Software GR Presents Rachael McQuater: Seeking System Zen w/ Universal TypeScript

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

6pm - 8pm

Atomic Object, 1034 Wealthy St. SE, Grand Rapids

Seeking System Zen w/ Universal TypeScript

Every codebase is a living, breathing thing. How do we take care of one? What leverage can a language give us in our task? Let me take you on our statically-, structurally- typed journey to holistic system health and harmony using universal Typescript.

TypeScript’s powerful structural type system, when used universally across our application:
* Encodes domain constraints and invariants right into our types, where they’re checked by our editor instead of our test suite;
* Quickly reveals code health issues, and guides us through the resultant refactoring;
* Eliminates the cognitive load of switching between client and server languages;
* Just plain reduces our chances of hurting ourselves while realizing JavaScript’s powerful, but dangerously flexible, backend potential.

We built a codebase that self-tests, that speaks to us when it’s feeling tension or wants to be refactored, that guides us toward solutions that cut with the grain. Now, we have a holistically healthy, robust app that responds instantly to complex, changing problem spaces.

And it’s a hell of a lot of fun to work with.

About Rachael

Rachael McQuater is a Software Consultant and Developer at Atomic Object who is excited about building beautiful software that closely models real-world problem domains. She and her colleagues at Atomic are exploring new ways to build more robust, powerful, easy-to-write web applications with TypeScript.