Over the years, TypeScript has gained huge popularity among frontend programmers. Enhanced code consistency, maintainability, and future browser support are the key reasons behind its enormous success. Though various other libraries and frameworks adopt TypeScript by default, ReactJS remained neutral, offering the product owners the comfort to Hire ReactJS Developers and choose between JavaScript and TypeScript.
This write-up will share five key benefits of considering TypeScript for ReactJS apps.
TypeScript: It is a superset of JS which mainly provides optional static typing, interfaces, and classes. Let’s look at the various benefits of using this robust programming technology with ReactJS.
Default TypeScript Support for Libraries
If you utilized TypeScript several years ago, you might have experienced the pain of searching Type support for various third-party libraries. But with TypeScript earning more popularity, most of the common libraries are supported with standard Type Definitions. Apart from this, the React library ecosystem already supports these Definitions, where you don’t have to worry about it anyways.
Robust JSX Compatibility
Another additional but comprehensive benefit of using TypeScript and ReactJS in app development is that it provides improved IntelliSense, powerful code completion for JSX.
Bit makes it straightforward to compile, share, and reuse independent components between various projects. Use it to keep a consistent design, maximize code reusability, accelerate delivery, collaborate as a team, and develop scalable applications.
Easy to Read and Understand Elements
With TypeScript, it becomes easy to define Prop types, building the code easily readable and usable. And IntelliSense support and static type checking accompany it in an effective way.
These, in a combo, make it an impressive development experience and lower the potential for bugs. Apart from this, adding comments to Prop types also sums up improved readability when you check an element definition.
Gradual Employment for Existing Projects
Going for TypeScript isn’t an on-off switch but a gradual adaptation depending on the ongoing condition of the project. Suppose you want to use TypeScript for an existing ReactJS app development project. In that case, you have to look at how you can hire React JS developers and utilize TypeScript and JavaScript side by side and rapidly increase the TypeScript coverage.
Apart from this, You can also configure the TypeScript compiler choices for the gradual transition.
Various Benefits of IntelliSense and Static Type Checking
Static Type Checking
Static Type checking helps in identifying errors earlier. The getDetails function needs a string as an exact argument rather than a number.
Improved IntelliSense
When we take IntelliSense and TypeScript static Type checking together, it gives us the confidence that IntelliSense is entirely accurate and reliable.
Less Amount of Undefined Issues
The risk of appearing Undefined issues at runtime is very low since the TypeScript compiler also inspects them at transpile time.
Enhanced Refactoring
With TypeScript, refactoring is quite easier since we know the exact Type and where to modify them. And early detection of something that went wrong will ensure that you aren’t breaking anything.
Better Maintainability and Readability
With Type Definitions, the codebase will be easily readable and maintainable. You can follow object-oriented programming principles with ease and use constructs like user Interfaces to structure your code using the least coupling method.
Crucial Challenges to Overcome While Using TypeScript
Since this write-up has already shared the various opportunities that come with TypeScript, let’s understand the challenges to be well prepared for adopting TypeScript in app development projects.
Some Third-Party Libraries Could be Missing Type Definitions
Since TypeScript has become pretty popular, this is a very rare case. However, if you will see a Library without the Definitions, TypeScript official documentation provides users with a standard guideline.
Learning Curve
The learning curve could be the complexity of starting with TypeScript, especially if your development team comes from a vanilla JS background. In this case, the suitable choice is to go for a consistent adaptation, as described above in this write-up.
But if the development team is quite familiar with strongly typed programming technologies, for example, not C# or Java, learning Typescript is relatively simple and easy to use.
Compilation Time
Since the source code development has to go through a different layer of transpiling, it will, of course, add a few milliseconds of additional time. But this will not be a big issue most of the time. And compared to the various benefits it adds for improved development experience and less prone to bugs and errors, this will outweigh the downside that it takes some more time.
Wrapping Up
Thank you for reading this write-up at this fair. In conclusion, we can see that it’s a great idea to consider adding TypeScript for your next ReactJS app development project. You can even hire react.js developers and choose the most efficient way to migrate your existing ReactJS project to TypeScript.