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It's okay for you to have the opinions you do, but I have zero problems programming very complex systems with Javascript, even without Typescript (before Typescript ever existed). Javascript has always been the easiest language to build anything with for me. And yes, I know a dozen other languages including C, C++, C#, Python, Go, various flavors of Assembly, and more - but Javascript is still my favorite. YMMV.

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cies 6 days ago | parent [-]

> It's okay for you to have the opinions you do

Likewise.

> I know [...] C, C++, C#, Python, Go, various flavors of Assembly

That's good. But these are all languages that either lack strong typing and or are themselves rather quirky.

Only C# and Go stand out, IMHO, as languages that are recently designed. Even Python did not have user defined classes in the first versions, and some things thus feel off (__len__, __init__, etc.).

Also C# and Go still have implicit nulls all over the place. Their designs show ignorance for modern language design. Sum-types, explicit null, immutability, sound type systems -- all lacking in all langs you mention.

So what languages do have these IMHO "Game changers"? OCaml/ReScript/ReasonML, Haskell, Elm, Rust, Gleam, F#, Scala, Kotlin, ...

Those languages really showed _me_ something important: how it could be better.

There is another group of languages that also sits on a unique place in the solution space: the LISPs (incl. Racket, Schemes and Clojure). I found it very worth while to learn to program with them as well.

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neonsunset 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

In the last few years C# did away with implicit nulls. Nullable and non-nullable object references are disambiguated with T? and T. There are multiple keywords and expressions to further make it nice to work with these. You would be correct to note that there are "nullability holes" in certain edge-case scenarios, particularly around JSON serialization. But other than that it's a pretty smooth sailing.

If you do use C#, you may also want to add <WarningsAsErrors>nullable</WarningsAsErrors> to .csproj too.

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cies 5 days ago | parent [-]

I know it's a bit like Kotlin. I heard though that C#'s move still has some std lib bits that are nullable.

	▲	neonsunset 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		The idea is not to never have nulls. It is pointless (ha) - the way to understand T? vs T in C# is like an optional. The entirety of standard library is annotated since long time ago. All new and not so new projects are also null-aware. Pretty much either completely legacy libraries or libraries that explicitly removed Nullable: enable that is set by default for all new project templates do not have those. As I mentioned previously - it isn't perfect, but the level of "good enough" of NRTs in .NET is such that the nullability is a solved problem.

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leptons 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I prefer Assembly before any of the fringe languages you mentioned. There are no types in Assembly, and I rather like it that way. If you know how to work with data, then there's very little confusion about what you're doing.

And there's a reason practically nobody uses the languages you mentioned, and Javascript is so wildly popular. Most people don't really like or need type nagging systems. Sure, if you're trying to launch a rocket or doing something like building medical equipment or something else that requires covering your ass, then yeah, sure, go ahead and type the hell out of it. But for most programming tasks the languages you mentioned are overkill and frankly too obscure to use.

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cies 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

JS is popular due to it being the only browser lang. Did you forget that?

Also: TS popularity shows that not everyone in the JS community agree with you.

For server side web dev you will find that statically typed langs (Java, Kotlin, C#, Go) are a big chunk of the pie. Sure it also comes down to taste, but if you work in a large team, having stronger types can greatly help to keep the codebase in shape. (better IDE refactor tools, clearer for noob, harder to hide/ check in rubbish to git)

If you are afraid by obscurity, have a look at Kotlin!

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leptons 5 days ago | parent [-]

Typescript is still nowhere near as popular as Javascript, and likely never will be. It's overkill for the vast number of uses of Javascript.

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cies 5 days ago | parent [-]

JS's uses have been growing steadily. The language was clearly not "designed" (I saw a talk about the first 10d of JS, little actual designing happened).

TS is to the rescue when you have a big JS project, because that's what JS is not good at: big projects and large teams.

	▲	leptons 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Except big JS projects with large teams existed well before Typescript ever did, and it never stopped anyone from producing good results. Typescript really isn't making anything possible that wasn't possible before Typescript existed.
	▲	phatskat 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I’d love a link to this talk if you happen to have it handy!

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throwaway14356 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

only one type :p