Here's another idea that, for some reason, only occured to me just now:
Is Flow its own language???
I've never heard someone say that they only like to code in Flow. In fact, such a statement would be borderline nonsensical. Because Flow doesn't run by itself. It only runs inside of JavaScript.
Now believe me, I'm not trying to delve into any kinda analysis about Flow vs. TypeScript. From my vantage point at least, it feels like TS, basically, "won". But there's still a lotta Flow-based code hanging around out there. And it's, by no means, a "dead" construct.
If JSX is not a standalone language (and I'm not actually claiming that it is), and if TS is a standalone language, why doesn't Flow have the same status???
I'm a professional PHP, Python and Javascript developer from the UK. I've worked with Django, Laravel, and React, among others. I also maintain a legacy Zend 1 application.
I think Flow is a better approach than Typescript, because it doesn't try to be more than a type system for Javascript. It's just an add on for the language. However, I think both Flow and Typescript should be considered as transitional solutions.
In the longer term there should be a push in Javascript to add native support for some sort of type annotations for Javascript, and Flow annotations seem like a good starting point for that.
In the longer term there should be a push in Javascript to add native support for some sort of type annotations for Javascript
This is basically how we got to TypeScript. A good while back, Microsoft was actively participating in the ECMA standards group, and they were all poised to introduce much of what we now call TypeScript as part of the next ECMA spec. But at the last minute, there was a lot of debate and protest and MS's proposed changes got pulled. Eventually, MS released them as its own open source project - and now we have TypeScript.
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Here's another idea that, for some reason, only occured to me just now:
I've never heard someone say that they only like to code in Flow. In fact, such a statement would be borderline nonsensical. Because Flow doesn't run by itself. It only runs inside of JavaScript.
Now believe me, I'm not trying to delve into any kinda analysis about Flow vs. TypeScript. From my vantage point at least, it feels like TS, basically, "won". But there's still a lotta Flow-based code hanging around out there. And it's, by no means, a "dead" construct.
If JSX is not a standalone language (and I'm not actually claiming that it is), and if TS is a standalone language, why doesn't Flow have the same status???
I think Flow is a better approach than Typescript, because it doesn't try to be more than a type system for Javascript. It's just an add on for the language. However, I think both Flow and Typescript should be considered as transitional solutions.
In the longer term there should be a push in Javascript to add native support for some sort of type annotations for Javascript, and Flow annotations seem like a good starting point for that.
This is basically how we got to TypeScript. A good while back, Microsoft was actively participating in the ECMA standards group, and they were all poised to introduce much of what we now call TypeScript as part of the next ECMA spec. But at the last minute, there was a lot of debate and protest and MS's proposed changes got pulled. Eventually, MS released them as its own open source project - and now we have TypeScript.