Using TypeScript in tool has really helped our development process - from documentation, refactoring, and code-completion, to the type checking and errors that compliments our tests. We've been converting our tools projects to TypeScript for months now, so this is nothing new.
There are extremely few downsides that we've experienced in practice. The TypeScript compiler is so fast that the project is build be the time we switch tabs to run tests or a command. The main outstanding issue is stack traces referencing the compiled output, but this hasn't been much of a hinderance - the output is very similar to the input, and we're going to look into source map support. I'm not aware what other drawbacks might be big issues. I personally don't think that the "Use the Platform" philosophy is in conflict with TypeScript, or many other compile-to-JS languages for that matter - in node or the web. For tools, we don't run some huge abstraction over node's processing model, or it's core libraries. On the web, all of the critical platform features are available as with JS: The entire DOM, including Custom Elements, Mutation Observer, Custom Events, Shadow DOM, the CSSOM, and all JS features like classes, Promises, etc. TypeScript doesn't define it's own object model, and always uses JS features directly. The tools team really needs to maximize it's output, and TypeScript helps us do that while still targeting Node, which our customers appreciate. so there's no reservations from us here. In fact, we grow happier with the decision every day. Cheers, Justin On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 11:10 AM, Daniel Llewellyn <[email protected]> wrote: > Personally, I am a bit ambivalent towards Typescript. > > On one hand I like the types system helping me during development; but on > the other, like you, I like to use the language of the platform natively to > prevent weirdness in machine-written code that is less understandable to a > human reader. The IO mentions of using the platform rather than > abstractions also points towards not using Typescript. > > Sent from Nylas N1 <https://nylas.com/n1?ref=n1>, the extensible, open > source mail client. > On May 24 2016, at 7:06 pm, [email protected] wrote: > >> I mean nothing against Typescript but after all the talk at I/O about >> sticking to standards and reducing the amount of necessary tooling, whoever >> thought this was a good idea? I understand that there are a lot of things >> that speak for Typescript in general but I haven't seen it used anywhere >> else in the Polymer ecosystem and I don't understand why the team chose to >> start using it now. I'm not going to list all the reasons why I think this >> is a bad idea - I think everybody in the team is aware of the drawbacks - >> but I'd love to hear the reasoning behind this. >> >> </rant> >> >> Sorry, but I just had to get this out of my system. Really love the work >> you're doing! Keep it up! >> >> Follow Polymer on Google+: plus.google.com/107187849809354688692 >> --- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Polymer" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/polymer-dev/80b27bd8-d3ea-4de1-819c-9f1825084f38%40googlegroups.com >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/polymer-dev/80b27bd8-d3ea-4de1-819c-9f1825084f38%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > Follow Polymer on Google+: plus.google.com/107187849809354688692 > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Polymer" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/polymer-dev/82rafzmqajtm5etkxzvm9okdi-0%40mailer.nylas.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/polymer-dev/82rafzmqajtm5etkxzvm9okdi-0%40mailer.nylas.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > Follow Polymer on Google+: plus.google.com/107187849809354688692 --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Polymer" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/polymer-dev/CAEKsHmDP%2BfdHEr1Q3m8QcCguBfrodi%2Bwm%2Be0T1V5PPKkXaOsAQ%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
