Modern Software : TypeScript for the Win

There is no question JavaScript has become one of the most popular and widely-used programming languages. Unfortunately popularity doesn't necessarily translate to easy-to-maintain or always appropriate. Large code bases become difficult to reason over do to JavaScript's dynamic nature and flexible development style.

As a result of their own internal struggles with large JavaScript projects, Microsoft tasked Anders Hejlsberg of Delphi and C# fame to design a solution to the problem. The result is an incredibly useful, fun and effective approach to improving JavaScript development without impacting how you deploy your projects.

TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript that brings static typing, modern JavaScript features that may not yet be supported in your environment and improved tooling and documentation. Surprisingly, the results are then transpiled down to whatever flavor of JavaScript you need for your runtime environment.

We will cover:

The role of TypeScript in modern Web development
Setting up a TypeScript project
Using the TypeScript compiler
Tool integration
Wrapping existing JavaScript libraries with Declaration Files
TypeScript as a gateway to WebAssembly

About Brian Sletten

Brian Sletten is a liberal arts-educated software engineer with a focus on forward-leaning technologies. His experience has spanned many industries including retail, banking, online games, defense, finance, hospitality and health care. He has a B.S. in Computer Science from the College of William and Mary and lives in Auburn, CA. He focuses on web architecture, resource-oriented computing, social networking, the Semantic Web, AI/ML, data science, 3D graphics, visualization, scalable systems, security consulting and other technologies of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries. He is also a rabid reader, devoted foodie and has excellent taste in music. If pressed, he might tell you about his International Pop Recording career.

More About Brian »