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TypeScript 5.0

devblogs.microsoft.com

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Re: TypeScript 5.0

#2
Without Angular, we may very well not have TypeScript today.

The top thing listed in this release (TypeScript doesn't follow semver, btw) is about Decorators. I find the whole story about Angular's role in TypeScript early days to be very fascinating because I don't hear people talk about it anymore (just search "AtScript TypeScript" if you weren't around at the time). It was the Angular team that forced Decorators to be added when it was still stage 0. In exchange, they forfeited continued work on their would-be competitor to TypeScript.

Even without the Decorators thing, Angular was intensely popular and it made a big impact how they went "all in" on TypeScript, pushing a lot of early adoption. I know lots of people that first started with TypeScript because of work on an Angular project.

I think a lot of people don't seem to know/remember how touch-and-go TypeScript was in the very early days. There were many large projects that were all-in on FlowType, and others still that were pushing for Elm, etc. For example, it took quite a while for you to be able to do JSX _at all_.

Today, we just have TypeScript. Well. I do know one company that uses ReasonML (or isn't it called Rescript now?)

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Historical stuff aside, I'm extremely happy we ended up with TypeScript over the others because the team is so incredibly awesome and dedicated. It's rare you see such a large project so well shepherded by such a talented set of individuals. It speaks volumes that the average tenure on that team is so high. We've seen some public apologies from the Flow team on this topic so I don't feel like I'm talking behind anyone's back if I say they ended up truly not being up to the task of being what TypeScript is today.

Re: TypeScript 5.0

#3
> But if you’re already familiar with TypeScript, have no fear! 5.0 is not a disruptive release, and everything you know is still applicable.

Do you know what caused the typescript team to make it a major release? Has the decorator api changed sufficiently to become a breaking change?

Re: TypeScript 5.0

#4
Congrats to the Typescript team.

The rate of innovation from them is really impressive.

Fantastic to finally see Decorators shed their "experimental" label (they've been the stable backbone of Angular for years).

Re: TypeScript 5.0

#5
> How? There are a few notable improvements we’d like to give more details on in the future. But we won’t make you wait for that blog post.

the typescript project continues to set the bar extremely high in terms of changelog and clear communication. love you so much, drosenwasser and co!!

> Decorators are an upcoming ECMAScript feature that allow us to customize classes and their members in a reusable way.

huh. i thought this was a bit early to do this but i checked (https://github.com/tc39/proposal-decorators) and looks like they've moved to stage 3. curious how this is going to change library/api design in the long term.

Re: TypeScript 5.0

#6

Without Angular, we may very well not have TypeScript today. The top thing listed in this release (TypeScript doesn't follow semver, btw) is about Decorators. I find the whole story about Angular's role in TypeScript early days to be very fascinating because I don't hear people talk about it anymore (just search "AtScript TypeScript" if you weren't around at the time). It was the Angular team that forced Decorators t…

[deleted]

Re: TypeScript 5.0

#7
Question, is there anything decorators can do that higher order functions and higher order classes cannot already accomplish?

I typically dislike decorators because they are spooky action at a distance, and whenever I look at code in a language that has decorators, the code almost becomes a DSL of sorts.

Not that HoF and HoC don't tend towards the same problems, React used to be famous for how often HoC got used in the ecosystem and the confusion that caused!

Re: TypeScript 5.0

#8

Without Angular, we may very well not have TypeScript today. The top thing listed in this release (TypeScript doesn't follow semver, btw) is about Decorators. I find the whole story about Angular's role in TypeScript early days to be very fascinating because I don't hear people talk about it anymore (just search "AtScript TypeScript" if you weren't around at the time). It was the Angular team that forced Decorators t…

One of my most regretted decisions was evaluating Flow vs Typescript and going with Flow. Years later I had the opportunity to use Typescript and it was so nice comparatively. I've enjoyed it ever since. Of course, that was with years of development in its belt so maybe the experience wouldn't have been as nice if I went with it originally.

Re: TypeScript 5.0

#9
post #3

> But if you’re already familiar with TypeScript, have no fear! 5.0 is not a disruptive release, and everything you know is still applicable. Do you know what caused the typescript team to make it a major release? Has the decorator api changed sufficiently to become a breaking change?

Typescript always goes from version x.9 to (x+1).0. Please also note that TypeScript does not claim to strictly follow semver.

Re: TypeScript 5.0

#10

Without Angular, we may very well not have TypeScript today. The top thing listed in this release (TypeScript doesn't follow semver, btw) is about Decorators. I find the whole story about Angular's role in TypeScript early days to be very fascinating because I don't hear people talk about it anymore (just search "AtScript TypeScript" if you weren't around at the time). It was the Angular team that forced Decorators t…

I remember this well.

From the outside, it seemed a fantastic example of collaboration between two separate (competing?) teams. It took humility and pragmatism for the Angular team to abandon AtScript and recognise TS as the better long-term bet.

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