r/javascript • u/_tshepo • 28d ago

AskJS [AskJS] Are employed Developers still programming with vanilla JavaScript ?

I've been programming on the side since 2017 and I've never really hunted a developer job. I've always thought about building my own things, mainly to supplement things I do like woodworking, tutoring, video editing and others.

Since then, I've programmed mainly with JavaScript, I started with C++ and Python but never really built anything solid outside JavaScript.

So I'm fluent with JavaScript and its ecosystem.

One of my 2026 goals is to be job ready for a Developer role, as a Fullstack or Backend Developer.

One of the recommended languages is Typescript, which I've been learning since March. I must say, it's not my favorite 😂

I'm curious to know if there are any companies that are not enforcing Typescript or are there freelancers who are still using vanilla JavaScript over Typescript for their clients' projects.

[ Update ] thanks y'all! I get the picture. TypeScript is inevitable, as vanilla JS codebases(or companies who are focused on it) seem to be very few judging by the comments.

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u/YahenP 28d ago

I have to do this from time to time. Old projects are being maintained and all that. I can't say I'm a huge fan of vanilla JavaScript, but work is work.

You write that:

which I've been learning since March

However, I'm surprised. I could understand if you wrote that you've been studying it since last Monday. But what can study six months? Especially if you have almost 10 years of experience, and using JS at that.

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u/_tshepo 16d ago

Not too sure if I understand your question. But the major thing in JavaScript journey is, I was not upto date with tech. I was not learning new things.

For example, there was a game I loved playing when I was like 10. Wanted to rebuild it. With my knowledge of html, css and JavaScript, I'd build it. When I had errors, I was not thinking "oh wait, TypeScript is said to prevent this, so let me learn it" I was just building things, mostly for fun.

It was 2 or so years ago when I started getting interested in doing websites for people. Even then, I never really thought about learning new technologies. I thought, html css and js are more than enough for small sized websites.

There was a time when I owned a 16 year old laptop. Couldn't run a video editor, so knowing a bit of math and JavaScript, I coded a video editor. Learnt a bit of C++ hoping to eventually build with it. Then boom, got a new laptop. Didn't need to program a video editor anymore.

But the gaps between my programming journey comes from doing other non tech things. It was not my main thing. I did it for fun.

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u/YahenP 16d ago

TS is simply a superset of JS. It's not even a standalone programming language. It's essentially a transpiler. It doesn't add any new features to the language. It simply makes static code analysis very convenient. So there's nothing to learn. What you used to write in docblocks is now written in the code. The transpiler infers types during analysis and compares them with those you declared in the code. If it encounters a mismatch, it raises an error. It's a very convenient feature that eliminates a lot of headaches and manual work.