This book will quickly introduce you to TypeScript, explain why I think it was created, why you would want to use it and, most importantly, how it works.
In the past few years there have been many attempts to fix perceived problems with JavaScript. The solutions have been many and varied. There are books listing sub-sets of JavaScript that recommend you don't use any other features of the language. There are new languages intended to compile to JavaScript or even replace it in the browser. There was even an attempt to move all interactivity on The Web into proprietary plug-ins that needed to be downloaded for the website to be used.
Whether you need one of these solutions very much depends on whether you believe JavaScript is fundamentally broken or not – and I don't think it is. It has it's foibles for certain, but JavaScript is one of the most widely adopted languages in the world and there are good reasons for its success.
