TypeScript

Typescript

TypeScript is an open-source programming language developed and maintained by Microsoft. It is a strict syntactical superset of JavaScript and adds optional static typing to the language. TypeScript is designed for the development of large applications and transcompiles to JavaScript.

History

TypeScript was first made public in October 2012, after two years of internal development at Microsoft. The language was created by Anders Hejlsberg, who is also known for his work on the C# language. The first stable version, TypeScript 1.0, was released in 2014.

Features

TypeScript offers several features that are not available in JavaScript, including:

• **Static Typing**: TypeScript allows developers to specify types for variables, function parameters, and return values, which can help catch errors at compile time.
• **Type Inference**: Even if types are not explicitly specified, TypeScript can infer them based on the code.
• **Interfaces**: TypeScript supports interfaces, which can be used to define the shape of an object.
• **Enums**: TypeScript includes support for enumerated types.
• **Namespaces**: TypeScript provides namespaces to organize code into logical groups and prevent name collisions.
• **Generics**: TypeScript supports generics, which allow for the creation of reusable components that work with any data type.
• **Modules**: TypeScript supports ES6 modules, which can be used to organize code into separate files and import/export functionality.

Compilation

TypeScript code is transcompiled into JavaScript using the TypeScript compiler, `tsc`. The compiler can be configured using a `tsconfig.json` file, which specifies the root files and the compiler options required to compile the project.

Adoption

TypeScript has been adopted by many large-scale projects and companies, including Angular, Vue.js, and React. It is also used by companies like Google, Airbnb, and Slack.

Development Tools

TypeScript is supported by various development tools, including:

• **Visual Studio Code**: A popular code editor developed by Microsoft, which has built-in support for TypeScript.
• **WebStorm**: An integrated development environment (IDE) developed by JetBrains, which supports TypeScript.
• **Atom**: A text editor developed by GitHub, which can be extended to support TypeScript through plugins.

See Also

• JavaScript
• ECMAScript
• C#
• Visual Studio Code
• Angular
• React
• Vue.js