I used Typescript for 2 years, and I'm happy to report I'm dropping it and encouraging my team to do the same. Types are for compilers, not people, and personally I think there's more disadvantages than advantages re: time.
Deno will stop using TypeScript
91–100 of 359 posts
Re: Deno will stop using TypeScript
#92Why such a large, important project would want to drop static types is beyond me. > TypeScript isn’t proving itself helpful to organize Deno code. On the contrary, the Deno team is experiencing the opposite effect. One of the issues mentioned is that they ended up with duplicate independent Body classes in two locations This feels like process immaturity or unfamiliarity. Thousands of other projects manage to do just…
Yeah, I tend to agree. After 18 months with TypeScript, I can't really imagine going away from it. After every single refactoring I do, I'm extremely grateful for proper typing. Not to mention sugar like null coalescing, etc.
null coalescing is good, but I personally found that Typescript doesn't offer many advantages on a large team. I know it's not cool these days! But it just slows me down and if you're reasoning about functions I never run into that many production level issues with types, but maybe that's just my brain I dunno!
Re: Deno will stop using TypeScript
#93This is gonna be an unpopular opinion but as someone who learned to program in loosely typed languages, I have never seen the TS appeal. TS feels like something that was created to lure programmers who couldn’t wrap their heads around JS loose nature. Almost like it was created to convince Java and C# developers to use JS. It have never felt about it like something that would make my code better or more organized. It…
+100 I'm on your team, 100% agree with your points, TS is a waste of time and I'm encouraging my team to drop it.
Re: Deno will stop using TypeScript
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lisp is large, important, and also not statically typed. It's worked out ok for Lisp programmers. JS itself isn't strongly typed and is the most successful and important language in the world (probably in the history of programming), so that's two game-changers that don't require static typing.
Lisp is not popular. Remove the browser practical monopoly, and JS popularity would vanish.
I disagree on the current sentiment but agree that browser monopoly pushed js on people. If js didn't evolve over the last few years (since es5), I would have believed removing it from the browser would kill it.
Right now, you have options to avoid writing js at all. There might be some glue code in js but you can write vast majority of your code in other languages and target js. People still choose to write in js.
Purescript, elm, clojurescript, kotlin, bucklescript, and the list goes on. There is a to-js transpiler for every popular language. Why aren't they seeing more usage?
Re: Deno will stop using TypeScript
#95"Always bet on JavaScript" holds true, I guess.
Re: Deno will stop using TypeScript
#96This is gonna be an unpopular opinion but as someone who learned to program in loosely typed languages, I have never seen the TS appeal. TS feels like something that was created to lure programmers who couldn’t wrap their heads around JS loose nature. Almost like it was created to convince Java and C# developers to use JS. It have never felt about it like something that would make my code better or more organized. It…
I've been programming for 40 years and I agree. Strong typing has a religious quality. You have to believe that most errors are caused by type mismatch, and I simply don't believe that. Most errors, in my experience, are caused by bad architecture, poor documentation, and poor communications strategies between MVC, etc.
I have a little less experience, only 30 years, but I have to fully agree with you. Not sure why you got down voted (maybe the religious popularity crowd rearing its head).
I have seen my share of "innovations" come and go, but I too fail to see the empirical evidence that most bugs/errors are caused by type mismatch. In fact, I would even go as far as to argue that in my experience the benefits of typed languages (and the class of bugs they prevent) do not outweigh the usually larger code size (and often even additional complexity).
Maybe I've just tried the wrong languages, but I was never convinced of the great improvements usually promised. At the same time, I have seen other people twist and jump through hoops, while vigorously holding on to their conviction how all that is an improvement.
Sure, some errors will move from run time to compile time with typed languages. But if those are a systemic problem in your code, you probably have even bigger things to worry about (the ones you already keenly pointed out).
From a cynical point of view, I can understand why corporate entities would love typed languages (for the increased code size and complexity), but that's another story.
Re: Deno will stop using TypeScript
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't have to write as many tests when you use static typing, because your method contracts are solid. You can refactor your entire codebase with a few operations and don't have to worry about anything breaking. Is your timestamp in seconds? Millis? Is it a duration? Does it have a time zone? Have you ever written a method that returns more than one type of thing? Or had polymorphic inputs? Where are your dynamic…
Forgive me, but when I program I know what the variables I am working with are doing, and what kind of data they are storing. That’s the least of my problems. I don’t write a big mess of code, I’m constantly working iteratively on a small piece of code to make it perfect. Usually first pass is to make it perfect, then I refactor it right away to make it readable. I work that way, function by function. I never have th…
> Forgive me, but when I program I know what the variables I am working with are doing, and what kind of data they are storing.
That sounds fine, as long as no-one else will ever have to read or work on your code.
Re: Deno will stop using TypeScript
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't have to write as many tests when you use static typing, because your method contracts are solid. You can refactor your entire codebase with a few operations and don't have to worry about anything breaking. Is your timestamp in seconds? Millis? Is it a duration? Does it have a time zone? Have you ever written a method that returns more than one type of thing? Or had polymorphic inputs? Where are your dynamic…
Forgive me, but when I program I know what the variables I am working with are doing, and what kind of data they are storing. That’s the least of my problems. I don’t write a big mess of code, I’m constantly working iteratively on a small piece of code to make it perfect. Usually first pass is to make it perfect, then I refactor it right away to make it readable. I work that way, function by function. I never have th…
Do you work on small or large code bases? On truly large projects you often find yourself making changes without that level of deep understanding.
On these projects you often find yourself needing to work on higher levels of abstraction. Types help here by instantly telling you what the data is and providing hints.
Types take extra time to write and maintain, but they significantly reduce the difficulty of working on large projects.
Re: Deno will stop using TypeScript
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lisp is not popular. Remove the browser practical monopoly, and JS popularity would vanish.
Browser monopoly led lots of devs to learn JS, then NodeJS showed that lots of devs want to keep using JS. It's actually possible for people to like it. Also, languages are always a function of their ecosystems. You could argue, remove Apple products and Swift/ObjC would vanish.
Nodejs showed that a lot of developers are lazy and want 1 language to learn
Re: Deno will stop using TypeScript
#100I don't remotely see TypeScript as the end state of statically typed JavaScript. I think it was the first major project to prove how static typing could work and benefit browser applications. Flow and TypeScript are just the first generation. In the future I expect the type system to be integrated with the runtime. While there are projects that give you this (Elm, Reason, Bridge.net, Fable, etc.), they are nowhere ne…
I am a newbie reason user. I like the language and ocaml ecosystem but it is just a bit of a pain to do anything practical with it. Soon you are writing a lot of js in reason. Compared to typescript, js and reason mixed code stings like a sharp contrast between sun and moon. Until those languages make themselves feel just like js or completely remove excessive js interlop, they won't be as mainstream.
Huh, I don't share your experience at all. I maintain an F#-and-JS application and I'm constantly surprised by how well interpretation works. You literally just import F# code in JavaScript and use it, as well as the other way around.
Sure, if you want to make maximal use of the strong typing of F#, you'll have to annotate JS data as it comes in, but that is necessary complexity, not incidental. And if you're happy with having your F# code "dynamically typed", there's zero ceremony around importing JS stuff.