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TypeScript was in the right place at the right time, and the team prioritized the right features in the beginning, allowing for the great adoption. But I'd sti

TypeScript was in the right place at the right time, and the team prioritized the right features in the beginning, allowing for the great adoption. But I'd still place TypeScript firmly in the "worse is better" category (products that are technically inferior then the state of the art, but succeed due to circumstance), it's a band aid on top of a the broken JS ecosystem. Its ad-hoc, Hodge-Podge type system and poor meta-programming is sad to see for such a popular language. I'd rather write TypeScript then JS, but as soon as there's an opportunity to write software that works across all platforms without dealing with JS, and with a type system that's actually built on a solid foundation, I'm taking it.

munificent 6y ago
> But I'd still place TypeScript firmly in the "worse is better" category (products that are technically inferior then the state of the art, but succeed due to circumstance), it's a band aid on top of a the broken JS ecosystem. I think it's important to distinguish between "worse is better" and path dependence, which is what you're getting at here. "Worse is better" is a blank slate design philosophy. It says a system with more failures modes can be a better than a more robust system if allowing those failure modes keeps the system significantly simpler and more understandable to users. A bicycle is "worse is better" compared to a car. You have to check the tire pressure frequently, and clean the chain fairly often. But it's easy to put air in the tires and you can see the chain and tell when it needs to be cleaned. "Path dependence" means your design is constrained by historical choices that don't benefit future users but are part of the reality you have to design for today. Train railway gauges today are not the best width for optimizing shipping efficiency. It was chosen in the 1800s before anyone really knew, and it's impossible to change because existing trains would be imcompatible with the new gauge. TypeScript is an example of path dependence. If the world didn't have a few billion lines of JavaScript code, you could certainly design a better language. Simpler, cleaner, easier to statically type, more efficient. But the world does have all that JS code, and TS is the railway that can still run those old trains.
- mistersys 6y ago
  Yeah, I agree it was lazy of me define "worse is better" the way I did, I think they're 2 separate thoughts, but I still think TypeScript uses the "worse is better" approach to design, in the sense that C used it. My usage of "worse is better" means "worse is more marketable, and easier to implement", as opposed to actually being better when adopted. The original use of "worse is better" was not advocating for it as a design style in the general case, but commenting on the survival and adoption characteristics of systems designed in this style, as well as that it's often a good approach in the beginning of a project. TypeScript makes a simple promise, add types to your existing code base using an easy to understand structural type system, and it works on top of JS, just as C was designed as simple layer on top of Assembler. If C ("Worse is Better") is now being disrupted by Rust ("The Right Thing"), I think we'll see a similar player for JS / TypeScript. If you're in a position where you can decide what stack a large swath of developers are going to use, you should perhaps keep an eye open to JS / TypeScript alternatives with growing ecosystems. Your choice could turn into a competitive advantage, even if it means a smaller community in the beginning.

munificent 6y ago

> But I'd still place TypeScript firmly in the "worse is better" category (products that are technically inferior then the state of the art, but succeed due to circumstance), it's a band aid on top of a the broken JS ecosystem. I think it's important to distinguish between "worse is better" and path dependence, which is what you're getting at here. "Worse is better" is a blank slate design philosophy. It says a system with more failures modes can be a better than a more robust system if allowing those failure modes keeps the system significantly simpler and more understandable to users. A bicycle is "worse is better" compared to a car. You have to check the tire pressure frequently, and clean the chain fairly often. But it's easy to put air in the tires and you can see the chain and tell when it needs to be cleaned. "Path dependence" means your design is constrained by historical choices that don't benefit future users but are part of the reality you have to design for today. Train railway gauges today are not the best width for optimizing shipping efficiency. It was chosen in the 1800s before anyone really knew, and it's impossible to change because existing trains would be imcompatible with the new gauge. TypeScript is an example of path dependence. If the world didn't have a few billion lines of JavaScript code, you could certainly design a better language. Simpler, cleaner, easier to statically type, more efficient. But the world does have all that JS code, and TS is the railway that can still run those old trains.

mistersys 6y ago
Yeah, I agree it was lazy of me define "worse is better" the way I did, I think they're 2 separate thoughts, but I still think TypeScript uses the "worse is better" approach to design, in the sense that C used it. My usage of "worse is better" means "worse is more marketable, and easier to implement", as opposed to actually being better when adopted. The original use of "worse is better" was not advocating for it as a design style in the general case, but commenting on the survival and adoption characteristics of systems designed in this style, as well as that it's often a good approach in the beginning of a project. TypeScript makes a simple promise, add types to your existing code base using an easy to understand structural type system, and it works on top of JS, just as C was designed as simple layer on top of Assembler. If C ("Worse is Better") is now being disrupted by Rust ("The Right Thing"), I think we'll see a similar player for JS / TypeScript. If you're in a position where you can decide what stack a large swath of developers are going to use, you should perhaps keep an eye open to JS / TypeScript alternatives with growing ecosystems. Your choice could turn into a competitive advantage, even if it means a smaller community in the beginning.