TypeScript at Google
I always wonder why people think typescript is a fix for bad code.<p>We primarily do JavaScript, and I see no issues with it when you set up governance in how to use it.<p>I don’t think building your own libraries is really a bad thing either, in fact I think you should do so often instead of relying on 3rd party packages of quality you typically judge on how many times they’ve been downloaded if you’re being honest.<p>I think typescript is silly. It works with legacy code, sure, but if you’re refactoring you might as well rewrite your JS or if you’re compiling to JS you might as well chose Dart which is vastly superior to typescript.<p>I don’t really see type safety as an issue. I can’t remember when it was a problem for us, and we operate millions of lines of code, but they are all written with governance. Want a number? Then call your argument numWhatever and check your input. It’s really as easy as that.<p>I mean, sure type checks will prevent shitty code from compiling, but really, just don’t write shitty code. I know that sounds silly to some people, but 95% of what you write is about shifting data around through simple mechanics, it really shouldn’t be so hard to do it right.<p>You won’t see an engineer go “oops that support beam in your building wasn’t right, my bad” and programmers really shouldn’t get that luxury either. If they write shitty code then figure out why, maybe they need more time, maybe they need training, maybe they need governance or maybe they need to be replaced.<p>But hey, feel free to fix your shitty code with code that’s only less shitty because your compiler protects you. Just know that typescript comes with a different set of risks, once you need your JS codebase to move forward in a way that isn’t supported by JS.