Making Visualforce RemoteActions Bulletproof with TypeScript

Simon GoodyearBeaufort 12@simongoodyear

Simon GoodyearCo-Founder, Beaufort 12

DemoThe Problem

Root Cause Analysis

JavaScript is not metadata aware

Making JavaScript Metadata Aware

What we need Where we get it

Method Signatures Tooling API

Custom Apex Types Tooling API

SObjects Standard API

Making JavaScript Metadata Aware

JavaScript is loosely typed

What is TypeScript?

“TypeScript is a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript”

“…a symantic subset of JavaScript; the sensical subset” – Anders Hejlsberg

Aimed at improving the development experience for JavaScript

What is TypeScript?

Strongly typed. Tools perform type inference.

Modules, Classes & Interfaces

4 primitives: string, number, boolean, any

TypeScriptLang.org

DemoIntroduction to TypeScript

Joining the Dots

Represent metadata as classes in TypeScript• We need tools to do this

We no longer write JavaScript• TypeScript only now

TypeScript is compiled before deployment• And thus type checked

DemoJoining the dots

Where Next?

Better flow for developers• Create a grunt task• Automatically generate d.ts files on metadata changes

Improved support of metadata• Inner classes• Namespace support

Integration with continuous integration tools Whatever else you can imagine

3 Simple Points

JavaScript is not aware of the Salesforce metadata

All the metadata is exposed via the Tooling and Standard APIs

We can make TypeScript aware of the Salesforce metadata

Resources

typescriptlang.org

blogs.msdn.com/b/typescript

channel9.msdn.com/Tags/typescript

definitelytyped.org

github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript-Sublime-Plugin

Thank you