Let's rewrite Typescript in Rust!
Erick Sosa Garcia
Posted on June 24, 2020
If I'm sure of one thing, it is that typescript completely changed the way developers viewed javascript.
working with javascript in small and medium projects is not a problem but in bigger and more complex projects it is much more difficult. JavaScript was not originally intended to be a language for creating complex applications as it is today, behaviors like these are some of the reasons why javascript is heavily criticized:
{} + "" // 0
[] + {} // [object Object]
10 + "10" // 1010
10 - "5" // 5
Yes, javascript is rare but it is the language that changed the world since it is the only programming language to run in the backend and frontend.
In 2012, typescript arrived as a superset language that compiled to javascript and brought javascript closer to languages with strong types such as java or C#
So far so good, what is the problem?
typescript bottleneck
the typescript compiler is slow, and don't get me wrong the compiler developers are doing a good job, the problem is node js, node js is designed to use a single core of the processor, it can work with multiple processes but in practice only a single core is used. which causes that when compiling typescript node js cannot take full advantage of the power of your processor, so the compilation can be slow in some cases.
so what is the solution?
Rust
rust is a multi-paradigm language, compiled and concurrent that saw the light in its first version in 2015, this is developed by mozilla and is open source.
SWC is a compiler for typescript and javascript written in rust and is being developed by a 22 year old South Korean student. is making it possible to lower compile times by using rust as the language.
if tools like webpack or babel were written in languages like rust or go that allow us to use all the cores of our processor, we would have more efficient and faster development tools.
then Let's rewrite Typescript in Rust!
this post is inspired by the tweet of Jonny Burger
Let's rewrite Typescript in Rust!
Posted on June 24, 2020
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