

TypeScript included with Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 - techbubble
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/somasegar/archive/2014/02/25/visual-studio-2013-update-2-ctp2.aspx

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judah
While baking TypeScript into Visual Studio isn't a certainty of its future
success (e.g. Silverlight), it is a good indicator of Microsoft's commitment
to the language.

As a former CoffeeScript user, I love TypeScript: it's a more consistent
language driven by a real language designer, Anders Heijlsberg, author of
Turbo Pascal, Delphi, C#, and now TypeScript.

I am building 2 major projects using it:

\- RavenDB Management Studio [1] \- BitShuva, my Pandora-clone radio startup
[2]

Both of these projects have benefited from TypeScript.

Microsoft has really built something quite nice here: a clean JavaScript with
an optional, flexible type system, plus goodies from the future version of
JavaScript (lambdas, classes, modules). I believe this simpler approach is
superior to Dart's monolithic standard library + optional VM, superior to the
Rubyist's take on JavaScript that is CoffeeScript.

[1]:
[https://github.com/JudahGabriel/ravendb/tree/Raven.Studio.Ht...](https://github.com/JudahGabriel/ravendb/tree/Raven.Studio.Html5/Raven.Studio.Html5)
[2]: [http://bitshuva.codeplex.com](http://bitshuva.codeplex.com)

~~~
CmonDev
The only thing needed now is a higher-level version of HTML... Something like
XAML for instance.

~~~
keithwarren
You say XAML in jest but once you get over the learning curve, it is
incredible expressive, it will make you hate HTML and CSS.

~~~
mattmanser
Yeah, but that learning curve is a real bitch.

As much as I hate HTML I never struggled with it quite as much as I struggled
trying to feel productive with Silverlight 2/3 for the first 3 months.

But as you say, once you're finally over the hump, it makes you really despise
the utter stupidity of HTML and the w3c's design by committee.

~~~
pjmlp
Fully agree. XAML is great after one understands how all pieces fit together.

Sadly I get mostly paid to do web stuff.

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kayoone
I have the feeling that many people who dislike this have never really worked
with a static typing language. I have never really worked with anything except
perl, php, javascript myself until a couple of years ago when i got into game
programming with Unity3D using C# and Visual Studio. That experience was
enlightening, VS (+ReSharper) is like your own personal AI assistant that
deeply understands your code and helps you work more efficiently. Today, while
working mostly with JS again (node/angular) i sometimes feel frustrated about
WebStorms inability to do the right thing because it just can't understand the
code in the way it could if JS was static typed. I mean, its still far
superior to a pure text editor if you are working with large codebases imo,
but i somehow miss the VS experience.

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stcredzero
Microsoft has a potential winning strategy here vs. Dart. They are basically
giving JS programmers no more than what they are directly asking for.

~~~
kackontent
My only gripe - VS is way too expensive, for my pocket at least. And you
_need_ VS to program in TS, Intellisense is that good. Sure, you can go with
Express edition but then you don't have node.js extension - which kinda make
the whole endeavour bit pointless (again, for me at least).

Wish they would bring prices to the level of, for example, those of Jetbrains,
or made node.js extension working with Express.

~~~
nawitus
You don't need VS for TS. Eclipse and WebStorm support it pretty well. I've
evaluated Visual Studio, Eclipse and WebStorm, and Eclipse and WebStorm are
better for TypeScript development, at least if you're using Node.js.

~~~
malaporte
In my experience, Typescript support in IntelliJ/Webstorm has always been
sketchy --- so much that I find it quite unfair that they would mention this
as a feature of the paying version.

I still use it, but I often get invalid highlighting, etc.. Then I update to
the latest EAP because it's supposed to fix this particular issue... and then
other appear. Hmm, annoying...

I tried the VS version as well, and there the highlighting and refactoring
works very well... but the editor is waaaay slower so I always give up. Funny
because it works fine when working with other languages such as C#.

~~~
EdwardDiego
> Then I update to the latest EAP because it's supposed to fix this particular
> issue... and then other appear. Hmm, annoying...

1) Report bugs, they get fixed pretty quick 2) EAPs are not guaranteed stable
3) It's early days yet, it'll get better.

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eranation
Anyone using the Eclipse plugin? [https://github.com/palantir/eclipse-
typescript](https://github.com/palantir/eclipse-typescript)

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kilowatt
Have they been working on compilation speed? About a year ago I was trying
some WebGL "bindings" that had definitions for all the constants and
functions, and the game I was hacking on would take 20 seconds to compile on a
fairly recent Macbook Air.

~~~
jvilk
It has improved in recent releases, but I think they are focusing mostly on
incremental compilation via the -watch flag. My projects still take 5-7
seconds to build from scratch on my MacBook Air.

You probably know this, but just for others' information: Type inference is
expensive, as it requires global information about the project. As a result,
compiling one TypeScript file in a project results in the compiler recompiling
all of the referenced modules and definitions to re-build up that inference
information from scratch. Using the -watch flag keeps the compiler alive with
that information in-tact in memory, enabling incremental recompilation.

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rubiquity
Why is everyone so surprised that Microsoft bundled a language that Microsoft
built into a piece of software that Microsoft built? This says nothing about
TypeScript's future among non-.NET developers.

~~~
outside1234
I would say that TypeScript is actually more popular outside of the .NET
ecosystem than in it.

~~~
shaneofalltrad
And this is why TypeScript is 1-2% of the market? Check out GitHub and the
rest of the community outside of your workplace or whatever place you are
seeing this trend, because the numbers are not showing this. Even search terms
of google trends
[http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F02p97%2C%20typ...](http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F02p97%2C%20typescript%2C%20js&cmpt=q)
shows the term JS is more popular than TypeScript. Also look at twitter and
what the great developers of JS are doing; not TS. TypeScript has now tied you
to an IDE on some OS (Windows) even if developing on a Unix based server. When
you can simply edit JS from a half-gig box using vi if you needed, and do some
awesome code. I just don't buy the idea no matter how much Microsoft throws at
it, same with dart or any company backed layer over JS.

~~~
outside1234
All of that is wrong.

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oblio
What I find funny is that this is, ironically, Microsoft's old strategy but
with a positive twist. Embrace, extend, extinguish. Microsoft has already
embraced Javascript - we could argue that they brought their own demise as the
dominating platform when they created XMLHttpRequest. Now they're extending
it.

Maybe I'm naive but at this point I don't fear Typescript extinguishing
Javascript. If they send things to ECMA for standardization, they'll
definitely prove a point in this direction.

~~~
AutoCorrect
ECMA Standardization means nothing with Microsoft. They will still continue
the Embrace Extend Extinguish path, no matter if there is a standard or not.
Just look at OOXML to see where MS does not follow their own 'standard'.

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rikkus
TypeScript means ReSharper can do a better job than it does with JavaScript.
Brilliant!

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NicoJuicy
Now support for Less, Sass in the IDE instead of using Extensions ;)

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jongalloway2
LESS was added in Visual Studio 2013[1], SASS is in the 2013.2 CTP 2
release[2]

[1][http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webdev/archive/2013/11/06/a-high-
val...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webdev/archive/2013/11/06/a-high-value-
undocumented-less-editor-feature-in-visual-studio.aspx)
[2][http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webdev/archive/2014/02/25/announcing...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webdev/archive/2014/02/25/announcing-
new-web-features-in-visual-studio-2013-update-2-ctp2.aspx)

~~~
NicoJuicy
Weird, my latest test with less made me download extensions and all of that...

But thx, i'm going to check it out :)

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bsaul
I would so much like to have something like that for python...

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jeastburn
I prefer to write my JavaScript directly instead of TypeScript, but the built-
in LESS support will be great!

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frik
What's the advantage over JavaScript 6? Typed arrays are already available
with JS 5.

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CmonDev
No mention of XAML/WPF - just some web crap. Do they not care about enterprise
now?

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benawabe896
I still don't quite understand why anyone would use TS... especially without
an IDE.

~~~
judah
Tooling is a big boon with TypeScript: Go to Definition, Find All References,
Refactor->Rename, debug your TypeScript in Visual Studio.

You're right that if you don't use the tooling, TypeScript is of lesser value.
Using things like classes, lambdas, modules syntax is still there, of course,
and is quite a bit nicer than JS equivalents.

~~~
DCoder
Be careful with that if you use data-binding in your templates, such as
Knockout.js . Visual Studio doesn't know the types of your viewmodels, so
those templates are not indexed and not subject to refactoring.

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rat87
Is there no way to specify type of viewmodel somewhere? Ala d:DataContext from
resharper?

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whydo
Embrace, extend, extinguish.

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puppetmaster3
The worst part of ts is that it is associated w/ MS and not npm.

~~~
puppetmaster3
Why the downvotes?

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shaneofalltrad
How do you down vote? Seriously I could have a field day with this thread.

