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JavaScript vs TypeScript. Why We Should Learn TypeScript?

hiro9108 on January 17, 2021

What is TypeScript? Hello, I am a student in Vancouver, Canada and studying web development. In this article, I will show you "How to us...

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Mat Jones • Jan 17 '21

Good article dude. TypeScript is awesome. Basically, TypeScript prevents you from using things the wrong way, at compile time, which is one of its greatest strengths. Especially when vanilla JavaScript has such a wacky type system.

James Thomson • Jan 18 '21

It also plays nicely with most IDE's so Intellisense is much more valuable, especially in very large codebases.

0815fips • May 3

You can configure your jsconfig.js properly, add JSDoc and *.d.ts files to be as safe as in TS.

JoelBonetR 🥇 • Apr 26 '22

@matjones @jamesthomson @rammina
We all can agree that TS is a must for a couple of things but did you know that you can use TS in two different ways? Check this out 😄

KooiInc • Apr 29

I have been programming java-/ecmascript (ES) for 28 years now and never felt the need to use (the hassle of) TypeScript.

It's relatively easy to check the input for a function, e.g. by contract:

function fooContract(a, b) {
  return  a?.constructor === Number && 
     b?.constructor === Number;
}

function foo(a, b) {
  if (fooContract(a, b)) {
    return a + b;
  }

  throw new TypeError(`function foo => expected 2 Numbers`);
}

foo("40", 2); //=> TypeError
foo(32); //=> TypeError
foo(40, 2); //=> 42

To check the type of (nearly) everything in ES, I deviced a small module.

Rammina • Oct 12 '21

Great introduction to Typescript! It is not only informative, but also cleanly formatted in a way that beginners can understand.

I can definitely agree with your points, Typescript makes coding less punishing, especially in a larger project. I just love the type safety that it gives you as well as the amazing IntelliSense. While there is boilerplate, it makes up for it by reducing mistakes and bugs, as well as improving code quality.

However, Typescript has downsides, which I discussed here:
dev.to/rammina/downsides-of-typesc...

I hope it will help people when they think about when NOT to use Typescript.

Caleb Whittaker • Mar 21 '23

That was a very concise article and well formatted for beginners such as myself. I've been learning to code with JavaScript for about a year now and the amount of times that I've received type errors or other bugs that took me longer than I'd like to admit to find makes me wish I had started to learn TypeScript sooner.