I have written a full production application in CS before switching to JS and then eventually migrated to TS. I was one of the "you save characters, you gain r

I have written a full production application in CS before switching to JS and then eventually migrated to TS. I was one of the "you save characters, you gain readability" proponents as well (I love Python too). However, it is a terribly flawed argument. Typing characters is incredibly cheap. Debugging and refactoring in a dynamic language. However, is very time-consuming. You might be a tad slower writing Typescript (with autocompletion and typechecking, I doubt it though). But over the whole lifecycle of a codebase, Typescript is a lot faster for everything but very small projects. I have done refactors in Typescript in hours that would have taken me days in CS... multiple times. Additionally the human brain can adjust to predictable noise very well (brackets). After a training period, I find Javascript and Typescript almost as readable as MY Coffeescript. However, even when developing 8 hours for multiple months in Coffeescript, I always had a hard time to grok other people's Coffeescript. There is just too much freedom. This does not happen that easy with Javascript/Typescript. Generally, static typing in a complex user interface is a huge huge win productivity wise. While you type more characters, you are still faster over the lifecycle of a project. Hitting keys on your keyboard is literally the least time-consuming part of programming.