TypeScript enums: use cases and alternatives

Re:TypeScript enums: use cases and alternatives by mistercow on Monday January 20, 2025 @08:30PM (#42775350)

TypeScript enums were added in large part because union types didn't exist at the time. Those don't require you to write out anything like the above. The only case where you would need to write out number literals like that would be if you specifically wanted the values to be numbers for some reason, rather than interned strings.

In the vast majority of cases, there's no good reason to do that.

Edit: But no, the reason enums in TypeScript suck is not that JS doesn't have them. That wouldn't fix anything other than the type stripping problem. The main reason that they suck is that they use a completely different type model from the rest of the language.

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Re:TypeScript enums: use cases and alternatives by zarzavat on Tuesday January 21, 2025 @02:12AM (#42777362)

enums are a feature of most programming languages. It doesn't matter to me why TypeScript had to add them, just like it doesn't matter why JS has functions or if statements.

90% of the enums I use are regular integer enums. I don't get much use out of string enums, as you say union types do that job just fine.

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