[pjmlp]

Why the wait?

Microsoft's MakeCode project already provides something similar, via compilation to C++, for quite some time now.

[mmoskal]

We're the same people who founded MakeCode. DeviceScript has a very different target audience (professional TypeScript developers vs students), is easier to port to different architectures, is more tied into VSCode, and is more compatible with JavaScript semantics (though slower).

Also MakeCode compiles to ARM machine code in the browser, not C++, which is one of the things that make it hard to port.

[pjmlp]

I remember there was a MSR talk about compiling via C++, hence the reference.