

Microsoft puts its spin on JavaScript with TypeScript - ceekays
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/programming-and-development/microsoft-puts-its-spin-on-javascript-with-typescript/6943

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jschrf
I use TypeScript on a medium-sized (>50K LOC) single-page web application, as
well as on some personal projects. The large project was ported over from
JavaScript, which went quite smoothly. So far TypeScript has been great. Doing
front-end web development while writing type-safe quite is a nice luxury I
have not had before.

The only thing I would complain about is some of the tooling is still a bit
unstable, which is understandable. I'm using Visual Studio 2012.

I've been looking forward to 0.9 for some time now, as the generic support
allows me to fully express all of the types in my system.

To me the most beautiful thing about TypeScript is it's compatibility with
JavaScript and how definition files work. Definition files essentially allow
you to write code contracts against existing pieces of JavaScript code that
may or may not be outside of your control.

[https://github.com/borisyankov/DefinitelyTyped](https://github.com/borisyankov/DefinitelyTyped)
is a good resource for definition files.

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agilebyte
I cannot recomment WebStorm enough. Has great support for Type/JavaScript and
IntelliSense works automatically from sources for the runtime/libraries you
are using.

Have tough time getting used to definition files at the moment. Microsoft only
offers a v0.8.8 file of Node.js. Loads floating on GitHub that contain errors.
Not good. I suspect it is one of those thing where until a lot of people use
TypeScript and there are defs for different versions of libraries (by
authors), it will be a bit of a wild west.

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phasevar
Has anyone used TypeScript in conjunction with Node.js? I love developing in
the Node ecosystem, but the lack of type checking is irritating.

~~~
jschrf
I haven't worked with Node myself, but you can find a definition file here:
[https://github.com/borisyankov/DefinitelyTyped/tree/master/n...](https://github.com/borisyankov/DefinitelyTyped/tree/master/node)

Fly at it, I say.

