The amount of time we've saved just catching bugs at compile time is ridiculous.
Benefits of TypeScript:
- Eliminates a whole class of undefined/null bugs
- Autocomplete with rich editor support (VSCode FTW)
- Better refactoring across a large codebase
Gotchas:
- Type definitions for third-party modules are sometimes stale
- CI/CD performance needs tuning with strict mode
Still: TypeScript is the default now. Vanilla JS is legacy.