Difference Between TypeScript and ES6

Key Difference – TypeScript vs ES6
 

TypeScript and ES6 are two technologies related to JavaScriptThere is a large number of web pages available on the World Wide Web. Every organization maintains their own websites to communicate with the customers and to understand the market trends. There are various technologies used for web application development. The most common three technologies are HTML, CSS and JavaScript. HTML provides the structure for the page while CSS helps with the presentation of the web page. JavaScript is a client-side scripting language to make the web page dynamic. It can be used to build animations, events, form validation and many more.  Sometimes JavaScript code can be difficult to maintain. Therefore, new libraries and languages written in JavaScript were introduced. Two technologies related to JavaScript are TypeScript and ES6. This article discusses the difference between TypeScript and ES6. TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript, which is an open source programming language developed and maintained by Microsoft. ES6 is a version of ECMAScript (ES), which is a scripting language specification standardized by ECMA international. That is the key difference between TypeScript and ES6. TypeScript contains specifications of ES5 and ES6.

CONTENTS

1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is TypeScript
3. What is ES6
4. Similarities Between TypeScript and ES6
5. Side by Side Comparison – TypeScript vs ES6 in Tabular Form
6. Summary

What is TypeScript?

TypeScript is a language based on JavaScript. It was developed by Microsoft. It contains all features of JavaScript. Typescript is an optional language for JavaScript. It uses the TypeScript compiler to convert the TypeScript file (ts) into plain JavaScript (js). TypeScript generated JavaScript can reuse all the existing JavaScript frameworks and libraries.  The TypeScript compiler provides error checking. Therefore, if the code contains any error, it will generate a compilation errors. This process helps to find the error before running the script. TypeScript also has TypeScript Language Service. It works as an additional layer around the core compiler. It helps editing operations such as statement completion, code formatting and outlining.

TypeScript supports many data types. Some of them are String, Number, Boolean, Array, Enum, Tuple, generics. One major advantage of TypeScript is that it helps to build class-based objects. Most programming languages such Java, C++ supports Object Oriented programming. As TypeScript is class-based, so it is capable of supporting OOP concepts such as inheritance, interfaces, etc. Overall, Typescript is same as JavaScript but with additional features. The main advantage of TypeScript is that it helps the programmers to write safer code.

What is ES6?

ECMAScript (ES) is a trademarked scripting language specification standardized by ECMA international. It was created to standardize JavaScript. It contains many implementations. The most popular implementation of ECMAScript is JavaScript. The programmers use ECMAScript mostly for client-side scripting of World Wide Web. (WWW). Today, server-side programming is done using Node.js, which is a cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment. There are several editions of ECMA 262.

The 6^th edition of ECMAScript is ECMAScript6 or ES6. It is also named as ECMAScript 2015. It helps to write programs for complex applications. It supports classes for object orientation. It contains modules. A module is a set of JavaScript code written in a file. Before using a variable or method in the module, it is necessary to import them. The most common ES6 browsers are Chrome and Firefox. The ES6 based code is converted into ES5 using a transpiler. ES5 is supported by many browsers. TypeScript is a transpiler. Grunt, Gulp and Babel are some other transpilers to compile the modules. Therefore, ES6 is supported by TypeScript.

What are the Similarities Between TypeScript and ES6?

• Both TypeScript and ES6are related to web development.
• TypeScript language features like Modules and class-based orientation are in line with the ECMAScript 6 (ES6) specification.

What is the Difference Between Typescript and ES6?

Summary – TypeScript vs ES6

TypeScript and ES6 are two technologies based on JavaScript. TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript which is an open source programming language developed and maintained by Microsoft. ES6 is a version of ECMAScript (ES) that is a scripting language specification standardized by ECMA international. That is the difference between TypeScript and ES6. TypeScript contains specifications of ES5 and ES6. TypeScript language features like Modules and class-based orientation are in ES6 specification while features like generics and type annotations are not included in ES6 specifications.

Reference:

1.Point, Tutorials. “TypeScript Overview.”, Tutorials Point, 8 Jan. 2018. Available here 
2.ES6 and Typescript Tutorial – 1 – Introduction, Codevolution, 13 July 2016. Available here  
3.“ECMAScript.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 5 Mar. 2018. Available here 

Image Courtesy:

1.’es6-logo’ by Bo-Yi Wu (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr