
Every week or so a new hot topic gets discussed eagerly in the web development
community. This week it was about the necessity of **return types** in
TypeScript.

A few years ago, when I learned TypeScript, my colleagues taught me that return
are absolutely necessary. I thought it was a no-brainer to define them. I felt
good writing a function and then specifically add the return type.

But as you might have already guessed, I got convinced otherwise last week. To
be clear, there seems to be no absolut consensus about this topic. But I decided
that return types in TypeScript are not necessary and I won't define them
anymore. I'll tell you why.

In TypeScript there are two ways to deal with return types. You can define them
**explicitely** or you can let TypeScript **infer** them.

After listening to all the arguments about the necessity of return types, I came
to a conclusion.

For most of the code I write, I don't need return types. Because if I define
return types I just tell TypeScript what it **already knows**.

But as soon as a function I write is more complex, like containing a switch or
an if statement I will define the return type.

The videos by Matt Pocock
[Don't use return types, unless...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwSe95uFN8E)
and by Theo
[The Dangers of Return Types in JavaScript](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6V2FkW1ozQ)
helped me to understand the topic better.

As I already mentioned there is no right or wrong here, it just seems to be a
preference. My preference is infer return types whenever possible, define return
types only when TypeScript can't infer them properly.


Today I learned about the discussion if return types are necessary in TypeScript or not.

Today I learned

Don't use return types in TypeScript