I am a big advocate for TypeScript. It even became a job requirement for me. I would probably refuse to work on a JavaScript codebase again.

Just to add to the other pieces of advice:

1 - Compile-time errors

Typed languages give you compile-time errors on top of runtime errors. If your code compiles it means you already have cleared a few bugs before you even start running your app.

2 - Documentation

Having typed properly your code gives your documentation. You know what is the type that any variables hold, You know what is the return type of every function... With pure JavaScript, you often have to rely on naming conventions. With TypeScript, you can enter any codebase and straight away know the type of variables, the shape of objects, etc...

3 - Auto-completion

Types give you auto-completion. Using a third-party library or accessing properties of an object, your IDE, will give you all the possible options and will moan (compile-time error) if you try to access a property that is not defined or try to map over an object for example.

4 - Let you learn other languages more rapidly

As a JavaScript developer, it is often impossible to read a codebase of a different type-language (java, swift...) and understand. Understanding types will allow you to (more) rapidly understand other programming languages.

TypeScript is not perfect in my opinion as it is not part of the JavaScript language, and you often struggle in trying to stop Typescript "complaining". But the pros largely overweight the cons in my opinion.

One important thing in setting up TypeScript is making sure you enable strict rules. Such as "strictNullChecks", "noImplicitAny", "strictFunctionTypes". If you TypeScript configuration is too permissive, you might be ending up writing more code for not that much safety. Basically you want to catch as many errors as you can in compile-time and only run the app once you feel confident it should work.

Kevin Amiranoff

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