8 ms·

I've always found this to be a strange argument. You have that layer of indirection from the transpiler (which may mean very difficult integrations with JS tool

• WorldMaker 7y ago
  Even C is a layer of indirection that doesn't always reflect the output machine code (much less the assembly language somewhere between). Most of programming language decision making is choosing the stack of "indirections" you feel most comfortable with. Most of programming tool design is helping you navigate those indirections, and the techniques are generally the same in most cases. C you have symbol files and tools that can read them such as debuggers. JS you have sourcemaps and tools that can read them such as debuggers and browser consoles. The tools aren't always perfect, but they get better all the time. It's also a spectrum of choice for which stack you feel comfortable with. Babel and Typescript do increasingly less transpilation with major browser releases. In many cases Typescript today really is just JS with Types. Certainly options like ReasonML and Purescript exist on the opposite end of the spectrum, very little resemble JS, do a lot of more work in transpilation (and do sometimes make JS interop intentionally hard by treating it as an FFI or equivalent boundary). The added "indirection" has trade-offs in productivity, developer "comfort", project aesthetics and synergies.
• chrischen 7y ago
  If anything there are better JS tooling around writing your code with ESNext or Typescript than just plain javascript.