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Remove TypeScript

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Re: Remove TypeScript

#3

Post by Waterluvian »

After years of being resistant to “extra layers of complexity that slows me down” I adopted TS and now I can’t live without it.

So as a fanboy, when I read things like this I try my darnedest to have empathy and try to understand it from their point of view. And I’m just really struggling to in this case.

I get that it adds some complexity. But what are you actually getting without it? It’s not like types go away. They don’t. They just become implicit. It takes something a computer is really good at, and shoves it into your brain. And as many point out: the types are, more than anything, documentation.

But beyond any of that (and I feel this is the most important lesson): when there’s like a 100:1 ratio in favour of something, you’re probably wrong. Not always. But probably. And it’s your ball. You can take it and go home if you want. People can fork. But sometimes you need to, at best, say, “I simply do not understand you people, but you’re the overwhelming majority, so whether I like it or not, I need to leave things as-is.”

Re: Remove TypeScript

#4

Post by EMM_386 »

Remove TypeScript, change linting rules, remove Prettier, breaks all PRs ... seemingly with no discussion and merged within 2 hours of the PR.

Sounds like a project I'd stay away from.

With comments like "Also, TypeScript hurts to write. Good riddance."

What exactly is the problem here? Do we have too many developers who grew up on JavaScript and aren't seeing the benefits of static typing? Is a tiny compiler (transpiler) step on the front-end simply too much to ask?

I say this as a lead on an enterprise Angular project who used to loathe front-end development (for 20+ years). TypeScript has brought back some sanity.

Re: Remove TypeScript

#5

Post by shepmaster »

I've been seeing a lot of talk about htmx but I've been blissfully ignoring it as I've been reasonably successfully using Turbo and Hotwire. This move is a sign for me to take a deeper look into htmx as a potential replacement in the future.

Does anyone happen to have any good resources bookmarked for replacing Hotwire / Turbo with htmx? I'm also open to hearing about other similar tools in the area.

Re: Remove TypeScript

#6

Post by haolez »

I think TypeScript is more useful for guiding the IDE than checking the types. And that might be enough value to adopt it.

It's just my feeling. But I don't feel like TS is preventing me to shoot my foot. The bugs that I write, even when the language doesn't support types, are rarely the kind that type checking would prevent.

Re: Remove TypeScript

#8

Post by incrudible »

Waterluvian wrote: post #3

After years of being resistant to “extra layers of complexity that slows me down” I adopted TS and now I can’t live without it. So as a fanboy, when I read things like this I try my darnedest to have empathy and try to understand it from their point of view. And I’m just really struggling to in this case. I get that it adds some complexity. But what are you actually getting without it? It’s not like types go away. Th…

Javascript and type annotations in comments go a long way, too. Not the whole way, a bit annoying to write at times, but 95% of the value is there.

Just getting rid of types after you already authored your software with them in mind just seems like the worst of both worlds. I have trouble making any sense of it.

Re: Remove TypeScript

#9

Post by Veuxdo »

EMM_386 wrote: post #4

Remove TypeScript, change linting rules, remove Prettier, breaks all PRs ... seemingly with no discussion and merged within 2 hours of the PR. Sounds like a project I'd stay away from. With comments like "Also, TypeScript hurts to write. Good riddance." What exactly is the problem here? Do we have too many developers who grew up on JavaScript and aren't seeing the benefits of static typing? Is a tiny compiler (transp…

> Do we have too many developers who grew up on JavaScript and aren't seeing the benefits of static typing?

This was often the case ~10 years ago when TS was first introduced. A lot of JS developers at the time liked that static type checking was impossible.

Re: Remove TypeScript

#10

Post by Waterluvian »

incrudible wrote: post #8
Waterluvian wrote: post #3

After years of being resistant to “extra layers of complexity that slows me down” I adopted TS and now I can’t live without it. So as a fanboy, when I read things like this I try my darnedest to have empathy and try to understand it from their point of view. And I’m just really struggling to in this case. I get that it adds some complexity. But what are you actually getting without it? It’s not like types go away. Th…

Javascript and type annotations in comments go a long way, too. Not the whole way, a bit annoying to write at times, but 95% of the value is there. Just getting rid of types after you already authored your software with them in mind just seems like the worst of both worlds. I have trouble making any sense of it.

That’s true. For Python I add them as needed. It’s not all or nothing. You can change tsconfig to be fine with implicit any.
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