I’ve been coding in JavaScript for a while now since that’s what I picked up during my coding bootcamp. It works well for what I need and there’s tons of support online with frameworks like Node.js.
Recently I keep hearing developers talk about how TypeScript is so much better and can really improve your code quality. Some people say it’s a game changer.
I’ve only tried TypeScript a couple times briefly. It seems pretty similar to JavaScript but I haven’t really dived deep into it.
I’m wondering if it’s actually worth learning TypeScript and migrating my existing projects over. For those of you who know both languages, do you find yourself going back and forth between them or do you stick with one?
typescript is def worth it but dont stress about migrating old stuff right away. i made the switch last year and the intellisense alone saves me so much time debugging. once you get used to defining types its actually kinda satisfying seeing those red squiggly lines catch your mistakes before runtime
Transitioning to TypeScript can indeed enhance your coding experience, especially with its ability to catch errors during the compile stage. I recommend starting TypeScript on new projects while maintaining your existing JavaScript code for now. This phased approach allows you to gradually familiarize yourself with TypeScript’s features without overwhelming changes. Although you might initially spend more time on type definitions, you’ll ultimately appreciate the increased maintainability and confidence in your code as your projects scale.
Honestly, after making the switch about two years ago, I rarely touch plain JavaScript anymore unless I’m working on legacy codebases. The type safety becomes addictive once you experience how it prevents those silly runtime errors that used to waste hours of debugging time. What really sold me was working on a medium-sized project where refactoring became painless because TypeScript caught all the breaking changes automatically. The learning curve isn’t steep since you already know JavaScript - you’re basically just adding type annotations. The tooling support is incredible too, with much better autocomplete and refactoring capabilities in most editors. I’d say start with a small side project to get comfortable with the syntax before considering any migrations.