Elm vs TypeScript

Overview

TypeScript

Stacks105.1K

Followers74.2K

Votes503

GitHub Stars106.6K

Forks13.1K

Elm

Stacks758

Followers744

Votes319

Elm vs TypeScript: What are the differences?

Developers describe Elm as "A type inferred, functional reactive language that compiles to HTML, CSS, and JavaScript". Writing HTML apps is super easy with elm-lang/html. Not only does it render extremely fast, it also quietly guides you towards well-architected code. On the other hand, TypeScript is detailed as "A superset of JavaScript that compiles to clean JavaScript output". TypeScript is a language for application-scale JavaScript development. It's a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript.

Elm can be classified as a tool in the "Languages" category, while TypeScript is grouped under "Templating Languages & Extensions".

"Code stays clean" is the top reason why over 37 developers like Elm, while over 139 developers mention "More intuitive and type safe javascript" as the leading cause for choosing TypeScript.

Elm and TypeScript are both open source tools. It seems that TypeScript with 50.5K GitHub stars and 6.98K forks on GitHub has more adoption than Elm with 5.26K GitHub stars and 421 GitHub forks.

Slack, Clever, and Repro are some of the popular companies that use TypeScript, whereas Elm is used by NoRedInk, Brilliant, and RolePoint. TypeScript has a broader approval, being mentioned in 954 company stacks & 1390 developers stacks; compared to Elm, which is listed in 27 company stacks and 34 developer stacks.

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Advice on TypeScript, Elm

Peter

May 17, 2019

Reviewon

TypeScript

I use TypeScript because:

incredible developer tooling and community support
actively developed and supported by Microsoft (yes, I like Microsoft) ;)
easier to make sense of a TS codebase because the annotations provide so much more context than plain JS
refactors become easier (VSCode has superb support for TS)

I've switched back and forth between TS and Flow and decided a year ago to abandon Flow completely in favor of TS. I don't want to bash Flow, however, my main grievances are very poor tooling (editor integration leaves much to be desired), a slower release cycle, and subpar docs and community support.

135k views135k

Comments

Jarvis

May 16, 2019

Reviewon

TypeScript

Flow (JS)

I use TypeScript because it isn't just about validating the types I'm expecting to receive though that is a huge part of it too. Flow (JS) seems to be a type system only. TypeScript also allows you to use the latest features of JavaScript while also providing the type checking. To be fair to Flow (JS), I have not used it, but likely wouldn't have due to the additional features I get from TypeScript.

168k views168k

Comments

David

VP Engineering at Trolley

May 16, 2019

Reviewon

JavaScript

Flow (JS)

TypeScript

We originally (in 2017) started rewriting our platform from JavaScript to Flow (JS) but found the library support for Flow was lacking. After switching gears to TypeScript we've never looked back. At this point we're finding that frontend and backend libraries are supporting TypeScript out of the box and where the support is missing that the commuity is typically got a solution in hand.

173k views173k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

TypeScript	Elm
TypeScript is a language for application-scale JavaScript development. It's a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript.	Writing HTML apps is super easy with elm-lang/html. Not only does it render extremely fast, it also quietly guides you towards well-architected code.
-	No Runtime Exceptions; Fearless refactoring; Understand anyone's code; Fast and friendly feedback; Enforced Semantic Versioning; Small Assets
Statistics
GitHub Stars 106.6K	GitHub Stars -
GitHub Forks 13.1K	GitHub Forks -
Stacks 105.1K	Stacks 758
Followers 74.2K	Followers 744
Votes 503	Votes 319
Pros & Cons
Pros 173 More intuitive and type safe javascript 105 Type safe 80 JavaScript superset 48 The best AltJS ever 27 Best AltJS for BackEnd Cons 5 Code may look heavy and confusing 4 Hype	Pros 45 Code stays clean 44 Great type system 40 No Runtime Exceptions 33 Fun 28 Easy to understand Cons 3 No typeclasses -> repitition (i.e. map has 130versions) 2 JS interoperability a bit more involved 2 JS interop can not be async 1 No communication with users 1 Main developer enforces "the correct" style hard

What are some alternatives to TypeScript, Elm?

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Meteor

A Meteor application is a mix of JavaScript that runs inside a client web browser, JavaScript that runs on the Meteor server inside a Node.js container, and all the supporting HTML fragments, CSS rules, and static assets.

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.