I don't think the author adequately addresses the positives of development velocity with Typescript. I find I'm able to read and write code much more quickly with Typescript than without, especially once I am beyond 50-100 loc. I doubt I _ship_ fewer bugs to production, but I certainly catch and fix my own mistakes much more quickly _as I go_, and am able to make more ambitious changes much faster when I have types on hand. Most importantly, I'm able to pick up and work effectively with other people's code without having to dip into their implementation or documentation as frequently. I honestly can't imagine doing javascript for a living any longer without access to it.
The TypeScript Tax
11–20 of 120 posts
Re: The TypeScript Tax
#12But if you’re in the position of deciding whether or not to use it, you should have a realistic understanding of both the benefits and the costs. Will it have a positive or negative impact? I strongly disagree. You can start using typescript without thinking for a second about what parts of it will be beneficial. Initially you can just run javascript through the typescript compiler and let type inference find some bu…
I don't know where this misconception started, but you can't just run javascript through a typescript compiler. There is a huge amount of valid javascript that is not valid typescript. Try something like `const testVar = {}; testVar.asdf = "asdf";`. Node web frameworks, for example, are based entirely off this ability to monkey-patch the request object.
Re: The TypeScript Tax
#13Before I tried Typescript I thought it was just another JS-precompiler... been there done that. I tried Coffeescript, the Closure Compiler, even LispyScript. In the end it wasn't really that much different to plain old JS, just with some syntactic sugar.
But when I actually had to use it in a project, I instantly fell in love with it. Not only does it force me to think about the proper scope and type of a function or variable, it also helps refactoring and reading undocumented code.
Yes, sometimes it can be frustrating (meh: no typings for a legacy project, build-toolchains have to handle another layer of abstraction, etc.). But this really is peanuts compared to the hoops we had go through before.
TS has been the best thing that has happened to JS-development in the last decade.
Re: The TypeScript Tax
#14> Missing Features — HOFs, Composition
Uh... I'm pretty sure I've used both in TypeScript projects.
Re: The TypeScript Tax
#15Here's Eric Elliot, doing his Eric Elliot thing. Pages and pages of beautifully worded, perfectly structured arguments about absolutely nothing. And this month he's a Distributed Systems Expert. More power to this guy for building a brand for himself, but what a load of nonsense.
Re: The TypeScript Tax
#16Articles like this will certainly bring out the pro-Typescript people, so this got me thinking. I'd like to hear from people who tried Typescript and found they didn't like it for any number of reasons.
Note I'm not pro or anti myself, I've only just begun playing with it, but would like to hear from all kinds of people.
Re: The TypeScript Tax
#17> Type safety doesn’t seem to make a big difference. TypeScript proponents frequently talk about the benefits of type safety, but there is little evidence that type safety makes a big difference in production bug density. This is important because code review and TDD make a very big difference (40% — 80% for TDD alone)... > TypeScript is only capable of addressing a theoretical maximum of 15% of “public bugs”, where…
> I'm confused how people can advocate TDD and not like static types too seeing as static typing gives you robust automated tests for the minimal cost of adding type annotations every now and then.
For me personally as a TDD person, I just don't care about testing types. I test values. The type-checker just doesn't do much that I actually care about (better in-editor support is nice though). I know it's not a fashionable answer these days, but for me it's true. I don't see the pay-off in doing both, and types alone are not enough.
Re: The TypeScript Tax
#18He asks the question "But should you use it for your large scale app development project?"
I thought that was literally the reason TypeScript came to be. Microsoft were having lots trouble wrangling Bing web app and internal MS devs wanted a tool to help catch the bugs!
I would say, if you are embarking on a large scale app, you most definitely want to include TypeScript from the start. It will pay dividends in the end.
Re: The TypeScript Tax
#19Before I tried Typescript I thought it was just another JS-precompiler... been there done that. I tried Coffeescript, the Closure Compiler, even LispyScript. In the end it wasn't really that much different to plain old JS, just with some syntactic sugar. But when I actually had to use it in a project, I instantly fell in love with it. Not only does it force me to think about the proper scope and type of a function or…
I would say that there's no Typescript tax. Rather, there's a Javascript tax for Typescript. As in, the shortcomings of Typescript only come from Javascript. Typescript is transpiled to Javascript, so types are not enforced on execution, and that's the only real limitation of Typescript.
Re: The TypeScript Tax
#20But if you’re in the position of deciding whether or not to use it, you should have a realistic understanding of both the benefits and the costs. Will it have a positive or negative impact? I strongly disagree. You can start using typescript without thinking for a second about what parts of it will be beneficial. Initially you can just run javascript through the typescript compiler and let type inference find some bu…
I don't know where this misconception started, but you can't just run javascript through a typescript compiler. There is a huge amount of valid javascript that is not valid typescript. Try something like `const testVar = {}; testVar.asdf = "asdf";`. Node web frameworks, for example, are based entirely off this ability to monkey-patch the request object.
That may not be valid but it is well-formed, I believe there is an option to emit JS even when there are typing errors