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Discussion on: The TypeScript Experience

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Replies for: The comparison with C# comes up because Anders Hejlsberg is the lead architect of C# and TypeScript by implication: "TypeScript began its life ...

 
lucamug profile image
lucamug •

The "Ideology" video linked is very nice.

Related to it, it would be interesting to roughly categorize people that answered the Twitter thread in

  • People that only experienced JS
  • People that experienced JS and TS
  • People that experienced JS, TS, and a statically typed language like Java, not based on the Hindley–Milner type system
  • People that experienced JS, TS, and a sound static language like Haskell, OCaml, Elm, or F# based on the Hindley–Milner type system (where type annotations are mostly optional)
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peerreynders profile image
peerreynders •

On a side note:

A Gentle Introduction to Haskell, Version 98

"It's usually helpful to write down the type of new functions first;"

I always thought that it is useful to actually separate the type from the implementation - as opposed to the C-style conflation of both. So something like

/** @type {(string, boolean) => number} */
function sbn(s, b) {
  /* ... implementation details ... */
}
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seems perfectly reasonable - though familiarity with the mainstream, conflated syntax

function sbn(s: string, b: boolean): number {
  /* ... implementation details ... */
}
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creates a bias towards s: string "belonging together" even though they are just distinct aspects of the same positional argument:

  • s is the name the value of the positional argument is bound to
  • string is the type the positional argument is expected to be
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lucamug profile image
lucamug •

"It's usually helpful to write down the type of new functions first;"

Yes, it is interesting to note that devs that use languages where type annotations are optional end up with a mindset of writing type annotation first and the implementation after.

Programming languages influence the way we find solutions.