Ask HN: Is TypeScript worth it?
&gt; It&#x27;s a framework, with all the usual framework downsides<p>&gt; For example, a new package you install can require a new TypesScript version. Once installed, you then may need to update your source code. This can place quite a high tax on the developer, where perhaps a 10 minute change becomes hours long.<p>No. It&#x27;s a language compiler. You can upgrade it safely without changing a single line in your codebase. If there is a breaking change (sometimes, regarding the strictness) there&#x27;s also a configuration option that lets you keep the previous behavior.<p>&gt; ii) Libraries are badly documented<p>And so you&#x27;re going to lose any and all typing as your solution? I don&#x27;t understand. Undocumented but typed &gt;&gt;&gt; undocumented and untyped.<p>&gt; iii) Error messages are hard to follow<p>I disagree completely, TypeScript has helped me many times to understand what&#x27;s happening and why - I mean errors that I wasn&#x27;t aware of in my previously untyped JS codebase.<p>&gt; iv) It requires yet more transpilation<p>&gt; Transpilation takes time, and always adds a burden to developers.<p>Doesn&#x27;t matter. Use SWC or esbuild for sub-100ms compilation times. Your CI is a long running job due to tests and lint anyways. Nobody is writing pure uncompiled JS these days - you can&#x27;t use NPM libraries that way, so there&#x27;s always some (Web)pack step. I haven&#x27;t seen a single developer who liked having to care about browser versions and wants to go back to that - but if you add a compilation step you get that for free and can write the latest and greatest.