Microsoft TypeScript–Superset of JavaScript is unwrapped for Public

Anders Hejlsberg, the daddy of C# language, started working on a superset of JavaScript and which was kept secret until now. Microsoft unwrapped it today for public review. The aim of this is to make JavaScript development ubiquitous.

The TypeScript web site says:

Scalable

TypeScript offers classes, modules, and interfaces to help you build robust components.
These features are available at development time for high-confidence application development, but are compiled into simple JavaScript.
TypeScript types let you define interfaces between software components and to gain insight into the behavior of existing JavaScript libraries.

Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Developer Division, Soma Segar, in his blog mentioned that TypeScript would take the development of JavaScript based projects to application-scale.

He wrote in his blog that:

“With HTML5, the standards web platform has become significantly more compelling for delivering rich user experiences. At the same time, the reach of JavaScript has continued to expand, going beyond the browser to include native device apps (e.g. Windows Store apps for Windows 8), applications in the cloud (e.g., node.js running on Windows Azure), and more. With these developments, we’re starting to see applications of unprecedented size written with JavaScript, despite the fact that creating large-scale JavaScript applications is hard. TypeScript makes it easier.”

Those whoever thinks that Microsoft is taking JavaScript from standards by extending and enhancing is thinking from wrong side. The scope and intent of TypeScript is to improve the experience of developing application-scale JavaScript.TypeScript compiles to efficient JavaScript, there is very little that might stop from interoperating with “pure” JavaScript. TypeScript enables the JavaScript developers to take advantage of Visual Studio 2012 toolset.

You can download and early preview TypeScript from CodePlex and download the Visual Studio 2012 template from Microsoft Download Center.

Source: CodePlex, Microsoft