AngularJS 2 built with TypeScript

[Jackolantern]

I can hear the screams from many JS developers already. As no doubt many of you have already heard, AngularJS 2.0 is going to be based on TypeScript. There are really two camps here: one group is freaking out and saying this is the end of Angular, and the other group loves this and thinks it is the best move the framework has ever taken.

Either way, it is a divisive decision. I actually like TypeScript and think it has a lot of benefits over straight JS for very large projects (of which many Angular apps are). But I can also understand why a lot of people would be upset. I have not used Angular a ton since I never liked its style much, as I think I mentioned in another thread recently. I had hoped Ember.js would gain traction but it is obvious Angular has won the client-side framework war, at least for now. But I may take another look at Angular when 2.0 comes out, as I feel that TypeScript really could go a long way towards cleaning up some of the things I don't like in Angular.

What do you think?

[hallsofvallhalla]

wow yeah that is some news. I have not messed with Typescript at all. Never needed to. Guess it is time to check it out.

[Jackolantern]

You really should just try it out sometime. I can appreciate that once you work with JS for so long, one can feel very comfortable with OOP in it (I personally love the factory and module patterns). However, there are some times when I just wish that I could type "class Whatever" and just create a damn class lol. That and the explicit typing can really help you generate better documentation if you are creating software others will be working with. And in general, there are tons of developers who just feel more comfortable with traditional, class-based OOP. Some problems I even feel more comfortable solving that way even though JS is one of my main languages.

And besides, TypeScript is supposedly where JS is heading on its own. There have been versions of JS drawn up for the last 6 or 7 years now that add optional explicit typing, class-based OOP, etc., but it keeps getting pushed back as not realistic for worldwide implementation (the browser vendors have been dragging their feet for years because it is a ton of work for them to add).

While I doubt you would choose to do all JS work in it, I like it for extremely client-side heavy game development since it adds so much that is sorely lacking for complex single-page apps like that (classes, typing, using directives, file importing, etc.).