[throwawaydbfif]

I agree with you that JavaScript sucks balls in far more ways than is reasonable for such a widely used language. The design is seriously shit when compared directly to really any popular language, even PHP.

I disagree with transpilers not being a reasonable answer. Eventually JavaScript will be okay to work with, some day. Until then, transpilers offer nearly unlimited freedom in redesigning the bad parts of the language while maintaining 100% fowards and backwards compatibility. It's really as good as it can get.

Since they compile down to a Turing complete language there's really no limit to the heaps of dog shit they can abstract away. Historically, c++ is nothing more than an insanely complicated C preprocessor and it has more than proven that such a strategy can be viable long term. In fact, the first c++ compiler made, cfront, is still available and literally outputs raw C code from c++.

Typescript is easily my favorite since it's designed to compile down to very human friendly JS. Getting typescript out of your stack requires nothing more than one last compilation with optimizations turned off. Unlike most transpilers (looking at you babel) the output JavaScript uses standard JS workarounds like the crockerford privacy pattern for classes. This gives typescript fairly practical fowards and backwards compatibility. You can always target output to a newer version of js or convert your codebase out of typescript back to js at any time.

If it catches enough traction, browsers will begin implementing native typescript parsing since it offers many potential performance optimizations on top of what js is capable of. At this point you just maintain your typescript codebase and use some library to give your legacy clients some transpiled J S on the fly.

If typescript gets enough adoption it will fix JavaScript for good, in the same way the original c++ compiler (which just transformed to c) led to native support, so I'm really rooting for it.

[munificent]

> since it offers many potential performance optimizations on top of what js is capable of.

It doesn't, unfortunately. TypeScript's type system is unsound, so the VM can rely on types for optimization.

[innocentoldguy]

I can see your point about transpilers. Of all the transpilers I've used, I like Elm the best, due to its functional nature, syntax, strong typing, compiler, and debugger. It isn't fully stable yet, as a language, and there have been breaking changes in each release since I started using it, but it offers the most promising departure from JavaScript. I guess anything that facilitates the de-turding of web development in general is a good thing.

[throwawaydbfif]

Haha de-turding is a great way to put it. I just don't think a new language is a reasonable option. There's what maybe... 50,000 different versions of the ~500 web browsers from different eras still running out there somewhere?

If having code work almost everywhere is important for a project, that project will be using vanilla ES3-5 JavaScript for the next 10+ years. Maybe not the latest startups but all sorts of enterprisey ancient stuff that needs to run needs some path forward. If typescript can provide that it will become the lowest common denominator at any company that ships both new and legacy codebases.

Typescript to JS transpilation is extremely similar to the strategy that produced C++ from C. We know it will work, and it's been done before to great success. C++ isn't perfect but I think everyone agrees it's definitely a lot nicer to work with than C, and that's exactly how I describe Typescript as well

[innocentoldguy]

I do see your point about C++. I was programming when it first came out, back in 1985. However, I've always thought C++ felt "Band-aid-y." It never felt elegant and cohesive to me, the way Objective C does. C++ is like a chainsaw-hang-glider-shotgun-bat; badass, to say the least, but still a clumpy work of bailing wire and duct tape. Typescript feels the same way, only not quite so badass. It's more like the Robin to C++'s Batman.

Having said that, my only exposure to Typescript has been in Angular 2. Having used other tools like Ember, React, and Elm, Angular 2 seems like a magic step backwards to me. I will concede that my opinions on Typescript may be tinted by my experience with Angular 2 though, so I'll give Typescript a stand-alone, honest evaluation, and adjust my opinions as necessary.