Beginner's TypeScript — Total TypeScript

Matt Pocock's free Beginner's TypeScript tutorial is eighteen exercises long and it does something most TypeScript material refuses to do: it makes you look things up. Each exercise gives you broken code, points you at the relevant TypeScript documentation, and expects you to try before the solution video plays.

Pocock is the person most responsible for TypeScript being explained well on the internet right now, and the teaching instinct here is a deliberate one — the goal isn't just typed variables, it's getting you comfortable reading the official docs so you're not dependent on tutorials afterwards.

What it covers

Typing variables and function parameters, return types, understanding what TypeScript errors are actually telling you, and enough familiarity with the docs and modern TypeScript tooling to keep going on your own. It stays firmly at the beginner end — this is the on-ramp to Pocock's larger paid material rather than a complete TypeScript education.

Why the format matters

The problem-first structure is the whole value. You watch a short setup, you're handed a failing file, and you sit with it. That gap between being told the problem and being shown the answer is where the learning happens, and it's exactly the gap that passive video courses close too quickly. The trade-off is friction: if you're the kind of learner who wants to be walked through it, eighteen rounds of being stuck is tiring, and there's no shortcut button.

Who it's for

JavaScript developers adding types — that's stated as the prerequisite and it's enforced by the material. Skip it if you don't yet have a working understanding of JavaScript; TypeScript on top of shaky JavaScript is a bad trade and Pocock says so. Skip it too if you need breadth: generics, conditional types, utility types and the genuinely hard parts of TypeScript aren't here, and the paid Total TypeScript courses are where they live.

Our take

The best free first day with TypeScript, and quite short. The honest weakness is the funnel — this is a well-made sample of a paid product, and it ends precisely where TypeScript starts getting difficult. That isn't a criticism of the teaching, which is excellent, but you should go in knowing you'll finish able to annotate a function and not able to read a library's type definitions. Do it in an afternoon, then decide separately whether the paid material is worth it.