That's not entirely true. While TypeScript is closely aligning itself with the proposed ES6 syntax for classes and modules, there is no expectation that ECMAScript will add optional static type checking. If you want statically typed JavaScript you are always going to need something like TypeScript.
With that said, as ES6 evolves and becomes more widely supported there will be aspects of the TypeScript compiler that will no longer be needed (e.g. classes, modules, fat arrow functions, etc.).
> If you want statically typed JavaScript you are always going to need something like TypeScript.
I think that is a valid statement only within the context of the next ECMA release. In other words, that's not to say that whichever successive version after ES6 can't include it, or any version thereafter.
You could make that argument about any missing feature. I haven't seen any serious support for optional typing in JS; so at this point it would be fair to say that GP is correct.
> Structural function types describe functions and methods. The type
> function (int, string): boolean
> describes a Function object that takes two arguments, one int and the other string, and which returns a boolean
Given that a great many other concepts from ES4 are finding their ways into ES6, it is not implausible that this one may also reappear into a more consensual specification someday.
That is a good point that it could apply to any missing feature; my point is that to say that any particular feature is "never" going to make it into the language is short-sighted at best. Just a handful of years ago, you could say that "if you want some form of Function.prototype.bind then you're always going to have to polyfill it yourself", which of course would be a 100% inaccurate statement.
Fair enough. I just haven't heard of the ECMAScript standards committee seriously considering adding static type checking to the language. The closest things I've seen are the proposed guards [1] and trademarks [2] features for ES7.
It's fairly common. For instance, the NY Times style is to use "iPod Touch", "iPod Nano", and "Mac Mini" despite Apple's desires. The justification is that a proper noun in all lowercase can lead to unclear or ambiguous sentences.
Then they do so incorrectly, as Apple's list of registered trademarks clearly specifies the lowercase second word for these devices. [0]
So when the NY Times writes iPod Touch® [1] as they do on their mobile apps page they're not using the registered trademark as intended. It would be as incorrect as writing 'Blackberry' or 'MicroSoft'.
Apple is pretty touchy about this, with Section 4 of their 'Rules for Proper Use of Apple Trademarks' saying:
4. Always spell and capitalize Apple’s trademarks exactly as they are shown in the Apple Trademark List. Do not shorten or abbreviate Apple product names. Do not make up names that contain Apple trademarks. [2]
Obviously the enforcement of all that legalese is questionable and Apple has yet to burn down the doors of the NY Times, but I think it's fair to say that for the rest of us it would be correct to accept that not all company and product names follow grammatical rules and that when writing about them we should spell and capitalise them as the company intended rather than as we'd prefer.
I commonly see the misspelling "MicroSoft". Does anyone know if it was ever spelled that way? Originally it was "Micro-Soft", but did they ever use the intercaps form?
People commonly misspell "Xcode" and "Xbox", but I really hate it when they write "MAC" to refer Apple's Macintosh. It's not an acronym!
Funny thing is that it doesn't seem like the actual registered trademark includes capitalization choice. They are all shown as all-caps in the PTOs database, for instance: Word Mark ITUNES MATCH
I believe the trademark is registered regardless of capitalisation, otherwise we'd have ridiculous situations like GoOgLe being non-infringing. So 'iTunes Match' is protected whether it's spelled 'ITUNES MATCH', 'iTUNES match' or whatever other combination you want.
That is however a separate issue to a company's preferred usage of its mark, where it has the prerogative to specify a preferred capitalisation. Again, the examples of 'Blackberry' and 'MicroSoft' being incorrect are relevant here.
As an aside, I love that we got into a debate on this. In what other community would such needless minutiae take up anyone's time? :)
Apple also tries to promote the use of dropping the "the" and just referring to iPod, iPad, iPhone, etc. Should we also do this too, in deference to Apple?
Oh, jeez, maybe it's just me but that seems like technology for technology's sake. A spinner can be compressed to, what, 1k or so? I guess they should have drawn the Google logo with canvas, too.
It's not only a download concern. Downloading and watching animated gifs on the iPhone is a terrible experience - it's choppy, skips frames, and just doesn't look good. Doing an animated gif wasn't an option for Google.
Here's the pitch:
"Rhodes is the industry's first open source framework for rapidly building mobile applications for all major smartphone operating systems. Rhodes allows developers to write a smartphone application once using simple HTML and it automatically builds native applications for all smartphones including iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian and now Android."
[1]: https://github.com/clausreinke/typescript-tools