I recently joined a freelance project that two developers started three months ago, and they're claiming it's 80% complete. They need help fixing it because it's extremely messy and they're aiming to deploy it next week. The situation is chaotic with all commits going directly to the main branch and only three pull requests existing, one of which removed over a million lines of code. When I asked about the frameworks in use, the developer said he didn't know, despite it clearly using React for the frontend and possibly Express for the backend. It's frustrating to discover that about 80% of the code is in JavaScript, rather than TypeScript, considering it's a new project and not a legacy system. I'm curious if there's any legitimate reason to start a project in JavaScript instead of TypeScript, especially given these issues.
5 Answers
It's wild that one of the two developers doesn’t even know what framework they’re using. Maybe they’re just using AI to generate code? Priorities seem off here.
Honestly, the fact that they used JavaScript should be the least of your worries. The project seems like a hot mess with poor practices and a lack of knowledge about what they're working on.
This whole situation gives off bad vibes...
Indeed, converting JS to TypeScript won't fix the deep-rooted issues.
If you're thinking JavaScript is the root cause, you're looking at this the wrong way. The project would still be a mess with TypeScript; the core problem is the overall development practices.
Absolutely, the coding chaos isn't just about the language.
For real! It’s chaotic anyway you cut it.
There are some reasons for using JavaScript instead of TypeScript, like needing to prototype quickly or not having knowledge of TypeScript. But honestly, the way your project is described sounds like a nightmare!
TypeScript has its benefits for collaborating and maintaining larger codebases, but at the end of the day, everything compiles to JavaScript. So while TypeScript can help structure your code, it’s not a silver bullet for poor coding practices. Sometimes people just stick to JS for simplicity or speed in development.
Totally agree! Using JS can sometimes be faster for small, standalone projects.
Exactly! Plus, using TypeScript also adds build steps, which could slow you down.
I mean, a simple search in the repo could tell you what the frontend is using. Just sounds like they might be out of their depth.