Why TypeScript is Often a Better Choice Than JavaScript ?

In the ever-evolving world of web development, things are constantly changing. JavaScript has long been the dominant language for front-end development. In recent years, its use in server-side development has also surged, thanks to the popularity of Node.js. As of 2024, JavaScript is no longer limited to just front-end development. It has matured and expanded into other areas of development, including web servers, CLI applications, web scrapers, machine learning, and more.

But JavaScript have some fundamental problems. Following are some of them.

• Dynamic Typing: JavaScript is dynamically typed, meaning variables can change types at runtime, which can lead to unexpected behavior.
• Lack of Type Safety: There's no enforcement of types, so a function might expect one type (e.g., a string) but receive another (e.g., a number), without immediate errors.
• Error Prone: This lack of type enforcement can result in hard-to-detect bugs that may only surface later in the application's lifecycle.
• Maintenance Challenges: As projects grow in size and complexity, the absence of strict types can make the codebase harder to maintain and more susceptible to errors.

Because of these challenges, a powerful alternative to JavaScript has emerged and is rapidly gaining attention from developers across the globe. That alternative is TypeScript.

Whether you're a React developer, a Node.js expert, or working with any other JavaScript framework, TypeScript offers a robust solution that you can now leverage to write more reliable and maintainable code.

Now, one thing you might ask is ... the browsers understand only JavaScript. Right ? Well technically yes. You can read about it in this blog below.

Advantages of Typescript over JavaScript

Static Typing

One of the most important advantages of TypeScript is its static typing. In JavaScript, variables can change types unexpectedly, leading to runtime errors that can be hard to debug. TypeScript’s static typing allows developers to define variable types, which the compiler checks during development. This reduces the likelihood of type-related bugs in your code.

In JavaScript, the above code won’t throw an error, but it won’t behave as expected either. In TypeScript, you can define types to prevent this. You can see in the test.ts, it is already throwing me an error. Because type of error is caught at compile time, not at runtime, which can save a lot of headaches.

Improved Code Readability and Maintainability

As projects grow in size, maintaining code can become a daunting task. TypeScript’s static typing, interfaces, and classes improve code readability, making it easier to understand the structure and purpose of the codebase. This is particularly beneficial in larger teams or when working on long-term projects where multiple developers will interact with the code.

For instance, with TypeScript, you can define interfaces that describe the shape of objects:

These interfaces serve as templates for the specific object within your code, ensuring that objects conform to the expected structure, which improves both readability and maintainability.

Enhanced Development Experience with IDE Support

TypeScript significantly enhances the development experience with superior support in modern IDEs like Visual Studio Code. Features like IntelliSense (code completion), real-time type checking, and easy navigation through code make development more efficient and reduce the likelihood of introducing errors.

With TypeScript, your IDE can provide more meaningful autocompletion suggestions and even highlight potential issues before you run the code. This proactive error detection is a significant productivity boost.

In the snippet above, you can see that when I try to access any property in the user object, TypeScript suggests the available properties. This happens because we've already defined the type for the user object. This feature is incredibly useful, as it helps you quickly see what properties an object contains and prevents you from trying to access properties that don't exist. This not only saves time but also avoids errors that JavaScript would not catch at runtime.

Backward Compatibility with JavaScript

One of the concerns when adopting a new language or tool is compatibility with existing codebases. TypeScript is designed with backward compatibility in mind. Since TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript, you can gradually introduce it into your existing JavaScript projects.

This allows you to start small, converting individual files or modules to TypeScript over time. You don’t need to rewrite your entire codebase to start benefiting from TypeScript’s features.

Conclusion

While TypeScript offers many advantages over JavaScript, it's important to note that it's not always the best choice for every project. Small projects or scripts where speed and simplicity are critical might not benefit from the additional overhead that TypeScript introduces. Similarly, projects with rapidly changing requirements might find JavaScript’s flexibility more advantageous.

However, for large-scale applications, projects with long-term maintenance needs, or teams looking to improve code quality and collaboration, TypeScript is often the better choice. Its static typing, improved development experience, and strong ecosystem support make it a powerful tool for modern web development.

By adopting TypeScript, you can write more robust, maintainable, and scalable code, ultimately leading to more successful projects.

That's it for today, see you in the next one. Peace ✌️

Smruti Ranjan Badatya

Full Stack Developer @eLitmus

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