Happy Birthday TypeScript
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On October 1, 2012, Microsoft released the first version of TypeScript, a language built on top of JavaScript that would revolutionize the way we create applications thanks to its typing system.
Two years later, on October 7, 2014, the first stable version was released, under the code 1.1.0.1. Since then, the adoption of TypeScript has grown exponentially to position itself among the 5 most used languages.
A look back
TypeScript was conceived at a time when JavaScript was considered too fragile to build large applications with. In the presentation of TypeScript Anders Hejlsberg, belonging to his development team, stated the limitations that JavaScript had at that time:
- Being a language focused on “scripting”.
- The lack of strict typing.
- And the absence of elements such as interfaces and classes.
When it comes to web applications, NodeJS was still in its infancy and Bootstrap and JQuery dominated the front end. If we take the time machine we will find tweets like these:
But why this mistrust of JavaScript? To understand this, we must go back a few more years. In 2007, Microsoft, Yahoo, Opera, and other companies failed to agree on the direction JavaScript should take. The ES4 specification, which included classes, interfaces, and even strict typing, was scrapped after lengthy debate and a more conservative path was imposed, resulting in ECMAScript 5 (originally ECMAScript 3.1). This meant that many of the planned innovations were parked and JavaScript continued to be seen as a language focused on the…
