5 ms·

TypeScript at Slack

49 points by joubert 10y ago

msoad 10y ago
I genuinely can't work on projects that are not using TypeScript anymore. I feels weird but I can't trust myself making changes.
- mikekchar 10y ago
  I spent most of my career in statically typed languages. It was in that environment that I learned TDD. I still think that TDD is really valuable in that arena. I work mostly with dynamic languages now. Working without TDD in that arena seems downright crazy to me. Michael Feathers put it best in my opinion. You want to have a kind of vise on your code so that you can hold one part in place and be able to reason about the other part. Tests give you that ability. Static type checking eliminates the need for a whole class of tests. It's great. The key, though, is that the type annotation system has to be convenient and readable. Lately I've been playing with Haskell derived languages and it's really incredible how much you can push into the type system. But it's important, I think, to realise that this is a convenience. You can still do it all by hand if you have to. It's always a balance of what you can do efficiently with language syntax and what you can't. Or, maybe a bit more concisely, if the language doesn't help you, you can still help yourself. It takes more code and more discipline, though.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
pbowyer 10y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14091843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14091843
uranian 10y ago
Again? Is this the new Typescript promotion channel?
- merb 10y ago
  No this is Hacker News, where people can write interesting or uninteresting blog posts (& more) and share it with others. There is a simple way to filter out stuff that isn't interesting for yourself: don't click it, read it and upvote it and especially don't make unnecessary comments.
  - uranian 10y ago
    By your own means, you've just made an unnecessary comment
lambdaxdotx 10y ago
News flash: Strong statically typed languages make software engineering easier! ... wait, this is not really "news", is it? Anyway, I'm happy that well known companies are advocating it.
be5invis 10y ago
Wait, isn’t using TypeScript politically incorrect? It is made by MS!!
andyjohnson0 10y ago
Can anyone offer an opinion on how mainstream is TypeScript? Is familiarity with it likely to be useful to companies who use plain JS? And does TS tend to be used across the stack, or it is used more for front-end or back-end? I keep trying to get my head around javascript, and each time end-up walking away metaphorically shaking my head in disbelief. I suspect that this is because my background is in languages like C/C++/C#, so I'm wondering whether TypeScript might provide a way in for someone like me.
- dagw 10y ago
  I keep trying to get my head around javascript, and each time end-up walking away metaphorically shaking my head in disbelief. Which parts are you having problems getting your head around? Typescript doesn't change anything fundamental about the language (especially if compared to ES6), but does add a bit of nice syntactic sugar and (optional) compile time type checking, which is really handy for catching certain bugs and making your code easier to read and reason about. Typescript's big advantage (and disadvantage) is that it is a strict superset of JavaScript. This means that all your existing JavaScript code is already valid Typescript code and so you can move your code from JavaScript to Typescript in small incremental steps. The downside of this is it places some limits on how the language can evolve. If you want a web language that 'feels' closer to C++ or C#, your best bet is probably to check out Dart.

49 points by joubert 10y ago

msoad 10y ago

I genuinely can't work on projects that are not using TypeScript anymore. I feels weird but I can't trust myself making changes.

mikekchar 10y ago
I spent most of my career in statically typed languages. It was in that environment that I learned TDD. I still think that TDD is really valuable in that arena. I work mostly with dynamic languages now. Working without TDD in that arena seems downright crazy to me. Michael Feathers put it best in my opinion. You want to have a kind of vise on your code so that you can hold one part in place and be able to reason about the other part. Tests give you that ability. Static type checking eliminates the need for a whole class of tests. It's great. The key, though, is that the type annotation system has to be convenient and readable. Lately I've been playing with Haskell derived languages and it's really incredible how much you can push into the type system. But it's important, I think, to realise that this is a convenience. You can still do it all by hand if you have to. It's always a balance of what you can do efficiently with language syntax and what you can't. Or, maybe a bit more concisely, if the language doesn't help you, you can still help yourself. It takes more code and more discipline, though.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

pbowyer 10y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14091843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14091843

uranian 10y ago

Again? Is this the new Typescript promotion channel?

merb 10y ago
No this is Hacker News, where people can write interesting or uninteresting blog posts (& more) and share it with others. There is a simple way to filter out stuff that isn't interesting for yourself: don't click it, read it and upvote it and especially don't make unnecessary comments.
- uranian 10y ago
  By your own means, you've just made an unnecessary comment

lambdaxdotx 10y ago

News flash: Strong statically typed languages make software engineering easier! ... wait, this is not really "news", is it? Anyway, I'm happy that well known companies are advocating it.

be5invis 10y ago

Wait, isn’t using TypeScript politically incorrect? It is made by MS!!

andyjohnson0 10y ago

Can anyone offer an opinion on how mainstream is TypeScript? Is familiarity with it likely to be useful to companies who use plain JS? And does TS tend to be used across the stack, or it is used more for front-end or back-end? I keep trying to get my head around javascript, and each time end-up walking away metaphorically shaking my head in disbelief. I suspect that this is because my background is in languages like C/C++/C#, so I'm wondering whether TypeScript might provide a way in for someone like me.

dagw 10y ago
I keep trying to get my head around javascript, and each time end-up walking away metaphorically shaking my head in disbelief. Which parts are you having problems getting your head around? Typescript doesn't change anything fundamental about the language (especially if compared to ES6), but does add a bit of nice syntactic sugar and (optional) compile time type checking, which is really handy for catching certain bugs and making your code easier to read and reason about. Typescript's big advantage (and disadvantage) is that it is a strict superset of JavaScript. This means that all your existing JavaScript code is already valid Typescript code and so you can move your code from JavaScript to Typescript in small incremental steps. The downside of this is it places some limits on how the language can evolve. If you want a web language that 'feels' closer to C++ or C#, your best bet is probably to check out Dart.