> It's slow and difficult/annoying configuration problems keep coming up from time to time. It slows down my debug cycle and the compilation delay makes me lose my train of thought. I used to love using console.log() to quickly test an assumption in JavaScript; you cannot do this with TypeScript (it's not practical given the 5 to 20 seconds compile time);

Have you ever used `tsc --watch`? First build can take long but modification and rebuild takes < 1s.

> you have to use the debugger every time and step through stuff (even when you have a very good idea about which specific variable you want to check) - It's extremely cumbersome.

You don't "have to" use the debugger if you prefer `console.log` all the way. However in the debugger there is a "watch" tab for inspecting specific variables.

> Also it forces all developers to use bulky commercial IDEs like WebStorm because you rely more on code completion to help you figure out the right types. You can say goodbye to Atom, Sublime and the rest... Atom's TypeScript plugin is not good enough unfortunately.

VSCode? https://code.visualstudio.com/