[zucchini_head]

Not having the same code on paper and on machine so to speak does make debugging typescript a little hard. It's a little bit of a black-box.

I code typescript for Angular 2/4, and although yeah, the aforementioned debugging pains are annoying, the time saved on having types to enable linting and strong predictable variable comparisons, is much greater.

Also, needing console.logs everywhere should be discouraged. Your code should be clear enough that you don't need a console.log debug line to print the boolean result of a comparison, for example. This is the whole point of typescript like I said, to make variable comparision and management easier so that you don't need that console.log line...

[jondubois]

I don't mean leaving console.log everywhere, just when debugging, when you want to check the value of a specific variable quickly without having to click around in the debugger.

Developers from statically typed backgrounds just don't seem to understand this use case. It's the quickest way to find an issue when you have a good idea of where the problem might be.

[zucchini_head]

I suppose. I come from the C and C++ world, before I moved onto webdev (quite rare for a young millennial like me to be dinkling around with static C-related languages, I've been told by older colleagues), so I guess that I don't see it from the most understanding point of view.

[jondubois]

I also used a fair bit of C/C++ in the past, the debugging process feels very different to me. It's definitely much slower but in that case it's worth it because of the flexibility you get out of it.

When you use Javascript for a few years, your habits change and you get used to really quick debug iterations. With Typescript, you get slower debug iterations but you don't get any extra flexibility beyond what Javascript itself offers. No pointers, no threads, no low-level access to system calls, no custom memory allocation, no performance gains... It doesn't have any of the features that make C/C++ an awesome language.

[kod]

No, we understand that use case.

It's just usually indicative of code that can only be understood by running it.

Good statically typed code can be understood by reading it.