Why Only Type-hints?
Whether you're working with Javascript / TypeScript or in Python, type annotations are a thing. On Hacker News we've seen big debates on whether types improve code quality or are just cargo-cult slowing us down. Now here's the thing: I've come to believe there's something very backwards in our approach to type hinting. Let me explain why. Historically most languages were designed with types baked in. Think C, Fortran and probably most languages one level above Assembly. Types are a simple idea and were needed so that the compiler could figure out what operations to perform, e.g. the + operator has defined behavior on integers, and another on strings. With dynamic languages such as Python or Javascript, types were handled in the interpreter at runtime and no longer necessary in the language itself. In the last decade, with the rise of TypeScript and Python type hinting we're adding types back, not because the language needs them, but so that tooling can help us