Show HN: ts-blank-space – fast TypeScript type-stripper
bloomberg.github.ioWe've built a new type-stripping compiler for TypeScript source: `ts-blank-space`
It's:
* 5.6x faster than `tsc` due to zero-codegen
* Written in TypeScript
* Uses the official TypeScript parser
* Accurate/preserved source locations
* In used in production
It uses the same novel approach that inspired Node 22.6.0's `--experimental-strip-types` functionality, released last month
I assume this is named (also) as reference to Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space”? If so, very clever.
Hi, I'm the author of ts-blank-space and happy to answer any questions you have :wave:
So is the idea that you would run a normal compiler once in your production pipeline to check syntax, and then re-run it with ts-blank-space to generate the final bundle?
Clearly you can’t eliminate the syntax checking correct?
Yes and the TypeScript ASTs generated while checking the code can be re-used when then running ts-blank-space to generate the JavaScript. Only generating the ASTs once is a significant performance win as this work takes much longer than the type-stripping work.