Microsoft releases TypeScript 2.0, new features now available

Microsoft rolled out the beta version for TypeScript 2.0 three months ago and since its release, the company continued to work on this language. Recently, it added new features to enhance developer productivity. While TypeScript 2.0 for Visual Studio 2015 can now be downloaded, you will also need Update 3 which can be found on the official Visual Studio page.

TypeScript 2.0 adds major updates to Microsoft’s type version of JavaScript and will make the developer work easier.

With this release, TypeScript delivers close ECMAScript spec alignment, wide support for JavaScript libraries and tools, and a language service that powers a first class editing experience in all major editors; all of which come together to provide an even more productive and scalable JavaScript development experience.

When Microsoft released TypeScript 1.0 four years ago, the language proved the potential of JavaScript when combined with static types. Developers no longer had to waste time hunting bugs thanks to its compile-time error checking. TypeScript 1.1 boosted performance by up to four times because the compiler was completely rewritten, supporting more flexibility and faster iteration.

Later, version 1.4 came with support for ES2015/ES6 and version 1.5 introduced support for modules and decorators. This allowed Angular 2 to adopt TypeScript, becoming Microsoft’s partner and helping the company improve this language. Finally, TypeScript 1.6-1.8 added new type system improvements and provided support for major JavaScript libraries.

TypeScript 2.0 brings the following new features:

• Non-nullable Types
• Control Flow Analysis for Types
• Easier Module Declarations
• Read-only properties
• Improved typings acquisition

The TypeScript team has promised it will continue to work with its partners and the community to improve TypeScript’s type system to “allow users to further express JavaScript in a statically typed fashion. In addition, we will focus on enhancing the TypeScript language service and set of tooling features so that developer tools become smarter and further boost developer productivity.”

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