llamafile also builds on that work, I believe (she’s the main contributor): https://github.com/Mozilla-Ocho/llamafile

I think the syntax explicitly won’t get standardised - but the places where syntax can be put will be (e.g. after a : following a variable, before the =). With, yes, the goal of eliminating the build step, but the type checker (which really is just a linter at this point) would still be able to define their own specific syntax. I don’t think it could work any other way either, anyway.

that will /should probably make their way into JS.

Not really, IMHO. The main advantage of TS is that it will help you catch errors without having to run a particular piece of code - i.e. you won’t have to move to the third page of some multi-page form to discover a particular bug. In other words, it helps you catch bugs before your code even reaches your browser, so it doesn’t bring you much to have them in the browser.

(There is a proposal to allow running TS in the browser, which would be nice, but you’d still run a type checker separately to actually catch the bugs.)

If TypeScript still is a fad at this point, his definition of fad is far lengthier than mine is.

I’m fairly sure TypeScript will remain in popular use longer than whatever project you’re working on 😅

TypeScript sometimes is the testing ground for the future features of ECMAScript

They have an explicit policy to only include features that are stage 3 already (i.e. that are pretty much certain to land in the language as-is). The only times they’ve diverged from this is long in the past (I think enum is the main remnant of that, for which I’d recommend using unions of literal string types instead), and experimentalDecorators under pressure from Angular - which has always been behind a flag explicitly named experimental.

So I really wouldn’t worry too much about that.

Then why do you think most business are already writing a separate Android app rather than just optimising their mobile website?

But “make the mobile version not take up as much screen-space” is not as simple as simply zooming out and just hiding some icon labels. And just the fact that people interact by touch rather than with a mouse and keyboard is already a major adjustment.

Anyway, I’ll leave it at this, since I feel like there’s not much to gain here for me from the discussion anymore :) Cheers!

That’s theoretically true, but in practice, the desktop experience (screen size, interaction model, etc.) is sufficiently different that adapting it to mobile to get an app-like experience is not that different from building a separate app.

A big benefit is writing the app once and it working everywhere. If it only works on Android, people will just default to the tools tailored to that platform anyway.

That’s why the article itself adds the “major browser” qualification.