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What do you like about Dart over TypeScript? The type system in TypeScript is far superior to Dart's. Other than that, the languages are more-or-less the same.

labrador 4y ago
Actually, I'm taking another look at TypeScript today. I liked it well enough when I last investigated it in 2016, but the code I wrote then was just a veneer over jQuery. I'm sure things have improved dramatically, which I am about to find out. Frankly, a Turing complete type system [1] seems like over-kill to me and a complication I don't need. Still, Dart had everything I wanted in a front end language in 2013. I think JS devs were short sighted to reject it out of hand. It's a shame it never caught on by itself and not as a just a Flutter language. I read that Google is using it in Fuchsia so there is still a chance Dart will be big in the future! [1] TypeScript and Turing Completeness: https://itnext.io/typescript-and-turing-completeness-ba8ded8f3de3 https://itnext.io/typescript-and-turing-completeness-ba8ded8...
- atwood22 4y ago
  I highly recommend TypeScript. I don't really like the JS runtime, but, purely from a language point of view, TS is my favorite. Some cool features: 1) Type unions interface A { a: string; } interface B { b: string; } type C = A | B; const c: C = { a: 'a' }; 2) Type assertions if ('a' in c) { /* compiler knows c is of type A here */ } function isA(c: A): c is A { return 'a' in C } // compiler knows c is A if this returns true 3) Nice helper types interface A { ... } ReadOnly<A> // Like A, but all properties are read-only Partial<A> // Like A, but all properties are optional Omit<A, 'someProp'> // Like A, but without 'someProp'
  - labrador 4y ago
    Interesting. I'll learn more today as I rewrite one of my Dart components into TypeScript. But I also dislike Node and Npm so I'll try Deno first.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    TBH, TypeScript's type system really impressed me. It's the strongest type system of any language I regularly use (I haven't had time to unpack Rust yet, and I learned enough Haskell to decide Haskell didn't help me solve problems I had).
    - wruza 4y ago
      It’s an expressive type system, but ime it allows developers to go crazy on type interdependencies and general entanglement, so you can’t just go to the “header” and quickly figure out what your method or a return value really is, despite TS has structural typing. E.g. look at this: https://github.com/telegraf/telegraf/blob/v4/src/telegram-types.ts https://github.com/telegraf/telegraf/blob/v4/src/telegram-ty...
      - atwood22 4y ago
        That's definitely overwhelming. After reading it for 5 minutes though, there is a type called Telegram and it has a field called 'Opts' that has a lot of different fields. MakeExtra lets you take a type from 'Opts' and exclude certain parameters. Probably do something like "you can set the chat message contents, but you can't set the chat id"
    - int_19h 4y ago
      TS type system is Turing complete. https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/issues/14833 https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/issues/14833

labrador 4y ago

Actually, I'm taking another look at TypeScript today. I liked it well enough when I last investigated it in 2016, but the code I wrote then was just a veneer over jQuery. I'm sure things have improved dramatically, which I am about to find out. Frankly, a Turing complete type system [1] seems like over-kill to me and a complication I don't need. Still, Dart had everything I wanted in a front end language in 2013. I think JS devs were short sighted to reject it out of hand. It's a shame it never caught on by itself and not as a just a Flutter language. I read that Google is using it in Fuchsia so there is still a chance Dart will be big in the future! [1] TypeScript and Turing Completeness: https://itnext.io/typescript-and-turing-completeness-ba8ded8f3de3 https://itnext.io/typescript-and-turing-completeness-ba8ded8...

atwood22 4y ago
I highly recommend TypeScript. I don't really like the JS runtime, but, purely from a language point of view, TS is my favorite. Some cool features: 1) Type unions interface A { a: string; } interface B { b: string; } type C = A | B; const c: C = { a: 'a' }; 2) Type assertions if ('a' in c) { /* compiler knows c is of type A here */ } function isA(c: A): c is A { return 'a' in C } // compiler knows c is A if this returns true 3) Nice helper types interface A { ... } ReadOnly<A> // Like A, but all properties are read-only Partial<A> // Like A, but all properties are optional Omit<A, 'someProp'> // Like A, but without 'someProp'
- labrador 4y ago
  Interesting. I'll learn more today as I rewrite one of my Dart components into TypeScript. But I also dislike Node and Npm so I'll try Deno first.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  TBH, TypeScript's type system really impressed me. It's the strongest type system of any language I regularly use (I haven't had time to unpack Rust yet, and I learned enough Haskell to decide Haskell didn't help me solve problems I had).
  - wruza 4y ago
    It’s an expressive type system, but ime it allows developers to go crazy on type interdependencies and general entanglement, so you can’t just go to the “header” and quickly figure out what your method or a return value really is, despite TS has structural typing. E.g. look at this: https://github.com/telegraf/telegraf/blob/v4/src/telegram-types.ts https://github.com/telegraf/telegraf/blob/v4/src/telegram-ty...
    - atwood22 4y ago
      That's definitely overwhelming. After reading it for 5 minutes though, there is a type called Telegram and it has a field called 'Opts' that has a lot of different fields. MakeExtra lets you take a type from 'Opts' and exclude certain parameters. Probably do something like "you can set the chat message contents, but you can't set the chat id"
  - int_19h 4y ago
    TS type system is Turing complete. https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/issues/14833 https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/issues/14833