TypeScript Blog

If you're already using VS Code, I expect you'll find TypeScript support to be much, much nicer, since VS Code is the not-quite-official editor for TypeScript programming. VS Code is written in TypeScript, and I believe the TypeScript and VS Code teams (both at Microsoft) collaborate with each other to improve the developer experience of the two used in combination. For example, here are some TypeScript release notes showing the improvements to the TS language service and how they manifest in VS Code:

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/typescript/2018/05/31/announcing-typescript-2-9/

TypeScript has a nice architecture that provides a language service that can be used by any editor, but my impression is that VS Code is the "flagship" editor that gets these features first.

I personally use WebStorm, and I find its TypeScript support much better than its Flow support in various ways (though I haven't tried Flow in a while). Imports get added automatically, autocomplete is fast and has better results, navigation just works, etc. Part of this is historical: WebStorm supported TypeScript first, and was hesitant to support Flow during the long period of time when Flow didn't work on Windows. It now has Flow support, but I think it's just not as polished, and I don't see it come up as much in the release notes.

The commit in question, made on 16th July, uses the term "OfficeISS". I can find no mention of this online. Is this a straightforward code-name for their project to re-write their major apps in React, mentioned in the following tweet? https://twitter.com/TheLarkInn/status/1006746626617008128

I asked for clarification on how they were approaching macOS support in React Native, both:

1) in that Twitter thread (to no answer): https://twitter.com/LinguaBrowse/status/1006834843416657920

2) and in the subsequent Reddit discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8qqhlz/office_365_ms_teams_skype_code_and_the_edge_debug/e0lr0k1/ (to an answer ignoring the macOS part of my question).

Microsoft are clearly going all-in on React Native:

1) TypeScript 3 has plenty of oddly React-specific features (e.g. defaultProps and PropTypes support): https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/typescript/2018/07/30/announcing-typescript-3-0/#default-props-support

2) react-native-windows is thriving: https://github.com/Microsoft/react-native-windows

3) WinObjC is looking formidable: https://github.com/Microsoft/WinObjC

I think the future is bright for Microsoft, cross-platform development, and the React universe..!

They've finally begun backtracking on function parameter bivariance. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/typescript/2017/06/12/announcing-typescript-2-4-rc/

They still think they're right: "Our experience has been that users generally don't run into issues with this all that much", but they've started to "tighten[] things up and compare[] the parameters which are callbacks specifically". I'm just so excited and annoyed that they've finally partially admitted they're wrong. Double annoyed that we're still on TS 1.8 :(

I just don't understand function parameter bivariance. It's not just that it's wrong (if it was just theoretical I wouldn't've noticed), it's that it keeps letting bugs through. You simply can't refactor the code and then fix it till there's no errors because you'll run out of errors before you run out of things that need changing. Or adding features in React+Redux, can you get it to help you? Nup. At least that's a specific point you can remember to check.

Most of my projects now use babel indirectly and its been removed from all backend projects at work, sometimes replaced with typescript or vanilla es6.

Ex: anyone using facebook's jest, vue-cli, etc will get v7 whenever those packages upgrade.

The typescript support seems interesting for people with large babel pipelines, but I'm not sure what the other use cases are since it doesn't do any of the typechecking tsc does. Would be interested in hearing what people plan to use it for.

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/typescript/2018/08/27/typescript-and-babel-7/

I was concerned that it would be difficult to use the new `--strictFunctionTypes` flag due to all the 3rd party typings not conforming to this flag. However, sandersn fixed[0] many popular packages not long after this feature landed.

I've been using TypeScript for 5 years[1] and it has been a great experience,! Even these (occasional) "breaking" changes are relatively easy to navigate.

[0]: https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/pull/18654#issuecomment-336274851

[1]: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/typescript/2017/10/02/typescript-turns-5/

There was a lightning talk on TypeScript at EmberConf that also gave a status update on how TS and Ember work together:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCHFjGSCqP4&feature=youtu.be&t=6h34m26s

It looks like full support could be landing soon. I know TS 2.2 added flexible enough class modeling to handle Ember's object system: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/typescript/2017/02/22/announcing-typescript-2-2/

Of course we're attacking that from the other side as well, and experimenting with native ES classes in Glimmer.