So, you’re wondering, “How hard is it to learn TypeScript?”. Well, let me tell you there is some good news. Learning TypeScript might not be as hard as you think. In fact, I found learning TypeScript to be incredibly easy and once I started using it, I never went back to JavaScript.
Having a built-in type system can be incredibly helpful for catching simple errors quickly and easily. For myself, the trade-off between writing a few extra lines of code far outways the countless avoidable bugs I faced down the road and type tests I needed to write in JavaScript.
However, it can be very hard to learn TypeScript if you don’t have the right foundation in programming knowledge before you dive in and start learning.
In this article, I am going to break down the things you need to know to make sure learning TypeScript is as easy as possible for you.
What Should You Know Before Learning TypeScript?
1. Know JavaScript
Maybe this goes without saying but if you want to have a smooth transition from learning JavaScript to TypeScript, you should probably have a strong foundation in JavaScript first.
TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript, which means that the language is basically just JavaScript with a type-system built on top of it. Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but we’ll get to that.
If you have no issues writing JavaScript, learning TypeScript will be easy. All you need to do is declare the types you are using before you use them and avoid techniques like duck typing. To make things easier, the compiler will even spit out an error anytime you use TypeScript incorrectly, so you won’t be fighting any bugs that aren’t right in front of you.
To make the TypeScript learning process even easier, you could even start by writing a simple program in JavaScript, changing the file to a TypeScript project, and just fixing the compiler errors. Congrats! You’ve just written a TypeScript program.
Sounds easy right?
2. Know A Statically Typed Language
Okay, so if you’re a self-taught developer like me and started your programming journey learning a dynamically typed languages like Python or JavaScript, TypeScript may be a bit harder to understand.
However, if you already learned how to code in a language like Java, C#, C, or C++, you’re in luck. TypeScript should be very easy to get started with.
If you have not worked with a statically typed language, I highly suggest you do so! It’s hard to be taken seriously as a professional programmer that doesn’t understand type systems.
It doesn’t matter which language you learn type systems with, but if you are trying to learn TypeScript, it is a good language to choose. I highly recommend this course to learn how to write professional TypeScript code.
How Long Does It Take To Learn TypeScript?
How long it takes to learn TypeScript is going to depend greatly on your prior experience. It is a hard and difficult process to learn any programming language and TypeScript is no exception.
If TypeScript is your first language, it will likely take you anywhere from 3 months to a year to learn. Mainly because you need to learn JavaScript and type systems as well!
However, if you understand JavaScript and how type systems work, you can easily get the basics of TypeScript down within a day to a week. Seriously, TypeScript is not hard to learn if you understand JavaScript and type systems.
Summary: How Hard Is It To Learn TypeScript
To summarize, how hard it is to learn TypeScript depends on both your JavaScript knowledge and your knowledge of type systems. If you know both, you should have absolutely no problems learning TypeScript.
However, learning TypeScript can be very difficult and take a long time to learn if you are inexperienced in either of these domains.
If you’re like I was, you are probably putting off learning TypeScript because of the learning curve. If that’s the case, start learning TypeScript now! It’s not that difficult and it will make you look like a much more competent and responsible JavaScript developer.
If you want a great resource to learn TypeScript like a professional programmer, check out this course.
As always, feel free to reach out if you have any questions, and happy coding!
