'Could TypeScript replace JavaScript?'

ZDNet asked the question -- pointing to a RedMonk survey which found TypeScript jumped in popularity from #16 to #12 over the last six months (based on its usage in GitHub projects and in questions on Stack Overflow).

The reason for this rise can be found in the latest survey of 33,000 developers from 156 countries who use npm, a hugely popular Node.js JavaScript package manager that's traditionally used to build website features... As per npm developers, a big surprise in last year's survey was that 46 percent of respondents said they used TypeScript. Today, the proportion of developers who use Microsoft's open-source take on JavaScript has ballooned to 62 percent... 'Overall, 36 percent of npm users are writing TypeScript some or most of the time. That a third of the users in the JavaScript community are writing a totally new flavor of JavaScript should make everyone sit up and take notice' [according to npm Inc's report].
In other words, TypeScript should be on the list of languages to understand. As RedMonk noted in March, the growing number of projects helps explain why TypeScript's 'trajectory is significant and sustainable' and won't just fade away like many other languages.

The article also argues that Microsoft's hit with TypeScript 'comes as its open-source cross-platform code editor Visual Studio Code, or VS Code, finds a sweet spot with developers across the world, rising from being used by 500,000 developers in 2016 to 4.5 million in 2019. '


Meanwhile npm Inc. also points out that Slack's desktop application was written in JavaScript, pointing to this as evidence that JavaScript itself 'has broken out of the browser and become a general-purpose programming language, put to all the same uses as other programming languages.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.