TypeScript TechTalk at MDCC

Recently Technical Fellow Anders Hejlsberg visited MDCC. He presented the latest landmark he has been working on: TypeScript. TypeScript enables compile time checking of JavaScript code – namespaces, OO classes etc. Further it gives you great tooling – such as auto-complete and refactoring. TypeScript is implemented in JavaScript and can be used in any existing JavaScript application – and it can be enabled as gradually, making adoption easier. And it is Open Source. If you are writing JavaScript you will love this.

For more information on TypeScript visit: http://www.typescriptlang.org/

I’m consistently impressed with Anders Hejlsberg and his team’s accomplishments. On a less serious note, I was quite amused while watching this talk. We got optional parameters and dynamic variables in C# 4.0. Features X++ has had since Day 1. TypeScript also supports optional parameters, and JavaScript is by nature a dynamic language. Some of the value offered by TypeScript relies on Duck-typing (“If it quacks like a duck – it is a duck”). For better or for worse X++ behaves quite identically. Now; if you pay close attention to the video, you will notice about 38:06 into the video, that the dangling semicolon also found its way to JavaScript. Perhaps X++ is really the superset of all languages? 

FYI - Anders Hejlsberg covered the same material on Channel 9.