Is TypeScript a fad or is my manager delusional?

If TypeScript still is a fad at this point, his definition of fad is far lengthier than mine is.

I'm fairly sure TypeScript will remain in popular use longer than whatever project you're working on 😅

As long as JavaScript is being used, TypeScript will be used. It makes writing JavaScript tolerable.

TypeScript might not be here to stay, but typed JavaScript definitely is. I’ve switched to writing 100% TypeScript, and haven’t looked back. The fact that just adding types to one of my (admittedly more complex) libraries surfaced 3 unknown bugs was eye opening to me.

CoffeeScript was a fad, but TypeScript seems to gaining more and more popularity these days, with new runtimes like deno supporting them natively. TypeScript finally gave Microsoft relevancy again in webdev world, so I bet they'll go a great length to make sure it stays that way. If Microsoft were still making their own browser engine, I bet they'll make it natively supports TypeScript too.

Static typing, for the win, and I'll die on this hill.

Fight me.

5 years ago everything was moving to TypeScript. Now everything has moved. Developers are still catching up, but it will be one-way traffic from here.

I'm guessing your manager thinks TypeScript is like CoffeeScript. It is not like CoffeeScript.

Also, TypeScript is only the beginning. In the halls of the tech giants most devs view TypeScript as a sticking plaster until things can be moved to webassembly. It will be a long time until that makes any dent in JS, but it will also be one-way traffic when it does.

A fad? No, definitely not. TypeScript brings features (and structure) that will /should probably make their way into JS.

It's sort of like asking, "does SASS replace CSS" or "is liquid the next HTML?" They're just implementations of features FE developers want in the core spec of JS, CSS, and HTML.

Typescript makes writing Javascript a reasonable thing to do. Your manager is a fad.

No. Dynamic typing, though, is absolutely a fad.

When anyone in a professional setting says they don't like having a mega corp supporting something I lose a bit of respect for their opinion tbh.

Yes we all know mega corps suck.

But if you're using anything in a professional production environment that is meant to last in the long term this is 100% what you want.

No, because raw-dogging JavaScript isn't something grown-up software shops do.

Javascript is a fad, we should all move to WASM. 🙃

But no, TypeScript is not a fad. Unless a better "Typescript like" thing comes out - I know how in frontend land people like to make their own substitute framework that does something slightly different than an existing framework - But I don't really see why anyone would want to make a NewTypeScript, and not just expand existing TypeScript

Hi, I've been doing TypeScript in my day-job and hobbies for six and a bit years now. I would not write JS in any other way.

TS is also a superset of JS so all JS is valid (unless you turn on strict mode). So there is no productivity loss/learning curve unless you want there to be.

In fact, a lot of people who think they're not using typescript are using it because their editors use typescript definitions for autocomplete and JSDoc type signatures are powered by typescript.

I'll riot if I ever need to write pure js again. 98% of web devs would be better served writing in TS. If you're actually knowledgeable enough to write more efficient js, more power to you but honestly I was probably being generous saying 2% of web devs fall into that category.

I hope not. I'm pretty sure me and my coworkers would be at each others' throats if it were not for some form of typed JS holding our Frankenstein codebase together.

Javascript is a fad.

Reject web dev; return to native.

Imagine changing your file extension from .js to .ts and calling it a fad. JS is TS. The difference is that TS does more (by actually doing stuff before runtime as a static analyzer, similar to eslint). If TS is a fad, then modern web dev is a fad.

Which, to be fair, it is.

Typescript is the only way I can agree to code in Javascript. And the only way you can have a sane project without writing double or triple the amount if unit tests for each function just to check things that a compiler would do. However it is absolutely a lipstick on a pig thing with confusing behavior sometimes, but that’s because the underlying language it is trying to make bearable is bonkers

A language that helps me write Javascript without writing Javascript? Nah, that ain't no fad, that's a grace from whatever god is up there.

Technicalities aside, TS is being pushed by MSFT in their SaaS custom components, and that right there will keep it relevant a while. MSFT is known for changing names a lot, but not for killing technologies.

After over 5 years of writing TS, I have had to do plain JS sometimes, and it is scary. It feels like walking blindfold. I'm spoiled.

I don't think it's going away until ECMA supports native types. Until then it's the best game in town.

If a team decides to move away from it, it's only few hours work to entirely remove. So even if it's going away, it's risk free until then.

But I cannot imagine why any team would elect to remove Typescript without moving to something else similar. Unless it's just a personal preference by the developers who aren't willing to learn it. It removes so many issues and bugs. It makes refactoring possible again. I think teams that want to remove all types are nostalgic, like a woodworker who wants to use hand tools instead of power tools. It's perfectly fine, and for some jobs it's better. But it's not the most efficient use of a team to build a house.

Your manager is an idiot.

In a small company with a non-complex product, there is a chance that TS creates more slowdowns than not.

In a large company with multiple cooks in the kitchen and a complex product, I'm personally of the mindset that there is substantial gain from typescript. I've had coworkers tell me it's bullshit, and then I do the smallest lift possible to convert and the amount of bugs it reveals are insane.

Is it necessary? No, probably not. But unless everyone's a 10/10 dev working on the world's simplest product, why not just do it and enjoy the benefits?

INB4 JavaScript blahblah, yeah I've added type hints to pure JS projects too and discovered bugs. At this point I don't get it. Typical resistance I get is that it's too prescriptive and lacks JS's dynamic nature - well, fuck off, I don't want to read through 200+ lines of code where you're changing types and shit on me willy-nilly.

What's the point of calling something a "fad"? If the technology works well and it provides value to you, why should you care what other people think?

(Example: Look at PHP)

Based solely on gut feel, I think Typescript will become less popular as Wasm grows

after reading the title I thought he'd suggest something better than TS would take its place, but going back to JS? nah

I don't see it dying from my perspective. Its only been getting better and better. The only thing I could see displacing it in my org is maybe Rust due to WASM proving a transition path.

We use TS on the back end to leverage our teams existing skill set and libraries we've built up.

I know it's a meme to use "the next best thing" in the ecosystem, but we've been really happy with the newish Effect library + Bun runtime. Effect is like a merger of the older fp-ts/io-ts libraries (same author works on both) with Zio from the Scala ecosystem. It vastly simplifies the former and the new stuff with dependency injection and defect management is refreshing. With the Bun runtime, we see a 15x faster startup time (great for dev). Its halved the RAM requirements in prod. We don't even need to transpile... We still do for prod to tree-shake dev-only code to ensure its not available in prod, but deploying to dev is FAST.

TypeScript is the new DOC format.

Create a language/format. Spend all of your effort making it ubiquitous until it becomes the default "standard" in the workplace. Then charge a metric fuck-tonne for the "official" software that makes use of it.

It's how Office became their cash cow. They create the proprietary doc format, get everyone using it, and once it's embedded in the workplace, charge exorbitantly for the software that uses it.

Once they get everyone using TS as a new industry standard, they'll find a way to make people have to pay for it. Mark my words.

Id rather quit than go back to pure JavaScript.

Wow, he's living in 2012 or whatever. A true time traveler.

I'm not a FE guy so don't write it much, but I'd always rather use typescript if I had to use anything like JS. Our FE guys use typescript at my current job and my previous one as well

The developer of Svelte moved from Typescript to JSDoc and explained in depth in an interview (you can find it on youtube). ECMA (the dudes making Javascript/ECMAscript) also started noticing that maybe static typing would be useful and there's a proposal to add typing to it. Whether that's moving forward or not, no idea, but if it were to come to vanillaJS, it's imaginable that typescript would be much less useful than it is now.

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I don't really get the appeal of strongly typed languages. Can't you just use try/catch blocks, and/or use functional programming and return early if the data structure of whatever you're working with isn't what you expected?

I guess it can help older code easier to maintain because the expected data structure is right there, but you could also just include it in a comment above the function.

I personally find TS slows down initial production of a project and raises so many unnecessary errors.

Is there some huge benefit that I'm missing? Because I don't really get the appeal. I mean, I do on some level, but I don't really understand why so many people are absolutely obsessed with TS.

JavaScript will implement the things that work out in TypeScript. So… yes and no?

For me, personally, yep; 100%. I've tried at least 3 times to convert, it just gets in my way. I'm way way faster with plain old JS. But I'm also a Rubyist so it is all ducks anyway.

Personally I'd rather use JSDoc in my own projects for type annotations and call it a day. I find TS a bit annoying but that might be because I'm not that familiar with it.

The only valid argument against typescript is that it is too similar to vanilla JavaScript. It does not go far enough. We need type systems like Ocaml's.

I suppose you can also complain about needing a build step, but I find this silly. There are so many tools that make this easy or automatic.

I don’t think your manager is sane.

Why on earth would we move back to JavaScript at this point.

Disclosure: I am a TypeScript dev and my boss is fully invested in Microsoft at this point. We use C# .Net and we use Azure and Teams.

Have you tried slapping your manager?

He might've watched this video: https://youtu.be/5ChkQKUzDCs

TL;DR: Big projects, like Svelte, Drizzle and Turbo ditched TypeScript

If JavaScript implements type safety then I believe it will go away. If not then it will continue to be used.

Wait until they realise its pointless…