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My only gripe - VS is way too expensive, for my pocket at least. And you need VS to program in TS, Intellisense is that good. Sure, you can go with Express edit

My only gripe - VS is way too expensive, for my pocket at least. And you need VS to program in TS, Intellisense is that good. Sure, you can go with Express edition but then you don't have node.js extension - which kinda make the whole endeavour bit pointless (again, for me at least). Wish they would bring prices to the level of, for example, those of Jetbrains, or made node.js extension working with Express.

nawitus 13y ago
You don't need VS for TS. Eclipse and WebStorm support it pretty well. I've evaluated Visual Studio, Eclipse and WebStorm, and Eclipse and WebStorm are better for TypeScript development, at least if you're using Node.js.
- kackontent 13y ago
  I tried WebStorm and found their support for TS severly lacking, IIRC it was limited to automatic compilation and basic syntax detecting. Code understanding/static type analysis was basically non-existent, e.g. it wasn't checking if argument conforms the interface described in the method's definition - you had to compile the script to find that out.
  - nawitus 13y ago
    It does check if the arguments are correct these days.
- malaporte 13y ago
  In my experience, Typescript support in IntelliJ/Webstorm has always been sketchy --- so much that I find it quite unfair that they would mention this as a feature of the paying version. I still use it, but I often get invalid highlighting, etc.. Then I update to the latest EAP because it's supposed to fix this particular issue... and then other appear. Hmm, annoying... I tried the VS version as well, and there the highlighting and refactoring works very well... but the editor is waaaay slower so I always give up. Funny because it works fine when working with other languages such as C#.
  - EdwardDiego 13y ago
    > Then I update to the latest EAP because it's supposed to fix this particular issue... and then other appear. Hmm, annoying... 1) Report bugs, they get fixed pretty quick 2) EAPs are not guaranteed stable 3) It's early days yet, it'll get better.
pbjorklund 13y ago
Perhaps VS online might be worth a shot? Subscription based so at least you don't stand to loose a lot of cash http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/details/visual-studio-online/ http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/details/visual-stu...
- kackontent 13y ago
  Thanks! Gonna give it a try, always thought online plans are only about their team management tools.
GFischer 13y ago
If you have your own startup or small company or are a student, Microsoft has several options aimed at you: - BizSpark for startups( http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/ http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/ ) - DreamSpark for students ( https://www.dreamspark.com/ https://www.dreamspark.com/ ) and I think there are other options if you contact someone at your local Microsoft office. I've just started using BizSpark (for a side project with 2 friends, so the "startup" term is a bit loose), and it's a great program. It's still way too expensive, but their goal is to let you give it a try, and if your startup is doing well you won't mind paying U$ 10.000 or whatever if you're cashing millions :)
- xradionut 13y ago
  The first hit/dose is free. On the other hand you do have companies that do make millions that are bailing on certain aspects of Microsoft tools and servers due licensing costs and increases. I've been involved in IT budgeting for almost two decades and the CFOs don't always sign the check just because it's an IBM/Microsoft/Oracle solution. Software cost for my side projects: $0
  - GFischer 13y ago
    I tried making the software cost for my side projects $0, and the non-Microsoft community does make it feasible, but I'm way too invested in Microsoft tools, so the productivity hit was way too steep. I started with a stack of Grails + PostgreSQL, hosted on AWS (Elastic Beanstalk, etc.), it worked pretty nicely (I was particularly impressed with the ease of use of Elastic Beanstalk for an absolute newbie). What I need is some free time, or a job switch (working on the 2nd part :) ). Still, I tried most IDEs and other ways of development (Eclipse, IntelliJ, Sublime Text), and I still like Visual Studio the most. I also like Microsoft SQL Server a lot. The Microsoft stack is certainly a lot more expensive than an equivalent stack if you have to pay for it, but having the BizSpark option, it makes a lot of sense if you come from a Microsoft background.
  - biot 13y ago
    Ultimately, when it comes to business, one of the biggest reasons to spend money is to buy yourself time. You probably could build an entire product yourself, but if you hired a few developers at $100K/year, you could build the product way faster. If you had new systems at $3K each (instead of buying used laptops from five years ago for $99 each), development would speed up. If you spent $2K/year on a third-party software suite, you wouldn't need to build it yourself or mess around with something not quite so polished. The flip side is that if spending money on something doesn't get you any benefit then of course you shouldn't do it. Some people see benefits, and some don't. But making comparisons to narcotics comes across as quite childish.
brokenparser 13y ago
I write TypeScript in vim and don't wish to run proprietary software, save for a few games on a machine dedicated for that purpose. It works simply by adding this line on the top or bottom: /* vim:set filetype=javascript: */ You can add other options in there as well, so it's easy for others to match your indentation style for instance.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- stewbrew 13y ago
  Why don't you use https://github.com/leafgarland/typescript-vim https://github.com/leafgarland/typescript-vim? There is also https://github.com/clausreinke/typescript-tools https://github.com/clausreinke/typescript-tools
  - brokenparser 13y ago
    Thanks!
  - shaneofalltrad 13y ago
    Haa! Much like adding a 70's Lac Engine into a Tesla. If it works that is cool and trendy and not monetarily smart.
malaporte 13y ago
Hmm technically you don't need an IDE to make good use of Typescript. It works very well as a standalone compiler installed using npm, and you get static type checking etc. which is really the point of Typescript IMHO --- if you don't care for static typing you might as well use JS directly. Sure, once you've got this you might as well want good auto-completion, refactorings, etc, but this also applies to any language that's not bound to one specific IDE (C++, for example, or Java).
smortaz 13y ago
both of these are coming: Nodejs Tools for Visual Studio will do TypeScript & be installable in VS Express shortly.
skittles 13y ago
Microsoft says TS is supported in Visual Studio Express 2013 for Web. That's a free download with a license that allows one to do commercial development. It won't have everything the pay versions have, but it will be more than enough for TS development.
rjbwork 13y ago
500 dollars for pro is extremely reasonable in my opinion, considering the value it brings. Another 150 for a personal ReSharper license and you're ready to tackle anything.

nawitus 13y ago

You don't need VS for TS. Eclipse and WebStorm support it pretty well. I've evaluated Visual Studio, Eclipse and WebStorm, and Eclipse and WebStorm are better for TypeScript development, at least if you're using Node.js.

kackontent 13y ago
I tried WebStorm and found their support for TS severly lacking, IIRC it was limited to automatic compilation and basic syntax detecting. Code understanding/static type analysis was basically non-existent, e.g. it wasn't checking if argument conforms the interface described in the method's definition - you had to compile the script to find that out.
- nawitus 13y ago
  It does check if the arguments are correct these days.
malaporte 13y ago
In my experience, Typescript support in IntelliJ/Webstorm has always been sketchy --- so much that I find it quite unfair that they would mention this as a feature of the paying version. I still use it, but I often get invalid highlighting, etc.. Then I update to the latest EAP because it's supposed to fix this particular issue... and then other appear. Hmm, annoying... I tried the VS version as well, and there the highlighting and refactoring works very well... but the editor is waaaay slower so I always give up. Funny because it works fine when working with other languages such as C#.
- EdwardDiego 13y ago
  > Then I update to the latest EAP because it's supposed to fix this particular issue... and then other appear. Hmm, annoying... 1) Report bugs, they get fixed pretty quick 2) EAPs are not guaranteed stable 3) It's early days yet, it'll get better.

pbjorklund 13y ago

Perhaps VS online might be worth a shot? Subscription based so at least you don't stand to loose a lot of cash http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/details/visual-studio-online/ http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/details/visual-stu...

kackontent 13y ago
Thanks! Gonna give it a try, always thought online plans are only about their team management tools.

GFischer 13y ago

If you have your own startup or small company or are a student, Microsoft has several options aimed at you: - BizSpark for startups( http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/ http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/ ) - DreamSpark for students ( https://www.dreamspark.com/ https://www.dreamspark.com/ ) and I think there are other options if you contact someone at your local Microsoft office. I've just started using BizSpark (for a side project with 2 friends, so the "startup" term is a bit loose), and it's a great program. It's still way too expensive, but their goal is to let you give it a try, and if your startup is doing well you won't mind paying U$ 10.000 or whatever if you're cashing millions :)

xradionut 13y ago
The first hit/dose is free. On the other hand you do have companies that do make millions that are bailing on certain aspects of Microsoft tools and servers due licensing costs and increases. I've been involved in IT budgeting for almost two decades and the CFOs don't always sign the check just because it's an IBM/Microsoft/Oracle solution. Software cost for my side projects: $0
- GFischer 13y ago
  I tried making the software cost for my side projects $0, and the non-Microsoft community does make it feasible, but I'm way too invested in Microsoft tools, so the productivity hit was way too steep. I started with a stack of Grails + PostgreSQL, hosted on AWS (Elastic Beanstalk, etc.), it worked pretty nicely (I was particularly impressed with the ease of use of Elastic Beanstalk for an absolute newbie). What I need is some free time, or a job switch (working on the 2nd part :) ). Still, I tried most IDEs and other ways of development (Eclipse, IntelliJ, Sublime Text), and I still like Visual Studio the most. I also like Microsoft SQL Server a lot. The Microsoft stack is certainly a lot more expensive than an equivalent stack if you have to pay for it, but having the BizSpark option, it makes a lot of sense if you come from a Microsoft background.
- biot 13y ago
  Ultimately, when it comes to business, one of the biggest reasons to spend money is to buy yourself time. You probably could build an entire product yourself, but if you hired a few developers at $100K/year, you could build the product way faster. If you had new systems at $3K each (instead of buying used laptops from five years ago for $99 each), development would speed up. If you spent $2K/year on a third-party software suite, you wouldn't need to build it yourself or mess around with something not quite so polished. The flip side is that if spending money on something doesn't get you any benefit then of course you shouldn't do it. Some people see benefits, and some don't. But making comparisons to narcotics comes across as quite childish.

brokenparser 13y ago

I write TypeScript in vim and don't wish to run proprietary software, save for a few games on a machine dedicated for that purpose. It works simply by adding this line on the top or bottom: /* vim:set filetype=javascript: */ You can add other options in there as well, so it's easy for others to match your indentation style for instance.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
stewbrew 13y ago
Why don't you use https://github.com/leafgarland/typescript-vim https://github.com/leafgarland/typescript-vim? There is also https://github.com/clausreinke/typescript-tools https://github.com/clausreinke/typescript-tools
- brokenparser 13y ago
  Thanks!
- shaneofalltrad 13y ago
  Haa! Much like adding a 70's Lac Engine into a Tesla. If it works that is cool and trendy and not monetarily smart.

malaporte 13y ago

Hmm technically you don't need an IDE to make good use of Typescript. It works very well as a standalone compiler installed using npm, and you get static type checking etc. which is really the point of Typescript IMHO --- if you don't care for static typing you might as well use JS directly. Sure, once you've got this you might as well want good auto-completion, refactorings, etc, but this also applies to any language that's not bound to one specific IDE (C++, for example, or Java).

smortaz 13y ago

both of these are coming: Nodejs Tools for Visual Studio will do TypeScript & be installable in VS Express shortly.

skittles 13y ago

Microsoft says TS is supported in Visual Studio Express 2013 for Web. That's a free download with a license that allows one to do commercial development. It won't have everything the pay versions have, but it will be more than enough for TS development.

rjbwork 13y ago

500 dollars for pro is extremely reasonable in my opinion, considering the value it brings. Another 150 for a personal ReSharper license and you're ready to tackle anything.