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by bcherny
3320 days ago
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Flow is definitely not a Linter. It is a language, like TypeScript. It also has a typechecker, like TypeScript. Unlike TS, which bundles in its own compiler, Flow relies on projects like Babel to provide a compiler. In either case, compilation is mostly as simple as first linking modules, then typechecking, then stripping away types. You can use TS on a JS codebase as well (with the --allowJs option), or you can leave JS files to a separate build step if you don't want type inference for them. I have used both approaches in the past. |
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This is absolutely untrue. Have you used Flow? It runs as a completely separate process -- you're literally running Flow as a command which typechecks/lints your code. It does not do any transpilation or modify your code in any way. The only caveat is the Flow type annotations which are A. optional and B. removed at compile time without doing any typechecking. Try it some time -- you can run Flow on existing JS code without modifying either your code or your build process in any way. It'll probably even find some bugs without you needing to add additional type information. This is fundamentally different from Typescript which goes hand-in-hand with a fully-featured transpiler.
To be clear, I use TypeScript and like it a lot -- but there seems to be a persistent perception that Flow and TS are two sides of the same coin. They are not and there are certainly some use cases where Flow fits better.