"standard Typescript configs are absolutely compiling to JavaScript" You are missing the point. I want zero cost abstractions (for some level of abstraction -

"standard Typescript configs are absolutely compiling to JavaScript" You are missing the point. I want zero cost abstractions (for some level of abstraction - I accept e.g. there is a CPU and a browser). I don't care what it is compiling to. Typescript is not a zero cost abstraction. (Zero cost meaning, here, that any overhead is incurred compile time only). "The things you seem to be worried about are configurable in the tsconfig" That's terrible. I want the Z.C.A. to be by-default, not "configure the heck out of the language to make it so".