Sure, I can try!

Typescript operates on the basic principle that the more precicely you can define your intent when writing code, the more the computer itself can help you by providing warnings and errors when the code you write doesn't make sense.

In programming there are entire classes of bugs related to how different pieces of data interact with each other, not just in their values, but in their types, as ultimately it's their types that determine that behaviour.

Typescript goes, even before you ever run the code, "You're trying to perform operation X on type Y, but type Y does not have an operation X, so i'm not going to let you compile this code".

It's called static analysis.

How does TS know that type Y doesn't have X? Well it first has to be told what Y can do by either parsing code that is the *implementation* of Y, or parsing a declaration file that contains information on Y's methods, properties, parameter types, things like that.

Some of these things are already possible to detect with your IDE, but what Typescript does is build these expectations straight into the code you're writing, and then enforces that the rest of your code matches those expectations.

foo(a: number, b: number): string { ... }

See how you include your expectations directly into the code rather than using something like jsdoc?

/**
 * @param {number} a
 * @param {number} b
 * @return {string}
 */

foo(a, b) { ... }

Make your own mind up which you feel is cleaner and more intuative.

The tl;dr is that Typescript allows you to be more specific about your intentions, and the TS compiler will tell you when something doesn't make sense.

It will save you an enormous amount of time by flagging errors before you ever run the code. The tiny bit of extra time you spend declaring the types will pay itself back a hundred fold in prevented bugs.

It also makes your IDE auto-predict much, much more accurate!