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I couldn't be more underwhelmed by what TypeScript has to offer vs vanilla JavaScript or CoffeeScript. Reading through the marketing material from MS it seems

I couldn't be more underwhelmed by what TypeScript has to offer vs vanilla JavaScript or CoffeeScript. Reading through the marketing material from MS it seems like the entire value proposition is "statically typed languages make it easier to think about your program, also we added the class keyword so you don't feel lost" I suppose if you believe those claims or are really interested in using MS development tools, TypeScript is for you. IMO, ClojureScript is much more interesting and has a far greater value proposition for complex front-end development.

xtrumanx 13y ago
> ...also we added the class keyword so you don't feel lost I believe EcmaScript 6 plans on adding the class keyword and TypeScript's implementation reflects the current draft of how classes in ES6 will work. > ...statically typed languages make it easier to think about your program... Out of curiosity, do you normally program using statically typed languages? If not, I can see why you would be underwhelmed. Then again, I shouldn't be surprised by your reaction. This is Hacker News and TypeScript is by Microsoft.
- deleted 13y ago
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- chrisoakman 13y ago
  Not a huge fan of the class keyword in ES6 either... I do not use statically typed languages and I have nothing against MSFT; I was solely commenting on TypeScript as a language.
  - xtrumanx 13y ago
    Sorry about my Microsoft remark. It was kind of inflammatory. I didn't originally have it in my comment but was inspired to add it in for some reason. I try to keep my inflammatory rhetoric out of HN. TypeScript's best feature (imo) is its (optional) static-typing so if you don't like static-typing to begin with, then yeah, it doesn't have much else to offer you. To each his own.
k3n 13y ago
Are TypeSscript and CoffeeScript really that much different? From what I understood, they both basically solve the same problems, one just does it in a Ruby-esque style while the other does it in a C#-esque style.
- clone1018 13y ago
  While it's not my opinion, I did read this quote somewhere: "CoffeeScript is only syntactic sugar. It brings very little new to the table, but perhaps worse of all, it doesn't really fix all of JavaScript's WTF-issues while adding a few of its own. While it's an improvement over JavaScript, its advantages are sometimes outweighed by the extra hassle to compile and deploy it"
  - icedog 13y ago
    If someone has trouble compiling coffeescript in a build sequence, then they have bigger troubles afoot. CS is well worth the switch.
    - kybernetikos 13y ago
      If you have to introduce a build sequence to move to coffeescript then moving to coffeescript is definitely a net negative. I work on a >300k line JS codebase, and our tooling means you can make a change and hit f5 and you always get the latest version of the code. No file watching latency, no run-an-external-tool latency. We /could/ do the auto-reload thing, except that I think that for large applications with lots of state, that's probably the wrong choice. As far as I'm concerned visible 'builds' are the enemy to development. They take you out of your mental context, and in the worst case make even the tiniest changes painful. I've got nothing against pipelines of tasks, so long as the whole thing runs in milliseconds and is transparent to the developer. Obviously, you can do more on an occasional basis, perhaps before check in, and certainly in CI, but we need to reduce friction, and unnecessary build steps in environments that don't need them is a whole heap of friction.
      - 13y ago
sanxiyn 13y ago
Well, value proposition is error messages and code completion, not "make it easier to think about your program". You may argue types don't help people much, but types do help tooling. (Not in the sense being untyped causes some tooling impossible, but in the sense being typed substantially reduces tooling implementation effort.)
- Touche 13y ago
  This. TypeScript is a tool to sell Visual Studio, nothing more. If people are leaving VS because it can't do the magic things to JavaScript that it can to C# that's a big thread to Microsoft. TypeScript is about protecting the thing that makes them money.
  - randomhunt 13y ago
    Rubbish. TypeScript is more of a way for Microsoft to develop large scale JavaScript apps productively, hence its rather quick adoption internally. Channel 9 has quite a lot of information about who is using it. It does help Visual Studio and other tooling, but to say it is only "to sell Visual Studio, nothing more" is ridiculous.
    - Touche 13y ago
      > TypeScript is more of a way for Microsoft to develop large scale JavaScript apps productively, This implies that you can't develop large scale apps without type checking, which obviously isn't true. What's more likely is that Microsoft hires a lot of developers that know the "VS way" of coding, which is using intellisense and type checking, and they made a language that conformed to that. Which is the same thing as I originally said.
      - randomhunt 13y ago
        Nope, and incidentally its not the same thing you originally said at all productively You missed the most important word. As someone who has spent quite some time on Javascript codebases its amazing how quickly things break down when you get developers of different levels working on the same codebase. Optional typing allows a whole batch of problems to be caught way before weird errors/exceptions client-side. Productivity goes way up when the tooling can check basic errors. (Part of me still wishes Haskell was an option for web scripting but I can dream)

xtrumanx 13y ago

> ...also we added the class keyword so you don't feel lost I believe EcmaScript 6 plans on adding the class keyword and TypeScript's implementation reflects the current draft of how classes in ES6 will work. > ...statically typed languages make it easier to think about your program... Out of curiosity, do you normally program using statically typed languages? If not, I can see why you would be underwhelmed. Then again, I shouldn't be surprised by your reaction. This is Hacker News and TypeScript is by Microsoft.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
chrisoakman 13y ago
Not a huge fan of the class keyword in ES6 either... I do not use statically typed languages and I have nothing against MSFT; I was solely commenting on TypeScript as a language.
- xtrumanx 13y ago
  Sorry about my Microsoft remark. It was kind of inflammatory. I didn't originally have it in my comment but was inspired to add it in for some reason. I try to keep my inflammatory rhetoric out of HN. TypeScript's best feature (imo) is its (optional) static-typing so if you don't like static-typing to begin with, then yeah, it doesn't have much else to offer you. To each his own.

k3n 13y ago

Are TypeSscript and CoffeeScript really that much different? From what I understood, they both basically solve the same problems, one just does it in a Ruby-esque style while the other does it in a C#-esque style.

clone1018 13y ago
While it's not my opinion, I did read this quote somewhere: "CoffeeScript is only syntactic sugar. It brings very little new to the table, but perhaps worse of all, it doesn't really fix all of JavaScript's WTF-issues while adding a few of its own. While it's an improvement over JavaScript, its advantages are sometimes outweighed by the extra hassle to compile and deploy it"
- icedog 13y ago
  If someone has trouble compiling coffeescript in a build sequence, then they have bigger troubles afoot. CS is well worth the switch.
  - kybernetikos 13y ago
    If you have to introduce a build sequence to move to coffeescript then moving to coffeescript is definitely a net negative. I work on a >300k line JS codebase, and our tooling means you can make a change and hit f5 and you always get the latest version of the code. No file watching latency, no run-an-external-tool latency. We /could/ do the auto-reload thing, except that I think that for large applications with lots of state, that's probably the wrong choice. As far as I'm concerned visible 'builds' are the enemy to development. They take you out of your mental context, and in the worst case make even the tiniest changes painful. I've got nothing against pipelines of tasks, so long as the whole thing runs in milliseconds and is transparent to the developer. Obviously, you can do more on an occasional basis, perhaps before check in, and certainly in CI, but we need to reduce friction, and unnecessary build steps in environments that don't need them is a whole heap of friction.
    - 13y ago

sanxiyn 13y ago

Well, value proposition is error messages and code completion, not "make it easier to think about your program". You may argue types don't help people much, but types do help tooling. (Not in the sense being untyped causes some tooling impossible, but in the sense being typed substantially reduces tooling implementation effort.)

Touche 13y ago
This. TypeScript is a tool to sell Visual Studio, nothing more. If people are leaving VS because it can't do the magic things to JavaScript that it can to C# that's a big thread to Microsoft. TypeScript is about protecting the thing that makes them money.
- randomhunt 13y ago
  Rubbish. TypeScript is more of a way for Microsoft to develop large scale JavaScript apps productively, hence its rather quick adoption internally. Channel 9 has quite a lot of information about who is using it. It does help Visual Studio and other tooling, but to say it is only "to sell Visual Studio, nothing more" is ridiculous.
  - Touche 13y ago
    > TypeScript is more of a way for Microsoft to develop large scale JavaScript apps productively, This implies that you can't develop large scale apps without type checking, which obviously isn't true. What's more likely is that Microsoft hires a lot of developers that know the "VS way" of coding, which is using intellisense and type checking, and they made a language that conformed to that. Which is the same thing as I originally said.
    - randomhunt 13y ago
      Nope, and incidentally its not the same thing you originally said at all productively You missed the most important word. As someone who has spent quite some time on Javascript codebases its amazing how quickly things break down when you get developers of different levels working on the same codebase. Optional typing allows a whole batch of problems to be caught way before weird errors/exceptions client-side. Productivity goes way up when the tooling can check basic errors. (Part of me still wishes Haskell was an option for web scripting but I can dream)