We begin the TypeScript course, an open-source programming language developed by Microsoft, which has become one of the most popular options for web development.
History of TypeScript
TypeScript was first introduced in October 2012 by Microsoft. Its main goal was to improve the development of JavaScript applications on a large scale.
Anders Hejlsberg, known for being the architect of C# and one of the creators of Delphi, was one of the main designers of TypeScript.
Since its release, TypeScript has grown exponentially in popularity and usage. Many companies and open-source projects have adopted TypeScript as their preferred web programming language.
What is TypeScript
TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript. That is, it is an extension of JavaScript that adds additional functionality, but shares the same base and operation.
This means that any valid JavaScript code is also valid in TypeScript. This is a great advantage of TypeScript compared to other alternatives to JavaScript.
Among the functionalities that TypeScript adds to JavaScript, we mainly have,
- Static typing (hence its name)
- Improvements in object-oriented programming
Some tools and frameworks will be directly compatible with TypeScript. But in most cases, we will have to transpile (that is, convert) the TypeScript code into JavaScript.
We will see all of this in depth in the various articles of the course.
Course Requirements
Before starting, in this course, we will assume you have knowledge about programming in general, and knowledge about the JavaScript programming language.
If that’s not your case, or if at any point you need a refresher, I leave you links to the courses 👇
Learn to program in JavaScript
Learn to program in the introduction to programming course
