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TypeScript and the Road to 1.0

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Re: TypeScript and the Road to 1.0

#11

Post by k3n »

chrisoakman wrote: post #5

I couldn't be more underwhelmed by what TypeScript has to offer vs vanilla JavaScript or CoffeeScript. Reading through the marketing material from MS it seems like the entire value proposition is "statically typed languages make it easier to think about your program, also we added the class keyword so you don't feel lost" I suppose if you believe those claims or are really interested in using MS development tools, Ty…

Are TypeSscript and CoffeeScript really that much different?

From what I understood, they both basically solve the same problems, one just does it in a Ruby-esque style while the other does it in a C#-esque style.

Re: TypeScript and the Road to 1.0

#12

Post by sanxiyn »

jeswin wrote: post #10

Does optional typing really work? I've always felt (or presumed) that once you start putting types in, it kinda starts spreading everywhere and eventually will look like full static typing. I'd rather have tests than types. It is good to see people try different things though, so congrats on release.

Optional typing works. Why wouldn't it?

Re: TypeScript and the Road to 1.0

#13

Post by jeswin »

k3n wrote: post #8
haxorize wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not entirely true. While TypeScript is closely aligning itself with the proposed ES6 syntax for classes and modules, there is no expectation that ECMAScript will add optional static type checking. If you want statically typed JavaScript you are always going to need something like TypeScript. With that said, as ES6 evolves and becomes more widely supported there will be aspects of the TypeScript compiler that w…

> If you want statically typed JavaScript you are always going to need something like TypeScript. I think that is a valid statement only within the context of the next ECMA release. In other words, that's not to say that whichever successive version after ES6 can't include it, or any version thereafter.

You could make that argument about any missing feature. I haven't seen any serious support for optional typing in JS; so at this point it would be fair to say that GP is correct.

Re: TypeScript and the Road to 1.0

#14

Post by chrisoakman »

xtrumanx wrote: post #7
chrisoakman wrote: post #5

I couldn't be more underwhelmed by what TypeScript has to offer vs vanilla JavaScript or CoffeeScript. Reading through the marketing material from MS it seems like the entire value proposition is "statically typed languages make it easier to think about your program, also we added the class keyword so you don't feel lost" I suppose if you believe those claims or are really interested in using MS development tools, Ty…

> ...also we added the class keyword so you don't feel lost I believe EcmaScript 6 plans on adding the class keyword and TypeScript's implementation reflects the current draft of how classes in ES6 will work. > ...statically typed languages make it easier to think about your program... Out of curiosity, do you normally program using statically typed languages? If not, I can see why you would be underwhelmed. Then aga…

Not a huge fan of the class keyword in ES6 either...

I do not use statically typed languages and I have nothing against MSFT; I was solely commenting on TypeScript as a language.

Re: TypeScript and the Road to 1.0

#15

Post by sanxiyn »

chrisoakman wrote: post #5

I couldn't be more underwhelmed by what TypeScript has to offer vs vanilla JavaScript or CoffeeScript. Reading through the marketing material from MS it seems like the entire value proposition is "statically typed languages make it easier to think about your program, also we added the class keyword so you don't feel lost" I suppose if you believe those claims or are really interested in using MS development tools, Ty…

Well, value proposition is error messages and code completion, not "make it easier to think about your program". You may argue types don't help people much, but types do help tooling. (Not in the sense being untyped causes some tooling impossible, but in the sense being typed substantially reduces tooling implementation effort.)

Re: TypeScript and the Road to 1.0

#16

Post by clone1018 »

k3n wrote: post #11
chrisoakman wrote: post #5

I couldn't be more underwhelmed by what TypeScript has to offer vs vanilla JavaScript or CoffeeScript. Reading through the marketing material from MS it seems like the entire value proposition is "statically typed languages make it easier to think about your program, also we added the class keyword so you don't feel lost" I suppose if you believe those claims or are really interested in using MS development tools, Ty…

Are TypeSscript and CoffeeScript really that much different? From what I understood, they both basically solve the same problems, one just does it in a Ruby-esque style while the other does it in a C#-esque style.

While it's not my opinion, I did read this quote somewhere:

"CoffeeScript is only syntactic sugar. It brings very little new to the table, but perhaps worse of all, it doesn't really fix all of JavaScript's WTF-issues while adding a few of its own. While it's an improvement over JavaScript, its advantages are sometimes outweighed by the extra hassle to compile and deploy it"

Re: TypeScript and the Road to 1.0

#17

Post by haxorize »

k3n wrote: post #8
haxorize wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not entirely true. While TypeScript is closely aligning itself with the proposed ES6 syntax for classes and modules, there is no expectation that ECMAScript will add optional static type checking. If you want statically typed JavaScript you are always going to need something like TypeScript. With that said, as ES6 evolves and becomes more widely supported there will be aspects of the TypeScript compiler that w…

> If you want statically typed JavaScript you are always going to need something like TypeScript. I think that is a valid statement only within the context of the next ECMA release. In other words, that's not to say that whichever successive version after ES6 can't include it, or any version thereafter.

Fair enough. I just haven't heard of the ECMAScript standards committee seriously considering adding static type checking to the language. The closest things I've seen are the proposed guards [1] and trademarks [2] features for ES7.

[1]: http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=strawman:guards [2]: http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=strawman:trademarks

Re: TypeScript and the Road to 1.0

#18

Post by gregwebs »

jeswin wrote: post #10

Does optional typing really work? I've always felt (or presumed) that once you start putting types in, it kinda starts spreading everywhere and eventually will look like full static typing. I'd rather have tests than types. It is good to see people try different things though, so congrats on release.

If it spreads everywhere then that is because it is valuable everywhere. With optional typing you decide where types have the most value, so there really isn't a downside.

You are probably going to end up using types a lot if you are using projects that already have type declaration files available (from the DefinitelyTyped project).

Re: TypeScript and the Road to 1.0

#19

Post by k3n »

jeswin wrote: post #13
k3n wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want statically typed JavaScript you are always going to need something like TypeScript. I think that is a valid statement only within the context of the next ECMA release. In other words, that's not to say that whichever successive version after ES6 can't include it, or any version thereafter.

You could make that argument about any missing feature. I haven't seen any serious support for optional typing in JS; so at this point it would be fair to say that GP is correct.

That is a good point that it could apply to any missing feature; my point is that to say that any particular feature is "never" going to make it into the language is short-sighted at best. Just a handful of years ago, you could say that "if you want some form of Function.prototype.bind then you're always going to have to polyfill it yourself", which of course would be a 100% inaccurate statement.

Re: TypeScript and the Road to 1.0

#20

Post by agilebyte »

k3n wrote: post #11
chrisoakman wrote: post #5

I couldn't be more underwhelmed by what TypeScript has to offer vs vanilla JavaScript or CoffeeScript. Reading through the marketing material from MS it seems like the entire value proposition is "statically typed languages make it easier to think about your program, also we added the class keyword so you don't feel lost" I suppose if you believe those claims or are really interested in using MS development tools, Ty…

Are TypeSscript and CoffeeScript really that much different? From what I understood, they both basically solve the same problems, one just does it in a Ruby-esque style while the other does it in a C#-esque style.

CS is aimed at making you more productive, TS is aimed at making you more correct, checking errors early.

Just my observation.

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