An Introduction To TypeScript

Javascript has been for years. But still, the effort to improve its performance and correct its flaws is always ongoing. TypeScript is one such avatar, born to create a better experience with JavaScript.

The front-end developers are always on the lookout for new ways of improving on JavaScript’s old faults. And why not? They don’t have time to wait for things to get sorted. Hence, they migrated to other options instead of fighting and wasting time with the old one. But, thankfully, TypeScript is here, and it seems to be a necessary update to our favorite language. This may have a significant impact on JavaScript’s future.

What is TypeScript?

It is an open-source typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript while still letting you write fundamental JavaScript if you want to. Initially created by Microsoft, it now has other contributors from all around the world. It encourages a more declarative style of programming through things like interfaces and static typing (more on these later). It offers modules and classes, and most importantly, integrates relatively well with popular JavaScript libraries and code. Any piece of JavaScript code is also valid in TypeScript. This makes it very easy to migrate old JavaScript code to TypeScript.

Why TypeScript?

Of course, this question will rise up in every mind - why one needs TypeScript when JavaScript is alive and working fine? Because of the very open nature of the Internet and the World Wide Web. This makes it very slow for the core technologies to release new features. Although the specifications have already been out there. Moreover, it takes time for all the major browsers to integrate the new features into their engine.

How Does TypeScript Works?

You may ask if the browsers take time to include new features and technologies into their engine, how will they understand TypeScript then? Well, they won’t! The truth is the TypeScript tool transpires the TS code into regular JavaScript code that all browsers can understand and run? Now that’s worth a shot, isn’t it?

For those confused about the terms ‘transpile’ and what is the difference between Compilation and Transpilation? Well, Compilation is a developer term that means to convert some programming code to an executable machine code that a human cannot read. But when a tool converts some programming code into some other human-readable programming code, we say it has “transpiled the code.”

TypeScript Community

TypeScript is continuing to grow. Thus, it has a very supportive community to help you out with everything you need at any stage. There is fantastic support for its syntax baked into Microsoft Visual Studio IDE and Visual Studio Code, with packages and plugins for editors like Atom, Sublime Text, and Emacs readily available as well.

Conclusion

TypeScript is gaining popularity due to its improvement over JavaScript’s shortcomings by introducing a static typing system, complete with interfaces and type unions. This way of working helps us write better and declarative code. It integrates well with virtually every mainstream build setup out there at the moment. And it even gives us the ability to create and use custom types as well. There is also a myriad of IDEs and text editors that have great support for its syntax and compile process. So you can use it in the coding environment of your choice with no worries. Its future is brighter. Hence you can start using it in your projects without any fear.