Sounds like you don't know how to properly use TypeScript...
this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2023
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If I had the willpower or time to go through a multi-thousand line (not including the html templates) legacy Angular 6 codebase where almost every property is typed 'any' then I assure you I would have, it's driving me insane ๐, also why I prefer backend
The boy scout technique: fix your types when you're working on a bug or a feature, one file at a time. Also try to use unknown instead of any for more sensitive parts, it will force you to typecheck.
I kinda feel your pain. A project that I helped launch is written in Typescript technically, but the actual on-the-ground developers were averse to using type safety, so any is used everywhere. So, it becomes worst of both worlds, and the code is a mess (I don't have authority in the project anymore, and wouldn't touch it even if I could).
I'm also annoyed at some level because some of the devs are pretty junior, and I fear they are going to go forward thinking Typescript or type safety in general is bad, which hurts my type-safety-loving-soul
One file at a time. Make strong pre-commit eslint rules (that way you don't impact existing code), eventually update tsconfig. You'll get there :)
In theory I'm a fan of the inferred but static typing systems that most modern languages use (kotlin, rust, TS, etc.) where most local variable types can be inferred and only return types/object fields/parameters need explicit types.
I just despise typescript because it feels more like someone put a bandaid over JavaScript and all of its oddities instead of making a properly fleshed out language, and allowing the option for an 'any' type to be used freely by default emphasizes that.
Based on your description it sounds like you haven't given it a fair shake. I'll take TS over JS any day, at least there is room for improvement. I will say however I personally haven't been unlucky enough to run into projects that abuse the any type. The worst I've run into is a JS library with no typings I have to manually type.
I imagine what they mean is e.g. that TypeScript can tell you something is a Date, but it doesn't attempt to fix some of the confusing, quirky behaviour with that: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Date#interpretation_of_two-digit_years
So, yes, it's generally better than JS, but it doesn't actually make it good/attractive, if you're used to the sanity of backend languages. It very much feels like lipstick on a pig.
TypeScript is JavaScript and not in the literal it's compiled to JS sense but in the think of TS as a linter not a language sense.
Print the code out and burn it
I've seen this same thing happen with Python's type hints. Turns out giving an "escape hatch" type for devs who have no clue what the type actually is leads to a lot of useless type hints.
/me laughs in void*
Laughs in Object
Laughs in object
Yeah, it's especially bad, when a library doesn't provide type hints itself. It can be comically difficult to find out what the return type of a function is, because every if-else-branch might have a different return value, so you may need to read the function body in full to figure out what the type might be.
Add to that, that lots of the tooling around type hints isn't as fleshed out / useful as it is in fully typed languages and I can definitely understand why someone might not immediately feel like it's a valuable use of their time.
It's all bits in registers at the end of the day, and they all have the only type a bit can have