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Comment by thorn0asdf | Hacker News Reader

It should be much easier to implement a "TS definition source files (.d.ts) => Flow" converter than generic "TS => Flow". The language in .d.ts is a small subset of TS. Are your explanations about Flow's strictness really applicable to this subset?

See https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/blob/master/doc/spec...

> Here's an example that came up just last week: [...] (Note: This is not a bug in TypeScript, it's a design decision)

I believe this design decision isn't final, but again: what difference does this example make if we're talking just about type declarations?

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I had these same thoughts, but I decided to just drop it. The Flow team doesn't seem nearly as interested in usability/adoption as the TypeScript team (perhaps an issue of resources/bandwidth). Even if I like Flow's philosophy better and the type system was better-designed until recently, the TypeScript community and ecosystem trump any benefits of Flow at this point.

However that may be, I am really curious to see an example of an unconvertible type definition.

As of the latest version of TypeScript, there aren't any anymore. There's a discussion in a TypeScript GitHub issue about it, but I can't find it now.

> The Flow team doesn't seem nearly as interested in usability/adoption as the TypeScript team

It makes me sad that you think this. The team cares very deeply about usability and adoption. We've committed to making it our sole focus for the current half. I was brought onto the team to focus on the external experience and adoption because of my experience working on Babel.

We're solving a very difficult problem space, and we're doing our best to do it right. Trust me that we're thinking about all the same things you are and finding ways to address them.

Also, I must say that I agree that the TypeScript has a massive lead in the community and ecosystem. It's just our opinion that we've set ourselves up to do even better, we're just now switching modes from making the type checker awesome to making the user experience awesome.

If you have any concerns about the experience we're happy to hear it. Having a rapid constant feedback loop is important.

James, I'd be glad if you answered my pretty simple and specific questions here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12209131

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