TypeScript: Why I prefer `Array<Type>` over `Type[]` - a podcast by Kent C. Dodds

from 2021-05-19T14:36:14

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Good morning or afternoon or whatever it is for you friends, it's morning
for me. I wanted to talk about how I type a raise in TypeScript, so thereare two ways that I'm aware of that you can type an array and of course I
guess there are a couple ways depending on what type of an array you wantto make but just like a regular array you can either specify the type and
then immediately thereafter with no space a open and closing bracket likethe the syntax for an array and the alternative is there is a built-in.
Array type which is a generic and you say array and then open bracket nothat what are these angle brackets that's what is called an open angle
bracket and then the type of that's in the array and then a closing angle
bracket and I prefer the latter. I like using the generic array and thereason that I prefer that I I think that I just like just kind of preferred
to that from the beginning, but I think the reason that I prefer using thegeneric array is because I don't,Like reading my type and then getting to
the end and be like, oh this is an array of those things so I I see we've
got um user and then I see the opening closing bracket and I say oh no,actually it's not a user it's an array of users, whereas if I use the
generic I can see oh we've got an array and the things that are in the
array are users and so I'm when I'm reading from left to right it just
seems to make more sense to me to to read it in that way, it's kind of like
in English it.I I like how in Spanish and you have the,If you have like an exclamation
you're going to have that upset upside down exclamation point I don't know
what that's called but you have that upside down exclamation point at the
beginning of the sentence so you know ahead of time that the thing you're
about to read is an exclamation rather than getting to the end of thesentence and being oh yeah, I'm supposed to be like excited about in saying
this or something like that when I'm reading a book my kid or something and
so I kind of see that in the same way and that's why I prefer using the
generic over the the special syntax for specifying arrays, it is a littlebit more type.
Of being or more characters but I actually don't care too much about that
and then that comes with the benefit ofswitching from a regular array to a
read-only array, you know being a bit easier and stuff like that so anyway.I just thought that would be something I'd share today.
I hope you're having a wonderful day and I'll chat with you soon.

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