Introduction and first two chapters on TypeScript

Mohamed Bendjeddou — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 18:02:37 +0000

Hey DEV,

As promised, this is the first entry in what I hope will be a complete series summarizing, reviewing, and sharing thoughts on the book titled Full-Stack React, TypeScript, and Node and subtitled Build scalable and cloud-ready web applications using modern React, TypeScript, and Docker by David Choi and Cihan Yakar, two seasoned web and mobile developers with particularly strong expertise in the trio figuring in the book's title.

Remember that what you're reading is from the perspective of a learning beginner, so don't expect "expert advice" but rather just a summary of some of the content and maybe a few discoveries and learning points.

Just a note on the reading setup: I purchased the book directly from the publisher. I could either read the book on their in-browser "next-gen" reader, which I don't really fancy, or on their mobile app, which I found it was down from both the Play store and the Apple store. So I opted to use the PDF for reading on desktop when I'm following along the examples, and the ePUB on the phone when it's more theory (or when my back hurts from sitting). It's just great that the publisher offers its books for download on those formats for more freedom and convenience. Not all publishers do.

So I am reading the second edition of the book, released at the end of June 2026 by Packt Publishing, so it's pretty recent stuff. There is no "what's new" section in the book's preface to highlight what has been added or updated from the first edition, which was released back in 2020, though the Amazon page of the book mentions "new chapters and updated content that reflects current industry practices", and specifies three particular chapters on monitoring, observability, and AI-assisted development. The preface does specify the software technologies and versions covered in the book, like Node.js 24, TypeScript 6, React 19, Express 5. Those are all the latest major (LTS) versions, though it also mentions "PostgreSQL 16 or [fortunately] later"!

The same section also states the single pre-requisite to get the most out of the book, and that is to be "comfortable reading and writing JavaScript". In my case, just coming from Eloquent JavaScript, where I got a pretty good grasp of the fundamentals of the language, and did a fair bit of practice on JSchallenger, this book seems to make the perfect next step for me. And I can indeed confirm, as the concepts I learned in the first 2 chapters on TypeScript built on and reinforced what I acquired from the former book, and you know that joyous "I know this" feeling you get when you encounter the same concept expressed in a different language, by a different author. So for an optimal learning experience with this read, please do get the hang of at least the basics of JavaScript beforehand.

But even with very little JavaScript under your belt, the book has you covered, as it does offer you a refresher on the language, right on the next Chapter 3, Building Better Apps with ES6+ Features, which discusses "the modern JavaScript that the rest of the book leans on: block-scoped variables, arrow functions, destructuring, modules, and working with asynchronous code", all of which I went through in Eloquent JavaScript, but I am looking forward to consolidating and practicing a bit more, and, as you may have noted by now, I thrive on anything "new", "modern", "latest"...

Finally getting around to the actual content of the first two chapters, these simply introduce you the TypeScript superset of the JavaScript language and why it's helpful and even necessary, the notion of dynamic versus static typing, compile-time versus runtime features, the principles of object-oriented programming, and much more, with the second chapter going into more detail on the types that TypeScript adds on top of JavaScript, and both chapters sprinkled with examples and good detailed explanations. Tough I don't know why the book started with TypeScript and then discusses JavaScript; the logical learning flow would obviously suggest the other way around, but maybe the authors have a good reason. We'll see next.

In any case, that was my inaugural post on this book. I hope you found something useful in here. Please leave your thoughts on what you have just read. See you in a chapter or two!

Getting Started, Starting Documented

Mohamed Bendjeddou — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 01:21:47 +0000

I have just joined and I found this place so compelling that I feel pushed to write my first post and share my humble experience.

I have also been inspired by two good DEV articles with the same title: "I Wish I Had Started Documenting My Tech Journey Earlier", which highlight the importance of keeping track of progress wherever one is in the tech journey. So here I am documenting my 'first' steps.

And I put first in quotes for a reason.

While it is in fact my first time sharing, I have been around tech for quite some time, mainly learning to code but switching between multiple frameworks and languages.

I am a book person. I find books have a certain structured narrative that isn't found in the docs (debatable, I know). Anyway, after brushing up on HTML/CSS I started with PHP and the comprehensive two-part book called PHP 8 Objects, Patterns, and Practice and never went beyond the chapters on objects. After a while I subscribed to O'Reilly for a month (as expensive as it is) and got really bouncing between the endless cloud and web development technologies. I eventually decided to focus on JavaScript. (I also could not ignore the 'PHP is getting old, JS is the future' trend.)

I ultimately settled on two titles (and firmly decided: no more books, need to get building). The first, The Linux Command Line, because it's obviously an important skill whatever the niche. And the second, Eloquent JavaScript, the freely available, beautifully written, and obviously one of the most well-regarded references on the language, which I finally finished, if skimming through some heavy chapters like Regular Expressions and skipping most exercises.

And speaking of exercises, I did come to recognize I was doing a lot of theory and very little practice. I simply find little incentive to do book exercises, even though solutions are provided to compare or get unstuck.

Instead, I got myself a month of JSchallenger, a website that teaches JavaScript by giving small, bite-sized lessons and challenges starting with fundamentals and gradually going up. That one finally got me actually writing code. (Just note that there aren't too many of these challenges and there doesn't seem to be any added or updated stuff, so I don't see how it's a subscription thing.)

However, I recently came across the shiny, very recently released, colorfully Packt-covered second edition of Full-Stack React, TypeScript, and Node. And I really relish the shiny new stuff. Add to that a 9.99 sale that was about to end, and I simply could not resist...

I made the purchase and almost swore to make this one my last book, not that books are bad but that I really needed to make use of all this and start building something real instead of reading about coding and pursuing technologies.

That said, I just finished the first chapter and maybe I'll try to share what I learn here and 'review' the book along, at least to make for some active reading.

And as a first-time contributor (and as per the DEV publishing guidelines!) I will end by requesting that if any of this resonates with you in any way, please leave a question, a comment, whatever, and thank you for reading.

DEV Community: Mohamed Bendjeddou

Introduction and first two chapters on TypeScript

Getting Started, Starting Documented