Top 5 features of TypeScript - TypeScript vs JavaScript
TypeScript is a programming language developed in 2012 by Microsoft. Since its inception, it has exponentially grown in popularity.
TypeScript offers a lot of advantages compared to JavaScript, most importantly typings which help prevent a lot of bugs, help with the refactoring of your code, and ensure a more explicit code that is easier to understand.
TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript which means that JavaScript code is valid 🥳 in TypeScript.
More and more companies are migrating to TypeScript and I will explain to you why you should do the same.
Here are my 5 favorite features of TypeScript:
1. TypeScript is more explicit than JavaScript
Perhaps its biggest advantage compared to JavaScript is its addition of typings, which ensures a more robust and explicit code. With TypeScript, you can enforce those typings which will make your code more maintainable and more reliable. Also, adding new programmers to the project is much quicker since they spend less time understanding your code and more time writing it.
2. TypeScript makes it easier to prevent bugs
TypeScript can help you prevent a lot of bugs compared to JavaScript because TypeScript provides a transpiler with an error-checking feature. TypeScript will show you syntax errors in real-time. TypeScript will also show you compilation errors when you build your project.
3. TypeScript has great Intellisense
TypeScript has really good IntelliSense, a tool that will autocomplete your code and give you hints while you are coding. It will greatly help you increase your coding speed and productivity. IntelliSense works especially great on VSCode.
4. TypeScript offers an easy migration
JavaScript is valid TypeScript. This means you can port your code incrementally without porting everything at once. Also, TypeScript will support all your old JavaScript libraries, the only thing to do is to install a special package with the typing for a particular library or declare the typings yourself.
5. TypeScript adds new features
TypeScript adds a lot of new tools that you can use to write more explicit code. It adds:
- Enums
- Interfaces
- Access Modifiers
- Custom Types
- Namespaces
- And much more!
Conclusion
I hope I convinced you to choose TypeScript when you will be developing your next web application. Trust me, it will help you write a more maintainable app with fewer bugs.
Links
Code: https://github.com/TimMouskhelichvili/top-5-features-of-typescript