Typescript is a superset of javascript that includes strong types. The typesystem is quite powerful and allows us to add extensive compile-time error checking, code generation, IDE hinting, and type inference capabilities which speed us up. Ideally, it also helps our code be easier to discover and understand without digging into implementation details.
Getting Started with Typescript is a guide that has several paths to learning, inluding examples, walkthrus and overviews.
Advanced Types cover union, intersection, mapped types, types involving key ranges, and more, built into the language as primitives!
Typescript Toolbelt is one of many typescript libraries that offer user defined type primitives for combining types, generating new types based off of known type shapes and function signatures, and generally allowing for more advanced type concepts without needing to write the boilerplate ones self.
We use typescript to compile the backend and front end code into runnable javascript. Here are the main pieces that you should be aware of:
- tsconfig.json - the settings used by the typescript compiler
- package.json - this contains our dependencies on several libraries related to ts:
- typescript and the tsc compiler itself
- @types/[some package] which often contain typescript definitions for an otherwise plain js package
- ts-node - a way to run typescript with JIT compile, instead of an explicit filesystem compile up front
- weboack.config.js - we specify how typescript is invoked during the webpack process
- test/mocha.opts - we configure the mocha unit test framework to invoke typescript
- .nycrc - we tell our code coverage tools to leveral typescript and sourcemapping
For production, we compile typescript into a server app in the dist folder; and we webpack the client frontend into the same folder, up front.
For development, we JIT compile the front end and the backend so that they can respond to change faster when
running hp clientDev and hp serverDev which auto recompile upon file change.