Hacker News Reader

Comment by culi | Hacker News Reader

For anyone who isn't aware, TypeScript does not use semantic versioning.

Though TypeScript 7.0 will be significant in that it will use the new Go compiler

Appreciate the reminder (the lack of SemVer has thrown me in the past). In this case, 6.0 is a bigger change than normal:

> TypeScript 6.0 arrives as a significant transition release, designed to prepare developers for TypeScript 7.0, the upcoming native port of the TypeScript compiler. While TypeScript 6.0 maintains full compatibility with your existing TypeScript knowledge and continues to be API compatible with TypeScript 5.9, this release introduces a number of breaking changes and deprecations that reflect the evolving JavaScript ecosystem and set the stage for TypeScript 7.0.

Semantic versioning seems slightly weird to even apply to something like TypeScript. You could have patch releases that fix actual compiler crashes, sure, but what is a minor release?

Surely any new feature that causes code to fail to type check when it previously would pass (or vice versa) would have to be considered a breaking change.

A similar thing applies to code formatting tools like Prettier, or any linter.

Semantic versions would at least be playing nice with how npm manages version ranges. If every release of TypeScript is breaking, then you should use major versions so that `npm update` doesn't break your project.

Yes, typescript would be at version 60 now. No, that's not a problem at all. Numbers are free.

> Numbers are free.

Someone please tell the LLM naming committee.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com