TypeScript 0.9 arrives with new compiler, support for generics Microsoft on Tuesday announced TypeScript 0.9.0, the latest version of its JavaScript killer alternative web language, which Redmond describes as the "largest update to TypeScript to date." In addition to the usual assortment of bug fixes and performance improvements, this release includes a number of significant new language …
I'd never even heard of it until now.
Anyway... Really? They are still trying to embrace and extend? You would have thought they'd have learned their lesson with their version of java, and their previous javscript efforts. I thought they were going to follow web standards from now on...
They are still trying to embrace and extend?
No. The compiled output of TypeScript is JavaScript. Of course, the article did its very best to obscure this. TypeScript is Anders Hjelsberg's shot at making life much, much easier for JS developers. It's a dev tool, not an alternative language.
"No. The compiled output of TypeScript is JavaScript. Of course, the article did its very best to obscure this. TypeScript is Anders Hjelsberg's shot at making life much, much easier for JS developers. It's a dev tool, not an alternative language."
In which case, I apologise to Microsoft, and anyone else who may have been annoyed.
Serves me right for taking a Reg article on face value!
Oh good. Just when we though it was safe to develop cross-browser web sites, another opportunity to fragment the the browser environment presents itself. It was getting boring writing code once instead of having to write it 3 times to accommodate Bloody IE.
For those who don’t yet know it, JavaScript is an advanced, powerful scripting language. Like all languages it has its quirks and foibles. Many of them are addressed in the next version. Microsoft’s approach is, once again, a destructive attempt to hijack the Web.
JavaScript's lack of strong typing and freedom to do anything is what makes a small bit of code so easy and a large bit of code so awful. Editors can't offer any assistance in managing a large codebase because the code can not be statically interpreted. Even the runtime is often unable to perform vital optimizations because it can't prove that they're safe.
What's odd about Microsoft is that they're designing a new language syntax. There's really no need for that. They could recycle C++ or Java syntax but supply it with web-specific runtime libraries rather than the sprawling and insecure ones used for applications.
I recommend that people try writing a parser for C++
C++ grammar ain't quite the same as its syntax. Personally, I'm not quite sure what 'c++ syntax' is supposed to mean in this context anyway, beyond curly braces'n'semicolons which JS and its various extensions and putative replacements already have...
For those who don’t yet know it, JavaScript is an advanced, powerful scripting language. Like all languages it has its quirks and foibles. Many of them are addressed in the next version. Microsoft’s approach is, once again, a destructive attempt to hijack the Web
Having you considered checking out what TypeScript actually is before sounding off?
Usage pattern :
1. Take your JavaScript project
2. Drop it into TypeScript
Lo! It runs! (provided it would have run in any other JS environment - TS doesn't magically fix your shitty broken code)
3. Add more code using strongly typed objects, generics, overloading, all the good stuff.
4. Compile your project.
5. Examine the results of the compile to find.... zomg it's all JavaScript! There is no TypeScript in the output! at all! It's completely to standard!
Of course, 3 minutes worth of actually checking what the story was about would have told you that. And one minute of fact-checking would have told the author of the article that, too but clearly neither of you gives a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut about what's actually going on.
Typescript is **not** a web language, and is never intended to be used directly in a web browser. Typescript is a standalone language that brings many advantages over Javascript (many of which were mentioned in the article). This is **not** an attempt by MS to subvert an existing web-technology by causing fragmentation. Anyone who sees TS and comes to the conclusion that MS is simply repeating the tactic that they employed with Java is sorely missing the point.
The most important thing to realise here is that the compiled output of TypeScript is JavaScript. The purpose of TS is to provide compile-time type-safety so that code written by developers is more easily checked and enforced at compile time. Once compiled, the output is standard, vanilla Javascript.
Anyone who thinks that this causes disadvantage to the web at large simply doesn't understand what TypeScript is and the aims of the TypeScript project.
+1 to Microsoft for finally "getting" the web.
". Anyone who sees TS and comes to the conclusion that MS is simply repeating the tactic that they employed with Java is sorely missing the point."
My apologies. I (and I assume others) came to that conclusion based only on what was written about Typescript in the article - in my eyes, it implied it was a superset replacement for javascript.
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