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TypeScript Won

medium.com

21–30 of 128 posts

Re: TypeScript Won

#21
I could quibble with the conflation of correlation w/ causation for a lot of the comments this post makes about es6/babel or coffeescript.

But each time i re-read this post, the cohesive point that pops out most is that this post is basically a Donald Trump speech about Typescript.

The claim is that it's bigger, it's better, and everyone else is a bit sad. It disingenuously claims that it's not about about competition and then literally ends with "Typescript Won".

So, lemme offer some rhetorical advice:

1) pick to a POV & stick to it. It's a competition or it's not. You either think it's worth highlighting how much better Typescript is over other technologies, or you don't.

2) Most of the points made in the post aren't assertions about the benefits of Typescript or the decisions it makes. Not everyone agrees that the existence of a static type checker is an unqualified benefit (and there are many dimensions to that conversation). If you want to make the assertion that Typescript makes your life easier/better because it has a type checker, assert the benefits of having a type checker (and the decision making for AngularJS's adoption of Typescript on the basis of having a type checker could use a citation).

3) Related to 1., this post comes off as MEGA passive-aggressive because you keep on mentioning how much you also love other technologies at the same time talking about how they are inferior to Typescript on a variety of shifting bases. Because of that you're not telling a cohesive story about Typescript. You're just talking about how you think other technologies are bad.

Re: TypeScript Won

#22
No need to say TypeScript "won," we're all pushing JS forward and TS is just another tool in the toolbox. However, I'm glad to see it doing well especially since it felt like a big risk for us at Ionic to pick TypeScript (along with ng2). I've been happy with how positively received TS has been, which has been a bit of a surprise to me, honestly.

Re: TypeScript Won

#23
post #2

Does anyone here have bad things to say about TypeScript? I haven't used it for any large projects yet (couple toy ones) but seems pretty legit. Based on my anecdata, people who have used it at scale seems to like it. I can't tell if that's because they're still in the honeymoon phase or if it really is a step forward for the long term.

The things missing for me are:

1. partial application (bind is typed as 'any')

2. sum type destructuring

3. issues with recursive type definitions

But the Typescript team add new features very quickly so I wouldn't be surprised if these issues are solved in the future.

Re: TypeScript Won

#24
I bet we'll be seeing a lot more of Typescript in the next few years, seeing as it's the default language that is suggested in Angular 2's documentation. I find it odd that Dart wasn't the default language of choice for Angular 2 (although it is fully supported) seeing as Google is behind both projects. I think it really boils down to what the author wrote here: "Dart is not JavaScript. TypeScript is." At the end of the day more people are going to want to use what they are already more familiar with, and it's really not necessary to throw out years and years of progress we have made on JS.

Re: TypeScript Won

#25
post #2

Does anyone here have bad things to say about TypeScript? I haven't used it for any large projects yet (couple toy ones) but seems pretty legit. Based on my anecdata, people who have used it at scale seems to like it. I can't tell if that's because they're still in the honeymoon phase or if it really is a step forward for the long term.

The type definitions for some libraries aren't super fleshed out, which prevents you from doing some of the optimal styles possible with those libraries. I ran into problems with both lodash and ramda with TypeScript so far.

Other than those nuisances, I've grown to like using TypeScript a lot.

Re: TypeScript Won

#26
Is Typescript/Babel an either/or choice?

ES6 is non-negotiable. I understand the basic premise behind Typescript. Would I "switch" from Babel to Typescript and get arrow functions and string interpolation through Typescript somehow?

Re: TypeScript Won

#27
Wow this is such a strong title. There's no winning. Use the right tool for the right job.

Although every big project I take these days I prefer to write in TypeScript, I would honestly not use it if I have a small static landing page with an AJAX ticker or something. It would be overkill.

Re: TypeScript Won

#28
post #2

Does anyone here have bad things to say about TypeScript? I haven't used it for any large projects yet (couple toy ones) but seems pretty legit. Based on my anecdata, people who have used it at scale seems to like it. I can't tell if that's because they're still in the honeymoon phase or if it really is a step forward for the long term.

The type system is not that great and inference is quite limited. Definitions are not always existent or up to date and a single repo like definitelytyped is a terrible way to manage all the definitions.

The above sounds negative but TS is still the best bet right now imo. Some people will prefer Elm or Purescript for better type systems but I like staying close to JS.

Re: TypeScript Won

#29
post #26

Is Typescript/Babel an either/or choice? ES6 is non-negotiable. I understand the basic premise behind Typescript. Would I "switch" from Babel to Typescript and get arrow functions and string interpolation through Typescript somehow?

Yes, because Typescripts is 2 things:

* A language, superset of ES6 that adds optional types

* A compiler (like Babel) that will take your Typescript code, check if the types are correct, remove them, and transpile the non-ES5 parts of into ES5 (just like Babel).

So if you want to use Typescript-the-langage, you need Typescript-the-compiler and you will no longer need Babel.

Re: TypeScript Won

#30
TypeScript on JavaScript is like c# on CIL (.net common intermediate language). You are free to modernize the language as much as you want without breaking backwards compatibility. Not surprising Anders Hejlsberg is heavily involved in both. Great language.
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