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Every developer, regardless of skill level, makes mistakes and typos. The beauty of type-safety in TypeScript is that the compiler catches it instantly, in a wa

Every developer, regardless of skill level, makes mistakes and typos. The beauty of type-safety in TypeScript is that the compiler catches it instantly, in a way that is simply humanly impossible. If I misspell something, or provide the wrong argument type to a method, or have args in wrong order, etc, it's caught instantly. With JS you can have a typo that causes user malfunctions for YEARS before being found by a developer and fixed. Any developer who's done many years of both TS and JS would never in a million years consider going back to JS. Absolutely out of the question.

inimino 6y ago
> Any developer who's done many years of both TS and JS would never in a million years consider going back to JS. Except, apparently, for the topic of this article. > If I misspell something, or provide the wrong argument type to a method, or have args in wrong order, etc, it's caught instantly. Yes, I've heard the pitch before. I've even given it more than a few times. Of course, if both of your arguments happen to be 64-bit floats, then the type system won't help you much if you get them in the wrong order. However, when you want to change that function to take a closure instead of a number, the type system can be invisible or it can fight you. Some of us love the structure that a type system can provide. Some of us, like the one who started this website we're on now, also appreciate the power of languages that get out of your way and let you make your own brilliant mistakes. And some of us can appreciate the beauty of different language designs and approaches, and try to rise above dogma. Which, if you've been in this line of work for 20+ years, should be you.
- WClayFerguson 6y ago
  > Except, apparently, for the topic of this article. Well, Deno devs did try to use TypeScript, and just ran into some challenges, and decided to throw the baby out with the bath water. I've seen this a lot in my 30yrs exp.: some developer/team runs into problems, gets frustrated, gives up, and decides the best decision is to remove some important piece rather than solve the actual problems. The reason Deno is giving up TypeScript is representative of failure, and not an indication them wanting JS instead of TS. What they want is TS. The rest of your reply is just stating some minor imperfections that are a billion miles from invalidating TS. And yeah, there's a place for JavaScript still, for small-scale tinkering, or perhaps even prototypes with only a few hundred lines of code. Any large scale project in JavaScript (not TS) is simply unfathomable to any modern developer worth his salt.
  - inimino 6y ago
    You're a dogmatic true believer, and it's rarely worth arguing with dogmatic true believers. Just notice that you threw everyone that disagrees with you (or rather, that comprehends a wider range of circumstances than you do) under the bus as "not worth [our] salt". That was not the right thing to say. And you dismiss my reply (including the part where I point out that the website we are on was first developed in a Lisp) as "some minor imperfections". It's like you're satirizing the tunnel vision of the fundamentalist. And, true to form, you "know" what the deno team wants better than they themselves do! I hope you can come back to this thread in a year or two with some perspective.
    - WClayFerguson 6y ago
      In the above discussion I focused on the technologies, programming languages, and the core of the technical issue. You seem to focus on personalities, feelings, and emotions. To each his own, I guess. And about me knowing Deno did want to, and did attempt to use TypeScript: the way I know that is because I read the article, lol. Apparently you did not.
      - inimino 6y ago
        I did read the article, and also the design doc which I linked in my top-level comment. The facts are that they started with TypeScript and moved away (for a particular internal component). The interpretation of that as wanting to use it and failing is yours. You could just as well see it as having made a mistake and then realizing it. But all of these interpretations, by those of us who didn't have to make the choice and weren't there when it was made, aren't very helpful.
        WClayFerguson 6y ago
        That's correct. They failed to get TypeScript to work. Thanks for reading that.

inimino 6y ago

> Any developer who's done many years of both TS and JS would never in a million years consider going back to JS. Except, apparently, for the topic of this article. > If I misspell something, or provide the wrong argument type to a method, or have args in wrong order, etc, it's caught instantly. Yes, I've heard the pitch before. I've even given it more than a few times. Of course, if both of your arguments happen to be 64-bit floats, then the type system won't help you much if you get them in the wrong order. However, when you want to change that function to take a closure instead of a number, the type system can be invisible or it can fight you. Some of us love the structure that a type system can provide. Some of us, like the one who started this website we're on now, also appreciate the power of languages that get out of your way and let you make your own brilliant mistakes. And some of us can appreciate the beauty of different language designs and approaches, and try to rise above dogma. Which, if you've been in this line of work for 20+ years, should be you.

WClayFerguson 6y ago
> Except, apparently, for the topic of this article. Well, Deno devs did try to use TypeScript, and just ran into some challenges, and decided to throw the baby out with the bath water. I've seen this a lot in my 30yrs exp.: some developer/team runs into problems, gets frustrated, gives up, and decides the best decision is to remove some important piece rather than solve the actual problems. The reason Deno is giving up TypeScript is representative of failure, and not an indication them wanting JS instead of TS. What they want is TS. The rest of your reply is just stating some minor imperfections that are a billion miles from invalidating TS. And yeah, there's a place for JavaScript still, for small-scale tinkering, or perhaps even prototypes with only a few hundred lines of code. Any large scale project in JavaScript (not TS) is simply unfathomable to any modern developer worth his salt.
- inimino 6y ago
  You're a dogmatic true believer, and it's rarely worth arguing with dogmatic true believers. Just notice that you threw everyone that disagrees with you (or rather, that comprehends a wider range of circumstances than you do) under the bus as "not worth [our] salt". That was not the right thing to say. And you dismiss my reply (including the part where I point out that the website we are on was first developed in a Lisp) as "some minor imperfections". It's like you're satirizing the tunnel vision of the fundamentalist. And, true to form, you "know" what the deno team wants better than they themselves do! I hope you can come back to this thread in a year or two with some perspective.
  - WClayFerguson 6y ago
    In the above discussion I focused on the technologies, programming languages, and the core of the technical issue. You seem to focus on personalities, feelings, and emotions. To each his own, I guess. And about me knowing Deno did want to, and did attempt to use TypeScript: the way I know that is because I read the article, lol. Apparently you did not.
    - inimino 6y ago
      I did read the article, and also the design doc which I linked in my top-level comment. The facts are that they started with TypeScript and moved away (for a particular internal component). The interpretation of that as wanting to use it and failing is yours. You could just as well see it as having made a mistake and then realizing it. But all of these interpretations, by those of us who didn't have to make the choice and weren't there when it was made, aren't very helpful.
      - WClayFerguson 6y ago
        That's correct. They failed to get TypeScript to work. Thanks for reading that.