Achieving Type Safety Without Typescript

Álvaro José Agámez Licha

Senior Software Developer

https://github.com/aagamezl

https://twitter.com/aagamezl

TypeScript Slow Down Our Development 

TypeScript certainly improves the developer experience and reduces errors, but it can also slow down development, for example the debugging or not 100% knowing what code is being generated.

Reasons For Abandoning TypeScript

Deno: "Complicated and slow build process on each build of the Deno internal runtime code."

Svelte: "As a Svelte compiler developer, debugging without a build step greatly simplifies compiler development."

Using JSDoc for Type Safety

With JSDoc, you can enjoy the same benefits as TypeScript, while removing most of the TypeScript  drawbacks.

Benefits Of Using JSDoc

  • Retains JavaScript features (flexibility).
  • Validates types.
  • Generates .d.ts files.
  • Development speed.
  • Debugging speed.
  • Code documentation generated.

Drawbacks Of Using JSDoc

  • Can be more verbose.
  • Learning curve (not complicated).
  • Some complex TypeScript types can be tricky to implement.
  • It's easy and not as fancy as TypeScript. ;).

Implementing JSDoc in Your Project

// tsconfig.json
{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "allowJs": true,
    "checkJs": true
  }
}
// VS Code Config
"javascript.validate.enable": true

JSDoc Syntax

There are 2 official sources to learn JSDoc syntax:

Type Validation with JSDoc

To validate our JSDoc types we use the TypeScript compiler in the same way we do for TypeScript.

// package.json
"scripts": {
  "build:types": "tsc -p tsconfig.build.types.json",
  "check:types": "tsc"
}

Conclusion

JSDoc provides a viable alternative to TypeScript, allowing for type safety without sacrificing JavaScript's flexibility.

Type Checking And Type Safety Without Typescript

By Alvaro Agamez

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Type Checking And Type Safety Without Typescript

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