Optional (un)chained melodies for those who like their TypeScript to be more assertive in 3.7

As its Florida Ignite shindig looms large, Microsoft has settled on a Release Candidate for TypeScript 3.7 ahead of an imminent launch. The open-source TypeScript, a superset of JavaScript (replete with static typing if required), has been gaining popularity over the years. Along with the likes of Rust and Kotlin, it is …

[Paper]

Why?

I get why Typescript exists, however does it honestly bring any real benefit? Does Javascript really have that many problems?

[tommitytom]

Re: Why?

It's more an improvement of the development experience - which is a VAST improvement at that. I spent good part of a decade working with statically typed languages, and being forced to use JavaScript for web stuff was a real struggle. Not only because it was easy for type errors to creep in to code (especially on large teams) but my speedy workflow became pretty much reliant on good autocomplete and intellisense, both of which are lacklustre if you don't have full type information. TypeScript solves those problems, and it solves them very well!

[captain veg]

Re: Why?

JavaScript has some problems, sure, but static typing ain't one of them. Lack of support for modern features in Microsoft's browsers certainly is.

-A.

[John Sturdy]

I've long wanted a feature like that

That does sound useful to me --- should make a lot of code more compact.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I've long wanted a feature like that

The "Elvis" operator was about the only thing I liked in the Groovy programming language.

[captain veg]

Re: I've long wanted a feature like that

It's only slightly more compact than

let x = foo && foo.bar.baz();

-A.