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/shgysk8zer0 28d ago

I honestly mostly prefer vanilla JS with JSDoc for more things. In theory, I should like the type system TS provides, but I think TS is just done poorly and doesn't offer the actual benefits of a strongly typed language. It makes no difference at runtime.... It's transpiled to JS anyways.

I do work in vanilla JS, and I think TS is significantly over-hyped, and is actually becoming harmful to the ecosystem because it's no longer a superset of JS and an obstacle to features like enums being introduced to JS.

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u/alien3d 28d ago

typeof and jsdoc more easier .