Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by tunesmith 1704 days ago
I've been a types advocate for years, but it wasn't until working with Typescript that I started experiencing some of the downsides...

To me, ideally, types are supposed to be a benefit not only in safety, but in understanding the intent of a piece of code more quickly. For an api or library interface, review the types to see what its intentions are.

But there's something about the typescript type system, with all the picks and keyof and typeof... sometimes it just feels like it's way too easy to go overboard, to the point that it occludes meaning. I understanding struggling with types if you're struggling with figuring out exactly what your boundary does and does not allow, but when you're struggling with types just because you're struggling with the kabillion different ways that some other typescript programmer chose to use the utility types... there are times when I feel like even Scala is easier.
3 comments
Zababa 1704 days ago
The problem is that typescript is here to type existing JS, and existing JS has been written without thinking about types. "fresh" TS might be better for that.
link
Shacklz 1704 days ago
> with all the picks and keyof and typeof...

Depends of course a lot on the codebase but all typescript codebases that I've seen so far and considered "well-maintained" didn't really use keyof and typeof all that much. The only way I can imagine how one ends up with lots of those keywords is when you start with a dynamic language approach, and then tell the compiler afterwards what that type might be, instead of defining the type beforehand - might that be the issue?

link
IshKebab 1704 days ago
Your criticism boils down to "it's possible to overcomplicate things". Sure if you completely remove static typing then you can't overcomplicate static typing. But is that really an argument against static typing?
link
tunesmith 1704 days ago
No, and I am still in favor of static typing. But I also don't think it's purely up to team discipline. Something about typescript (or more aptly, javascript) incentivizes crazy typing more than other languages. Luckily, the last few years appears to have had more emphasis on designing languages to take these kinds of incentives into account, so I still think the future is bright.
link
IshKebab 1703 days ago
> Something about typescript (or more aptly, javascript) incentivizes crazy typing more than other languages.

Definitely not more than other languages. Check out template metaprogramming in C++ or some of the OTT generics in Rust.

link