I first encountered Typescript while helping build the Denny‘s web-based online ordering application at EP + Co. We built the application using Angular 2 and used Typescript as a way of limiting potential errors that may come of as a result of JavaScript’s loose typing at the enterprise level. Working within the stricter nature of Typescript helped me to better understand data flow in a web application as a junior developer.

Typescript is JavaScript, but it is also more. It takes everything that JavaScript can do and adds in strong typing to specify the type of data being used when setting variables. This ensures that the data type stays consistent throughout the lifecycle of an application and avoids run-time errors that come as a results of data types getting mixed up along the way.

“TypeScript is backward compatible with JavaScript, which means you can gradually transition from JavaScript to TypeScript in your projects”

James Saloman, Dev.to

Many large companies are looking for Typescript developers for enterprise level applications because of its effectiveness scaling up for bigger projects. According to James Saloman from Dev.to, Typescript is rising in popularity due to its strong typing, IDE support, and code readability. Being an open-source project, Typescript also has large community support so is always being improved.

As I hope to be working on big web applications in the future, Typescript is a tool in my toolbox that I will be looking to sharpen. The demand has increased significantly, so it is a skill that is very marketable and will make anyone more desirable as a candidate by diversifying the type of projects one can potentially work on .