It's probably worth noting that that the "intellisense that vscode gives out of the box" is _also_ still delivered by TypeScript. Slap a `//@ts-check` into a js file and you'll find just where the typechecker thinks your jsdoc or usages are lacking or confusing (then maybe add a jsconfig with stricter settings than the default!). If you then fix those, you should be capable of getting _nearly identical_ completions in js and ts (because they really are just variants of the same language).

IMO, TS is all about static enforcement of inline documentation (types), just like how a linter enforces style. You can choose not to enforce it automatically... But at this point I don't get why you wouldn't? I wouldn't argue that style enforcement is best done by hand in the code review stage... So I don't see how further quality checks based on semantics derived from documentation would be any different.

> Ever tried to do that with a large Typescript code base and then of course without the defensive strategy? It's a myth Typescript proponents really enjoy to believe.

You got me. I have not tried to do this in a large TS codebase.

> There isn't a ton you can do about this except for to code very defensively where it matters.

Of course you have this issue in pure JavaScript too. So it's not so much that TypeScript is worse it's just not as big an improvement in this regard as a compile-to-JavaScript language that gives you runtime type safety.