Use React to Write Better TypeScript

Learn how to make better use of Typescript's strengths and features while involving React.

How to write better TypeScript

TypeScript: love it or hate it, you can’t deny the fact that it’s spreading like wildfire. In fact, according to the Stack Overflow 2019 developer survey, it was listed as the third most-loved programming language and the fourth most-wanted.

Now whether the survey accurately represents real-world sentiments is up for debate, but the fact remains that TypeScript is here, and it has come to stay. It’s so pervasive now that it has replaced vanilla JavaScript as the language of choice for many packages in the JS ecosystem, with some like Yarn even going as far as rewriting their entire codebase in TypeScript.

I feel one of the reasons for this meteoric rise to success has to be the fact that TypeScript, in essence, is just JavaScript. This makes the entry bar a lot lower for existing JavaScript developers, and the fact that it’s typed may also attract other devs who prefer the features typed languages provide.

This cuts both ways, too, because the ease of picking up TypeScript has led to some cases where the language is not being utilized as effectively as it could be. Many developers still write TypeScript like they’re writing JavaScript, and this brings with it some disadvantages.

We’ll be looking at some real-world code written in TypeScript that could be improved to make better use of the language’s strengths. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and I welcome you to list some you might have noticed in the comments section below.

Some of these examples involve React because I’ve noticed some instances where React code could be improved by simply making use of some TypeScript features, but the principles are by no means limited to React. Let’s dive in.

NOTE: Many code snippets in this article have been taken from real-world projects and anonymized to protect their owners.

typescript react javascript

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