opposite of what you should do in my opinion. If you're writing an API to be consumed in language X then you need to write the API itself in language X. This will help you capture and handle edge cases, language idiosyncrasies and other similar issues the way you want. Using a different language that gets transpiled into a target language also increases your surface area for bugs because n…

What an odd argument. If you were writing a DLL for Windows would you expect the binary executable that's using it to be written in the same language?

Do you have an example of how writing something without types is supposed to help you capture edge cases? What are the idiosyncrasies of Javascript that can easily be caught in Javascript but NOT in Typescript?

WebAssembly adds massive layers of complexity that Typescript doesn't. You argue going from Typescript to Javascript is bad because, but Typescript to WebAssembly is good. One of this is vastly more complex and complicated, and it isn't TS to JS.

Re: JavaScript libraries should be written in TypeScript

#159

Post by bpicolo » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 3:46 PM UTC

radicalbyte wrote: post #130

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #48

Absolutely not. This is the opposite of what you should do in my opinion. If you're writing an API to be consumed in language X then you need to write the API itself in language X. This will help you capture and handle edge cases, language idiosyncrasies and other similar issues the way you want. Using a different language that gets transpiled into a target language also increases your surface area for bugs because n…

Have you used TypeScript? Try it out for a month or two on a real project. It's the best thing that has happened to web development in recent years - it improves Javascript in a completely compatible and future proof way. The most amazing thing is that Microsoft created it. It's the polar opposite of Old Microsoft - standards are being followed (not subverted), it's simple pragmatic and has no lock-in.

Have you used ClojureScript? Try it out for a month or two on a real project.

We can do this all day ;)

Re: JavaScript libraries should be written in TypeScript

#160

Post by thegayngler » Wed, Mar 16, 2016, 3:48 PM UTC

I've been down this path before. I used coffee script on a few projects. Every time I have to go down that path I end up having to write more complex code just to do basic things. This blows up the project timeline when I could've done the same things in basic javascript in a few minutes.

I read lets discard the benefits of writing javascript as javascript in favor of something else because of a few people refuse to learn javascript. If you don't want to learn the language of the web then maybe just maybe it's not for you.

I think people coming to javascript from statically typed languages need to stop trying to fight javascript or trying to force paradigms on javascript that don't need to exist/never meant to happen and instead embrace javascript as it is and with an open mind.