Node.js Experimental TypeScript Support: What’s New?

Node.js has recently created quite a buzz due to news of experimental TypeScript support. This is a long-awaited update for the development community. Such developments demonstrate the significant user adoption required and the implications for the Node.js ecosystem. At Introduct, we commit to finding custom software solutions and believe this update is important for developers. In our article, we’ll cover the topic of new experimental TypeScript support and its importance.

The Need for TypeScript Support

The need for TypeScript support is critical to moving the ecosystem forward. This reflects the community survey showing the need for TypeScript support. The developers often want to run TypeScript files directly executing commands like node foo.ts — without the headache of installing additional dependencies or loaders. Node.js has taken steps to meet that demand.

How It Works

The newly introduced experimental flag --experimental-strip-types allows developers to strip types from TypeScript code, converting it to JavaScript effortlessly. While this feature is beneficial, it has some limitations:

• Partial Support: Only types are removed, while enums and namespaces are unsupported. All the tsconfig.json settings are ignored, while source maps are not being generated.
• Directory Limitations: It doesn’t support TypeScript files in the node_modules directory. Not being able to support TypeScript files in this folder discourages authors from publishing TypeScript-only packages.

This lightweight support will not overwhelm a regular developer but will make working with TypeScript a lot easier. In case you’d like full support for TypeScript, then third-party packages such as tsx are still in store.

Benefits of Using TypeScript

Using TypeScript in the development flow has some advantages:

• Better Error Detection: Typescript’s static typing catches errors at compile time, reducing runtime errors, which helps improve code quality.
• Improves Code Readability: Strong typing makes code more understandable and self-documenting, thus allowing easy team collaboration and project maintenance.
• Strong Tooling: TypeScript has great IDE support, and out of the box, it provides autocompletion, navigation, and refactoring tools that make the developer productive.
• Seamless Integration with JavaScript: TypeScript being a superset to JavaScript means that it can easily be adopted in small steps inside an existing JavaScript project. It does not need a rewrite.
• More Security: Strong types provide greater security against security attacks based on dynamic typing.

What’s Next

Node.js is still moving ahead, and its roadmap is to provide support for more features of TypeScript. The list of TypeScript features requiring transformation by an external tool will likely change.

This addition of experimental support for TypeScript is just one of the notable developments. Navigate with Introduct through this ever-evolving landscape of technology to make impact-driven solutions that fit your needs. Contact us today to get professional help.