Mangling interface bindings to indicate identifier type

[mda-jobs]

Acknowledgement

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Comment

Regarding the following sample code:

import { Product } from "@shared/product.model";
export const engineers: Product[] = [...];

The engineers declaration uses the notation Product[], which is neither intuitive, nor logical, on the following counts:

1. It imples that there is an interface definition: interface Product[] {...};
2. The notation doesn't accurately reflect the element type of the engineers array, or what the [] applies to.
3. Product[] looks like accessor syntax in which someone forgot the index.

The fix for this is to change the notation to:

export const engineers: [Product] = [...];

This correctly reflects the situation without mangling the interface binding and is closer to JS syntax.

[MartinJohns]

[Product] is already working syntax and means a tuple with exactly one element.

You can write Array<Product> instead, which is very clear if the other syntax confuses you.

It imples that there is an interface definition: interface Product[] {...};

It really doesn't, because [] are not valid identifier characters.

The notation doesn't accurately reflect the element type of the engineers array, or what the [] applies to.

I mean.. it does. The [] always applies to the type before. Honestly, if basic syntax (that is fairly common in a lot of languages) is so troublesome to you, you'll likely going to have a bad time. Better learn the syntax and get used to it.

[snarbles2]

This sort of syntax is hardly unique to Typescript. It would look familiar to someone coming from one of many other typed languages.

[RyanCavanaugh]

We can't change the syntax fundamentals of a programming language a dozen years after its creation, sorry.