Bringing Types to Ember with Chris Krycho

In early 2017, Chris Krycho was working at one of the few startups using Ember, searching for a way to bring types to the emerging language. His primary goal became solving semantic versioning for TS. As Chris kept iterating, striving to combine multiple programming worlds, other engineers joined him in the pursuit until eventually, the Ember TypeScript Core team was born. 

Today, Chris is a lead engineer at LinkedIn, a father, husband, runner, music composer, and whiskey enthusiast. His current goal is to ensure Ember Polaris has first-class TypeScript support. Aside from offering new dad advice to Robbie, Chris also describes what can become a superpower for new developers willing to work.

In this episode, Chris talks with Chuck and Robbie about best-case uses for TypeScript, a defense of complicated library code, Chris' ultimate goal with software engineering, and his advice for programmers on the rise. 

Key Takeaways

• [01:10] - A brief intro to Chris. 
• [02:26] - A whiskey review. 
• [10:57] - How the Ember TypeScript Core Team originated. 
• [19:11] - When Chris believes TypeScript isn't necessary. 
• [26:52] - Chris' lengthy experience with programming languages. 
• [28:39] - Chris' advice to Robbie as a new father. 
• [30:59] - How Chris responds to Robbie's issue with TypeScript.
• [43:50] - What a first-class component template is.
• [52:14] - A music and Hot Ones-themed whatnot. 
• [57:43] - The one thing Chris always plugs for developers. 

Quotes

[16:27] - "TypeScript support is pretty essential to modern web development. Even if you're not using TypeScript in your web app, you are using TypeScript because under the hood, all of the tooling that exists across the ecosystem, more or less, uses TypeScript." ~ @chriskrycho [https://twitter.com/chriskrycho]

[19:39] - "There's no project in which TypeScript is necessary. There are very few projects in which it might not be useful, but that's going to depend on your team, your coding style, your mental frame, your background, etc." ~ @chriskrycho [https://twitter.com/chriskrycho]

[60:45] - "Getting deep on subject matter as well as having a general breadth is a really powerful one-two punch in terms of being able to grow as an engineer, to actually understand what you're working on." ~ @chriskrycho [https://twitter.com/chriskrycho]

Links

• Chris Krycho [https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriskrycho/]
• ChrisKrycho.com [https://chriskrycho.com]
• LinkedIn [http://www.linkedin.com]
• Ember [https://emberjs.com]
• LinkedIn Learning [https://www.linkedin.com/learning/]
• Kent C. Dodds  [https://twitter.com/kentcdodds]
• Old Forester 1920 Prohibition Style Whiskey [https://www.oldforester.com/products/old-forester-1920-style-prohibition-whisky/]
• W.L. Weller [https://www.buffalotracedistillery.com/our-brands/w-l-weller.html]
• The Glenlivet 14 Year Old [https://www.theglenlivet.com/en-US/the-collection/14-year-old]
• Four Roses Bourbon [https://fourrosesbourbon.com]
• runspired [https://www.instagram.com/runspired/]
• Chris Manson [https://twitter.com/real_ate]
• Whiskey Web and Whatnot: Runspired vs. Chris Manson on Solving the Number One Open Source Maintainer Dilemma [https://www.whiskeywebandwhatnot.fm/runspired-vs-chris-manson-on-solving-the-number-one-ember-issue/]
• Discord [https://discord.com]
• EmberConf [https://2022.emberconf.com]
• Ember TypeScript Core Team (Typ [https://blog.emberjs.com/typed-ember-is-now-the-ember-type-script-core-team/]