Most developer time is spent in editors, and it’s where performance is most important. We want editors to load large projects quickly, and respond quickly in all situations. Modern editors like Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code have excellent performance as long as the underlying language services are also fast. With our native implementation, we’ll be able to provide incredibly fast editor experiences. By Anders Hejlsberg.
Microsoft is revolutionizing TypeScript with a native port of its compiler and tools, promising a 10x performance boost. Announced by Anders Hejlsberg, this initiative aims to enhance developer experience in large codebases by slashing build times, editor startup, and memory usage. The native implementation, expected by mid-2025, already shows impressive results, with build times for projects like VS Code dropping from 77.8s to 7.5s.
Main points made in the article:
- Performance Boost: Native TypeScript port offers up to 10x faster build times across various codebases.
- Editor Efficiency: Editor load times improved by 8x, enhancing developer productivity.
- Versioning Roadmap: TypeScript 7.0 will introduce the native codebase, with TypeScript 6.x maintained for compatibility.
- Future Prospects: Enables advanced refactorings and AI tools for an evolved coding experience.
When the native codebase has reached sufficient parity with the current TypeScript, it will be released as TypeScript 7.0. This is still in development and it’ll be announcing stability and feature milestones as they occur. Nice one!
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