Why I'll always use Typescript over Javascript

📘 T3 Stack Tutorial: 1017897100294....
🤖 SaaS I'm Building: www.icongenera...
✂️ Background Cutter: www.background...
💬 Discord: / discord
🔔 Newsletter: newsletter.web...
📁 GitHub: github.com/web...
📺 Twitch: / webdevcody
🤖 Website: webdevcody.com
🐦 Twitter: / webdevcody

[@WebDevCody]

Sorry for sounding so angry in this video, it gave me flashbacks of all the JavaScript bugs I’ve fixed over the years where I pass the wrong data into a function.

[@extremeweirdness1528]

I don't think you were sounding angry at all.

[@mrlectus]

You should be angry

[@hamzadlm6625]

You don’t need to apologize for taking on mental ilness that is JS

[@eshw23]

I forgot that Javascript even exists😀😀. The first few months of learning was painful but now its a god send.

[@MaxProgramming]

Same here seeing javascript files feel weird after using typescript 😂

[@eshw23]

@@MaxProgramming I know kind of makes me vomit

[@charliecoppinger]

As someone who’s been getting into TypeScript over the last month, and who therefore had been seeking out content speaking to the true value of TS, let me tell you: this is the best video (or resource across all types and formats) that I’ve come across on the subject. This video gets right to the heart of why TS is invaluable, which is one hell of a feat. I had accepted that the esoteric-esque confusion I felt was simply because it would be impossible to appreciate the full value before I’d paid the price of entry-by getting through the gruelling learning process-but you’ve proven that wrong. Thank you Cody, I’ve seen the light; I’m going to spend my morning tomorrow to deep diving into TS and start committing to it properly henceforth. Praise TS, praise Cody 🙏😤

[@WebDevCody]

yeah it took me a few months before I started to really grasp ts, and I’m slowly learning the more advanced things as I progress, but just learning the basics by typing arguments and return types gives you a lot of bang for the buck. Then you’ll start understanding the types provided from libraries such as react which seem super confusing at first but then you see it’s just a type with a generic. I think using ts with react is what makes it hard at first honestly. They have a bunch of random types you sometimes need to memorize and attach to your callback arguments and components to get it all good.

[@madeinhvn]

I saw how DHH dropped TS from Turbo like 5 mins ago and now I saw your vid 💀

[@mountains4000]

Strange times we live in. DHH also dropped prettier, saying that their code is pretty anyways.

[@WebDevCody]

yeah, I jumped on the band wagon to get some views, I won't lie

[@mountains4000]

Ha ha 😂

[@solaaar3]

​@@WebDevCody Take my like!

[@andrea.martella]

Great video! Just an FYI, the PHP ecosystem has come a long way and now basically every serious project uses strict typing for the same benefits you listed! I know it's not the best programming language but it's definitely not the worst 😂

[@cruz.aljon1990]

People only know the 2012 PHP :D

[@MaxProgramming]

Man I'm yet to do any tests but 5:55 was hilarious 😂

[@gavinlindridge]

Amen to this, completely agree as an application developer. I would argue that it's not as simple though for library developers as the types can get pretty gnarly in lib code. But as a consumer of a lib I want it to be typed as it's a real pain without them .

[@dominiktworek6455]

Hi. I'm code as a hobby. Over 1 year I used java, now I jumped into javascript. Language is amazing, but I can just imagine how stupid must be debugging in large application when something went wrong. I decided to use typescript. As I don't know javascript in overall I am overhelmed but the whole beauty is when i hover over a class or junction, I just know everything. Also, nice is that I can ctrl + click to jump in to the source code.

[@DeaViNG]

I prefer using TypeScript because it has the blue color

[@MrOrganicz]

your folder structure's beautiful, Great video!

[@sixtusonyedibe1619]

"I think they're smoking something strong" got me rolling on the floor🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@monstajoedev]

I agree with you. Once I started using TS I immediately hated regular js

[@_rcs]

This video really resonated with me. I’m a C# dev who frequently has to sprinkle JS into our web apps. JS always feels unstructured and the code feels brittle.

[@CristianKirk]

You, as a developer, are the one responsible for giving structure to your code.

[@_rcs]

@@CristianKirk Obviously. The code doesn't write itself.

[@Guergeiro]

5:50 - "I think they're smoking something strong" -> I never expected you to say this like it was nothing. Laughed a lot 😝

[@jomoc6112]

After finishing a large project with TypeScript, I realized that I no longer need TypeScript. Since I understand my code very well, I can work with what some might consider "crappy" because they cant understand. i just hate code gymnastics. i just right any for the library im trying to make.

[@CrankyBarbar1an]

Heyyy!! Amazing video, and this perfectly explains why I'm frustrated with javascript now that I've worked with typescript. Anyways, regarding the slow speed, we can now use Bun, now that it was released!!! I haven't personally tried it out yet, but from the benchmarks, it appears to way faster than node, ts-node.

[@fulcain8596]

5:54 It was the best moment of this video 😂😂😂

[@simpingsyndrome]

me personally always prefer to put the return type, it feels easier to read without hovering over the syntax

[@AlbertoNoys]

I work in one of maybe 100 modules in a huge project written in JS. Every day debugging things that would be 10x easier, or wouldn't even happen if it was TS. I've tried convincing them to switch but it's not a priority at all. I wish there was a way to use TS in my module at least, I don't know.

[@WebDevCody]

is it possible to write your module in TS but then compile down to JS for people using the module?

[@AlbertoNoys]

@@WebDevCody I've been exploring the idea since a left the comment. Maybe. I'll try my hardest 👍🏻

[@mervinmarias9283]

The good thing about generics is that it can save you a ton of writing, once you get into the hang of it. It allows you to do things that would be extremely difficult to do in vanilla javascript because it is not inately supported.

[@twothreeoneoneseventwoonefour5]

types are not inately supported in the first place lmao. Other than that, you can do anything in JS that you can in TS, just without the types, nothing stops you. It is not "difficult" lol. It is exactly the same just without the types. Typescript doesn't really have much features that you don't have in plain JS (except types, again).

[@tratoc]

Whether using TS or JS there are good practices that solve a lot of these problems: For example turning your parameters into destructured objects. ie: export function convertToGrayScale({name, age}). You should also be using comments whether using TS or not, which is where JSDoc can be useful. If a codebase grows to any thing more than a solo project having just a type definition does not do enough to onboard a new developer on the way to use existing functions etc. As for "time saved" there can be some gains but as you mentioned there is a trade off. TS sometimes makes you do things twice, once defining the type and then writing the actual function that satisfies(heh) that type.

[@yurt-page]

JsDocs is not that bad and maybe it's more verbose but you don't need a compile step. Also you have a better learning curve and can hire a Junior dev or some backender. Everyone anyway need to learn JS. In the same time TS doesn't add any real typing e.g. there is not Integer/Long/Float/Double types in it. This is really important because can catch many errors. The ES6 now has many features that TS/CofeeScript have: 1. Classes, even with inheritance. 2. for of 3. Map Set BigInt ArrayInt8 4. import (but it just useless so better use require) So the only one thing that is missing in JS is ability to place a type right in a definition instead of comments and interfaces. Anything else that TS have is not so critical.

[@danieljayne8623]

I use TypeScript daily and have a C# background. Where I struggle is around figuring out the correct type to use in complex scenarios and situations where you have to perform type gymnastics when using other libraries. I also found it difficult to dive into libraries and inspect the types as sometimes you get types made up of several other nested types. Also, the IDE integration is a lot more buggy than I’m used to with VS and c#

[@twothreeoneoneseventwoonefour5]

Then you are more than certainly fundamentally structuring your code wrong in the first place. "Type gymnastics when using other libraries" shouldn't happen if you don't do something horribly wrong with your code. Especially daily. Some library authors may struggle to type some things 100% compatible to other things, but in normal application code? You need to rethink how to approach those things because that definitely doesn't sound right.

[@SRG-Learn-Code]

I know JsDocs is not as fancy, but I think I'm done with TS.

[@privatesocialhandle]

What I wanna know is what mouse and mouse pad are you using? Because those damn hover over and clicks are god tier.

[@WebDevCody]

My Mac book track pad

[@privatesocialhandle]

@@WebDevCody Damn 😂

[@jeici21]

As a TS lover, I agree with you 😁

[@pedroserapio8075]

13:11 wow, I thought that I was the only one, I love TS, it really saves me from many future problems but I also don't fully understand the configuration files. I tend to find something already made and if it's stable and just keep using the same configuration again and again.

[@WebDevCody]

Ts would be a lot better if it didn’t have a configuration file and just had one strict type of configuration everyone needed to use imo, but they needed a way for JavaScript projects to adopt it, so we have a super configuration type system

[@AlleinArk]

I agree even tho I am still frustrated using TS because I am noob lol, but I can see the point using TS since I have similar situation to understanding javascipt logic on a small-medium projects and it doesn't have JsDoc and documentation.

[@jellyfish1772]

Finally someone saying just how annoying and toy-like language javascript is. Thank you. Seriously ❤

[@SeibertSwirl]

Good job babe!!!! I got the notification late 😅😅

[@juanmacias5922]

Static typing for the win! I just started learning TS, after using Dart for a while, no way I can use dynamic languages lol btw, you need to try Bun! It runs TS natively, and tests are ran blazingly fast!

[@eduardgorte8241]

Amen brother! 🫂

[@elliottchong]

100% agree with your points on typescript. I do also notice the slowness of the typescript compiler when working on a bigger project. But I've been experimenting with the new Bun runtime and it solves the need for the tsconfig bs and also seems to significantly speed up typescript development. would like to know your take on the new bun runtime and if it will help with typescript development down the line :)

[@WebDevCody]

I need to try it out

[@harag9]

100% agree, TS all the way. I recently took over a react project at work that was written by contractors - they have TS in the package.json file - yet EVERYWHERE they used : any --- WTF... why have TS and not use it. I now have the job of fixing it as I'm sure they are plenty of bugs due to wrong types.

[@maddada]

Hopefully bun will help with the slowdown that you mentioned in the end.

[@bandekhoda7801]

my experience with TS as a beginner with 6 month of JavaScript experience (1 month with TS): 1- TS is awesome even if someone like me is using it purely because of the intellisense it provides; I mostly don't understand some of the utility types or where i might want to use them, but the fact that i can specify something is an object with these required properties is just perfect (aside from the auto-complete, it also yells at me if i act stupid and forget to add required properties) 2- The build proccess is not fun at all (needing to run tsc for every change), but thankfully in frontend projects i can use Vite and it's a breeze 3- maybe it's because i'm a beginner, but using TS in a backend project with NodeJs is not fun at all and is just messy; especially if i can't use something like Vite and need to build my project for every single change that i make and follow that up with a command to run the server 4- again, maybe it's because i'm a beginner, but sometimes when i'm using a big package, it's just impossible to understand what the error means, especially when i'm only really familiar with simple type annotations

[@WebDevCody]

For 3. Nodemon can run typescript code. You save your backend code and it’ll restart your server. You don’t need to rerun any commands 4. Yes errors take months to start understanding what they mean

[@bandekhoda7801]

thanks for the taking the time and replying, i already tried Nodemon but unfortunately it uses powershell and windows prohibits running scripts on the system, this also made me to use "tsc.cmd" instead of "tsc" (i can deactivate it with a command but i'm afraid of the security issues) @@WebDevCody

[@noherczeg]

15:57: running typescript tests with Vitest is suuuuper fast. Give it a try!

[@voji7715]

"If you're the type of person who likes defensive programming, I personally would just let this thing crash" This made me laugh so hard 4:49

[@owenwexler7214]

TS will always be superior to JSDOCS for one simple reason: JSDocs go out of date. Easily and often. I have so many outdated JSDocs in my recently rewritten* web app codebase now that if I were to hire an engineer tomorrow I’d tell them to ignore the JSDocs for the time being and just look at the TS interfaces. TS forces devs to write self-documenting code and more importantly keep it self-documenting. * from JS with JSDOCS to TS among many other rewrites/refactors/version bumps EDIT: ah I see you touched on this at 11:54 but yeah this is my daily reality now

[@romeorichardson3138]

DHH creating an uproar behind a post that basically says "JS Docs is better than Typescript" because "Type Gymnastics" is hilarious because most of us know it isn't.

[@tyu3456]

Nah, he didn't even say JS docs is better. He said we shouldn't have any types at all.

[@gavrshchuk]

Your example is very simple. Try to create a mid size TS npm library with TS types. In some cases it is not possible to do that without a bunch of any or unknown's and a lot of conditional types with inferred types. export type ValueFromNotification = T extends { kind: 'N' | 'E' | 'C' } ? T extends NextNotification ? T extends { value: infer V } ? V : undefined : never : never;

[@WebDevCody]

Most people are not creating libraries. Most of my viewers are just trying to build an application. But yes if you’re creating a library you’ll be using a lot of genetics and extends, keyof, returnType, unions, etc

[@ryanquinn1257]

I see both sides. Once you’re on a team or expect code to be around for more than a few years TS wins. I’ve done C, C++, VBA, C# and now JS learning TS. I see benefits of static typing but it has to be worth the dev time to make ts compiler happy. There’s an exponential benefit after a point though.

[@WebDevCody]

what code isn't expected to be around for years? no one is working on a project that is planned to be thrown away in a few months (at least I'd hope not). Even though one off scripts you write to do some data manipulation end up getting committed to the repo and stick around for years and everyone wishes they were just written in TS.

[@ryanquinn1257]

@@WebDevCody Do you want specifically typescript or just generally static? Will JS Doc get there? I really like that as a middle ground for best of both worlds due to how much time I can spend fighting the ts compiler instead of working with it.

[@DarkStoorM_]

Hmm, for the JS doc blocks I'd use VS DocBlockr over JS Doc, it actually picks up the hinted types in a JS file.

[@daedalus5070]

Anyone know what extension provides those colour blocks for the matched brackets?

[@WebDevCody]

Indent rainbow I think?

[@devrohim]

is there a books you can recommend for beginner ? thanks.

[@Harish-rz4gv]

Where do you place your fingers on keyboard asdf or Shift sdf, because for the first one it's hard to press Shift

[@WebDevCody]

Asdf

[@gamemoves2415]

Also the tsc file, bum and deno eliminate those. I hope the industry goes with any of those options

[@Gigusx]

Once I've played around with Typescript (and I really tried making myself not dive deeper into it) I haven't looked back. It just makes things so much more convenient, even if all you use it is defining some types on functions and variables in a hobby project, that alone will make things go smoother. The entry barrier and config (especially when things DON'T work) is I think what keeps people away from it, it certainly did me, but it's worth getting through that early stage. I hope native types will eventually be added and solve most of the overhead that everyone has to deal with when using Typescript. Also, Bun could make Typescript nice to work with as well, since it comes with a lot of stuff preconfigured out of the box (on the first glance, anyway, I haven't used it yet). Have you tried it out yet?

[@WebDevCody]

I tried bun a while back and kept running into bugs. I don't think bun is worth investigating until it's supported by major cloud providers (aws Lambda, etc). It's a cool idea, but I need production ready solutions (yes, it's 1.0, but just because they put "production ready" on their project doesn't mean it truly is). It might be worth at least checking for the local dev environment if it could make tests run that much faster

[@Gigusx]

@@WebDevCodygood point, good point. I'm also waiting to see how it's adopted, and the general feedback now after the 1.0 release. Great first impressions, though!

[@parkerrex]

cody spittin facts 🎉

[@SXsoft99]

as a php developer that started before types were introduced, i find that the guys making JS are doing what php did, first they added annotations to code then they added types but coming from a non strict type language to another i find it that i am less bothered by this concept

[@gamemoves2415]

The issue is from people who write libraries. Writing types for libraries is very convoluted because typescript is not really up to the standard of proper type systems.

[@jimothyus]

Static typing is the only sane way to code. What I hate about ts is the declaration files, and the type tooltips in editor, for example type t= keyof typeof TypeA just shows me that same thing as the type when I hover t. I wish it resolved it into the actual type for example "size"|"color". This happens sometimes but not always. Also the error messages are terrible. It literally spits out 50 lines of types and then 1 of the 30 subtypes doesnt take a partial and you have to dig through the declaration file soup to find out what the hell is even going on.

[@WebDevCody]

I do agree the error messages take months to learn how to read 🤣

[@codeoconloscodos6314]

​@@WebDevCody would be great to make a video about it :D

[@yousafwazir3167]

Use c#

[@MaxProgramming]

C# is nice. But TypeScript has it's own usecases

[@alasassi5889]

Why you are naming your files in route folder ‘_’ and ‘$’ what is going to help you ?

[@WebDevCody]

It’s a remix convetion

[@CCleanerShot]

Here's what I dont get about using JS over TS. If you're really adamant about not "bloating" ur code with types, just do :any ? Just do it, like seriously, because that's what you'd basically be doing in JS anyways. You can just get the best of both worlds. Using TS doesn't mean the entire thing has to be statically typed (and chances are, depending on if a parameter is extremely dynamic, it would be better of ur time to just write :any). It feels like, UNLESS ur problems with TS are unrelated to directly working with TS (example: compile time in a massive codebase), there really shouldn't be a problem. The only benefit to JS is if its a solo project and u need speed (probably something u ship out in

[@WebDevCody]

yeah, I mean you don't even need to add the :any, just turn off the no implicit any checks and you can write ts just like javascript, but get some additional benefits. for me, switching to js would make me a lot slower, so idk if the "if you need speed" argument is even valid. I have coded in javascript for years, and I often make silly mistakes where I pass the wrong arguments or try to get the wrong properties from objects that eat up 5 minutes of debug time and break my concentration day after day.

[@jawyor-k3t]

that's an interesting pfp lol

[@johnwilliams7999]

I think js plans to adopt types so that could probably make typescript obsolete in a few years.

[@lopo889]

Im relatively new to typescript, and it does helps a lot. But on the other hand, without typescript... Actually help me develop 6th even 7th sense 😂. So the PR removing typescript days ago is to help us evolve as a human 😂

[@WebDevCody]

it's like removing GPS from our phones, we'll evolve as humans and learn how to memorize directions

[@the.apprenant]

I feel like as consumers of frameworks and libraries we devs are always gonna choose TS over JS, as a library maintainer/creator it might make sense to go with JS rather than TS as you yourself mentioned TS slows you down especially in a big project such as a library or framework.

[@WebDevCody]

maybe, I don't build libraries / frameworks, so I wouldn't know, but I'd assume it would involve using a lot more generics

[@lucaslopes-hs5uw]

What is your vs Code theme?

[@WebDevCody]

Bearded theme

[@lucaslopes-hs5uw]

Thanks!!@@WebDevCody

[@theppiwatkomolwat4429]

i used to write js in the large project and the worst is i have to change the main Fn that use every where in my project but the js just tell me everthing is fine 🤣🤣🤣

[@lotfijbeli1471]

C is the father of programming languages.

[@mountains4000]

Yes, I get it. But please explain this to DHH 😂

[@WebDevCody]

I haven't even heard of this guy until recently. He's not that important.

[@mountains4000]

He's the one behind Ruby On Rails and runs basecamp & signal37. Has written a bestselling book as well. I have it, it's quirky tbh.

[@WebDevCody]

@@mountains4000what’s Ruby on Rails? 😜

[@prajapatinayan9841]

What vs code theme r u using?

[@WebDevCody]

bearded theme

[@prajapatinayan9841]

Wow! I just tried it and it’s so cool. Ty

[@therealdevopsintern]

I don't care what you guys say about Typescript- I'm not a fan of typescript, a bad developer is a bad developer. I don't like the fact that I have to implement and scatter types everywhere in my code because I need type. I know exactly what I need to return when I'm using JavaScript and I love my code been simple and precise. I'm sticking with JavaScript. I don't have to shove down my throat whatever new technology developers bring out there. Sometimes they can bring crazy things. Sophisticated web apps have been built with JavaScript and nobody is complaining.

[@WebDevCody]

what ever works best for you

[@therealdevopsintern]

​@@WebDevCodygreat content webDevCody, I love the fact you take the time to respond to your comments.

[@WebDevCody]

@@therealdevopsintern I try! Sometimes there’s a lot of comments to get through

[@mountains4000]

Hey mate, how come your videos have so less views ? I don't see 10% conversion. It is attention or topic ?

[@mountains4000]

I think thumbnails have to do with this. 😮

[@WebDevCody]

some topics perform much better than others, and I often just publish things I enjoy talking about, not what others want to hear. For example, this video will probably be a top performing video because there was just a huge debate on twitter about typescript and some other big youtubers talked about this same topic, so it's fresh on peoples minds and people want to hear opinions. I have some other videos where I explain software architecture which all perform well, but I don't care too much to constantly publish videos about architecture.

[@WebDevCody]

yes better thumbnails would help, but I personally don't care. My lack of thumbnails actually help me stand out IMO

[@mountains4000]

​@@WebDevCodyyes this one will perform better because of the debate going on. Well thumbnails do get views and describe what the video about is. But you do you, and it's working for you. 150K+ subs.

[@mountains4000]

​@@WebDevCodyDoes consistentcy matters in this case ? Making more videos and frequently making videos ?

[@takeshikovacs667]

Bad comparison even in TS you should write doc and tests, so when you have unit tests and doc in both JS and TS the difference just ends up being do you put type in the doc or in the function definition. For testing types AI can write those tests anyway or they can be auto-extracted and written fro myour JSdoc. Stop hating dynamic typing please.

[@neociber24]

I don't really get why in 2023 will a developer don't want types in a serious project, maybe they just enjoy debugging. I undestand TS is hard, but mostly if you are a library author

[@nsaid26]

I cant understand why people get so angry when others likes typing, normally I see that those people dont understand it, or are not disciplinate enough to deal with it.

[@WebDevCody]

I think people who hate typing never used it and they are scared to learn it. Like I mentioned, I started with Java and C, so typing was obvious, then dropping down into JavaScript was a joke at first until you get used to constantly debugging and assuming data structures. Why assume when the ide can tell me

[@brokula1312]

I bet you can even type `hex` parameter as union of strings "0" to "F"

[@alishmadhukar2177]

I think they are smoking something strong !!😂😂

[@Harish-rz4gv]

Is that Remix??

[@WebDevCody]

Yes

[@rickyyt7305]

This is not the tone or manner I’d want my team to learn about or debate typescript.

[@WebDevCody]

Sorry I offended you

[@hesam-init]

ts is so sweet

[@parlor3115]

Problem with TS is that it's structural rather than nominal which is something you typically figure out later rather than being immediately communicated to you because, depending on the type of project, structural typing could be an absolute deal breaker not to mention all the edge cases and unexpected behavior as well as compiler options that don't make sense like setting "strict" or "strictNullChecks" to false. I'd hard support an alternative that addresses all these points tbh.

[@abhisharma-kq6tb]

Yeah I get it turbo 8 drop the typescript with a bunch of crap excuse’s and uses java script myan

[@hamzakhiar3636]

BUN

[@st-jn2gk]

why is dad angry today

[@WebDevCody]

🤣 am I web dev daddy now?

[@romeorichardson3138]

Yes.@@WebDevCody

[@WebDevCody]

Yes a said crappy one too many times in this video, I’ll tone it down next time

[@oscarljimenez5717]

​@@WebDevCodyyes

[@ajzack983]

Laughing in PHP

[@MaxProgramming]

PHP makes a lot of $$$

[@laughingvampire7555]

because you are masochist

[@WebDevCody]

No pain no gain

[@Tyheir]

I came from Java as well and I agree with your take. The only thing I’d say is that typescript does have a lot of “type gymnastics” and this is especially true when working with different packages as in some cases you’ll have to tell ts using “as” that they’re wrong and to Shutup just to get rid of an error. Still will never willingly go back to js tho

[@BlockCylinder]

What's your VS Code theme?

[@WebDevCody]

bearded theme

[@noherczeg]

"But the Svelte guy said it's an overhead", "We don't have time to wait for 1 minute compile times on our production artifact", "But my package.json is soo big since, I need tsc as well". "Thinking about stupid types slows me down". Am I missing anything?

[@WebDevCody]

I’m sure there are a bunch of others