Shout out to @rhymes for giving this post a review. 👏

Before the dev.to codebase was opensourced, I was working on it in the private repository and created an issue in there that has since been copied to the public repository (thanks @maestromac!).

The https://github.com/thepracticaldev/dev.to/issues/383#issue-351630725 repository on GitHub

For those new to types, here's a post from Preethi Kasireddy about types.

Why use static types in JavaScript? (Part 1)

Preethi Kasireddy ・ December 8, 2016 ・ 10 min read

• #javascript
• #types
• #flow

Also, here's a fairly recent episode from the Script and Style podcast about types in JavaScript, Static Typing for JavaScript.

TypeScript permalink

I'm partial to TypeScript myself. I've written about it here before.

Consider Using TypeScript

Nick Taylor ・ October 8, 2017 ・ 5 min read

• #typescript

There appears to be a shift towards TypeScript for those that are interested in types. I wrote a bit about it here

Is 2019 the year of TypeScript?

Nick Taylor ・ January 16, 2019 ・ 2 min read

• #discuss
• #typescript
• #javascript
• #flow

There is also a great episode on the React Podcast that talks about TypeScript with Jared Palmer.

I love chatting with @jaredpalmer about hyped technologies.

He's pragmatic, considered, and methodical when exploring new tech.

If you want to successfully explore @typescriptlang in your React apps, this is a great place to start. https://t.co/6EFANvmrM8

— chantastic is automated (@chantastic) March 28, 2019

Take TypeScript for a spin in one of the playgrounds:

• Unofficial Playground

An Enhanced TypeScript Playground

Nick Taylor ・ February 26, 2019 ・ 1 min read

• #typescript

• Official TypeScript Playground

Flow permalink

Flow is another option in the frontend in regards to types, although I've never used it myself.

Here are some links if you want to read up on Flow.

• Writing Better JavaScript with Flow
• An Introduction to Flow
• Flow: A Static Type Checker for JavaScript
• I honestly did not really find many posts on dev.to about Flow, but feel free to check out the flowtype tag.

Take Flow for a spin in the Flow REPL

Other Options

I've narrowed it down to TypeScript and Flow as they are the most popular, but feel free to bring others to the table to discuss, e.g. Elm, Reason. (Thanks for chiming in on Twitter @magellol!)

Nice. I think It would also be interesting to mention how Elm and possibly Reason compare to TS as well. I've been looking at Elm these days and I feel resources are much lighter.

— Thomas Lefebvre (@thomlbvr) April 8, 2019

Vanilla JS🍦 permalink

If you really don't want to see the codebase converted to use types, that's OK too.

Are static types something that would interest people in the dev.to community who are contributing to or are thinking about contributing to the frontend codebase? Feel free to discuss in the comments here and/or jump on over to the GitHub issue and comment there.