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> typescript

Well, the problem is rather, that JavaScript is a pretty bad language (nobody claimed otherwise, when it was designed in 10 days), so that using something like TypeScript makes it much better. Unfortunately your browser understands JavaScript, not TypeScript.

That's the immense tragedy of web development: It's a giant pile of excrement, because it's built on several things that were never meant to be what they are used for today.

It's also why I left a long time ago, and never looked back.

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If JavaScript is "a giant pile of excrement," I think that makes TypeScript a polished turd. It's just a superset of JavaScript.

No, it's actually quite good due to being the most advanced (and a pleasure to use) type system to achieve mainstream adoption.

Yeah typescript is amazing, the javascript below it is made out of evil hacks.

This is what I'm saying though. Typescript is just a hack on top of Javascript. The same engine is going to run your code in the browser.

For the record, I think Javascript is fine (with some nasty warts), and Typescript is a great addition. The idea that TS is great but JS sucks is silly.

> Typescript is just a hack on top of Javascript.

Exactly, it makes it "more palpable".

> The idea that TS is great but JS sucks is silly.

Just to be clear, I absolutely did not say that. Instead, I'd rather agree with your statement that TS only makes things better. But there is only so much it can do in that ecosystem, even if a good type system does notably improve things.

Everything that's below that is still what it was.

> Exactly, it makes it "more palpable".

Typo: Palatable, obviously, not palpable. Too late to edit.

> Palatable

There's no accounting for taste, but... aren't we still taking about polished turds on top of a pile of excrement? "Palatable" is not the word I expected to see in this subthread.

I resent your comment, it's very distasteful.

> The idea that TS is great but JS sucks is silly.

Actually... typescript's type system could work quite well in other languages and is in fact in some fashion being ported over to multiple, Python's great turnaround on type hints a few years ago was obviously inspired by it.

So, I disagree. The type system makes a wart of a language into something passable, which is a great achievement.

> The idea that TS is great but JS sucks is silly.

Isn't all programming just layers of abstraction that make the layers underneath it more usable?

If you view Typescript as a standalone language that is another abstraction -- just like every other programming language -- that may make it more palatable. Yes, it's technically a superset of JavaScript, but I don't think anyone uses it that way. It would defeat the purpose, like buying a car and then tearing out the seats, air conditioner, and sound system.

Just curious, is there a way to define typed DTOs or things like Pydantic models, and then parse blobs of JSON into said classes, all leveraging the type annotations?

I know it all gets compiled away in JS and all, but Pydantic is surprisingly ergonomic to use and type hints are sort of a suggestion, albeit available at runtime.

Closest I've seen is Zod, but the syntax looks horrendous IMO. Maybe you look past it eventually though.

Assuming I understand you question: you can define an interface to describe what an object parsed from JSON contains, and then cast your raw JSON-parsed object into that type.

The casting doesn't guarantee the JSON from your server fits the interface, but it WILL ensure any downstream use is correct, and also enable auto complete for its fields (assuming your IDE supports it).

I've been using JavaScript on and off for nearly 20 years, and TypeScript is a massive improvement.

Type reflection with TypeScript is fairly limited at the moment, though what you are describing can be done with decorators.

I have made such a library myself: https://github.com/decoverto/decoverto

Another library would be https://github.com/typestack/class-transformer

Indeed, adding a type system does a lot.

curious as to what you left it for that doesnt have this compile step

I didn’t leave it because of the compile steps, but because the extra layers, despite all their downsides, were far from able to hide the underlying impedance mismatch.

I left over a decade ago and went back to low level kernel programming.

It’s good for everyone that different individuals have different likes and resulting priorities. Good that you found the one that makes you happier. And with any luck your preferred niche isn’t too overcrowded, so you don’t suffer from those negative side effects.

I did not intend to shit on web developers, by the way. It's not their fault, they just have to live with it. I just lament the history that lead to what they ultimately have on their plate. Early "web development" went tremendously wrong, owing partially due to the fact that the "hypertext" markup protocol and markup language were meant to be used in an entirely different way, and partially due to early hacks leading to early results in terms of "web applications". But those hacks came at the cost of making this layer sandwich in any way sane to begin with.

In my opinion, everything else since is an attempt to find a way out of that mess.

I was there when the web happened, though only watching from the side lines. I also remember that there were more fitting approaches early on, but a lot of them suffered under the Internet's explosive growth: Some of the "sane" stuff at least would have needed concerted efforts for plans that have to be executed over time. But the web was already a thing, and people desperately wanted to do certain things with it. The quick hacks for that were available immediately, and they were cool: "Hah, look what I can do. You can now get a travel itinerary through your city's public transport system from the World Wide Web. Isn't that amazing?" (At the time, it was.)

I'm not saying you cannot have joy in web development. As you say, it just wasn't for me. For the reasons above.

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