Microsoft Releases TypeScript 6.0

Microsoft today released TypeScript 6.0, a major release of its open source superset of the JavaScript web programming language.

“Today we are excited to announce the availability of TypeScript 6.0!” Microsoft principal program manager Daniel Rosenwasser writes in the announcement post. “If you are not familiar with TypeScript, it’s a language that builds on JavaScript by adding syntax for types, which enables type-checking to catch errors, and provide rich editor tooling.”

TypeScript 6.0 is the last major release of this language built on the current JavaScript codebase. Starting with TypeScript 7.0, Microsoft will move forward with a major rewrite of the language and compiler in Go that will provide native speeds and shared-memory multithreading. So TypeScript 6.0 is primarily aimed at helping developers prepare for 7.0.

New features include DOM type updates to align with the latest web standards, improved inference for contextually sensitive functions, subpath imports, and a new flag aimed at assisting with coming TypeScript 6.0 to 7.0 migrations. There are also several breaking changes and deprecations that Rosenwasser says “reflect the evolving JavaScript ecosystem and set the stage for TypeScript 7.0.” Deprecated features can be used in TypeScript 6.0, but they won’t be allowed in 7.0.