If you're just getting started with TypeScript, you may be wondering where to start your learning and what helpful cheatsheets may be out there. Being new to TypeScript myself, I thought I would share a brief history of my journey learning TypeScript and what resources I have found helpful.
Getting Into TypeScript for the First Time
I had heard a lot about TypeScript and had it on my study roadmap for early to mid 2020. However, I began interviewing with an opportunity here in Austin late last year that gave me a code test, and, knowing that they use TypeScript in their projects, I figured it would be a good idea to use TypeScript in this React project.
The first article I read was Robert Cooper's Get Started with TypeScript in 2019. This article covers a little bit of setup, but doesn't delve into it too deeply, which I liked. I was using Create React App which makes it easy to plug in TypeScript, so I didn't need a lot of help in setting up. What I needed help on was TypeScript itself. This article did a good job of breaking down the basics of TypeScript, and listing the most common types and annotations I needed to know. This article also lists three other resources at the end that are very helpful.
I first built the app in JavaScript as I was initially more concerned about getting an MVP done with all the features I wanted it to have. Then I switched the app over to TypeScript. As expected, I immediately had a lot of issues to fix. I went through and fixed the TypeScript issues, Googling where the article didn't cover something. I used VSCode that has really nice integration with TypeScript which also helped me to understand TypeScript better. What really helped convince me that TypeScript was a good thing was when I was able to catch some bugs I had in my code that I didn't even know I had (they would only have shown up in edge cases).
This project helped me land the job and I have been working in TypeScript at my new job since mid-January 2020. I am certainly no expert yet, but am learning more and becoming more comfortable with it every day! ✨
More Resources
And now, a list of resources for your own learning!
Guides
- Get Started with TypeScript in 2019
- TypeScript Handbook (Official TypeScript docs)
- TypeScript Deep Dive (Online TypeScript Guide)
- Understanding TypeScript's Type Annotation
- Adding TypeScript (to a Create React App)
Cheatsheets
- Cheatsheet for TypeScript
- React+TypeScript Cheatsheets (Cheatsheets for experienced React developers getting started with TypeScript)
Books
I haven't read this one yet but was it was recommended by a co-worker and is on my reading list: Programming TypeScript: Making Your JavaScript Applications Scale
Conclusion
I hope this helps someone getting started with TypeScript. If you know of any great resources for TypeScript beginners, please leave a comment!
Top comments (1)
Nice post Jamena, thank you very much. I saved this post to my TS dev references 👌