Migrate code base to typescript

[owenpearson]

Using typescript with strict type-checking will allow us to enforce better type safety in the project and will allow us to emit type definition files as part of the compile process rather than having to maintain them ourselves.

┆Issue is synchronized with this Jira Story by Unito

[sacOO7]

I think the ts-node should allow transpilation of typescript along with ES6 code to browser compliant es5 code. Maybe it internally uses a build tool ( like babel ). We might not have to explicitly specify the tool (#687). tsc wiill take care of build ( might have to provide config file in cases of advanced build)

[owenpearson]

@sacOO7 That makes sense to me. I don't think I've ever used Typescript as a transpiler (I'm used to working in React projects where Babel is necessary to transform JSX anyway) but if we can get by without depending on Babel at all then I'm all for it 👍

[sacOO7]

Yes, we might not have to rely on babel.
Btw, let me know once the team is up for discussion regarding the transition to typescript. I would like to share some of my views ( maybe I can post it async over chat). Typescript is a very widely discussed topic among the community and I know some of the folks who recommend and don't recommend it ( All depends on the project context and requirement haha)

Personally, I would always go with +1 for typescript. It works like charm in single-threaded env. like browser 🥇

[ably-sync-bot]

➤ Owen Pearson commented:

Issue split into:

SDK-694Set up initial typescript toolchain

[jimmywarting]

please don't migrate to typescript. It's possible to have strict type checking without the need of typescript syntax and extra compile overhead if you just use JSDoc. Beside ESM and typescript don't work well together right now...