There are plenty of ways to emit runtime type information statically without a runtime. `keyof` could statically convert to the list of keys in a class. Hell, even typescript classes could do what ES6 classes do and initialize class keys to undefined. Currently, typescript classes erase all keys unless explicitly defined. Object.keys() on a newly instantiated typescript class without set members will return nothing, while an ES6 class will return all of the keys. Just an option in tsconfig.json to convert TS classes to ES6 classes (or just allow ES6 classes to exist at the same time in Typescript) would make some code generation WAY easier.

Or some kind of syntax to emit the name of a type as a string. Currently, if you run `typeof foo` it will return the type as a string. If you could have a static version of that, like `tstypeof foo`, or with a class:

    class Foo {
        bar: string;
    };

    console.log(tstypeof Foo::bar) // or something less C++-looking; compiles to "string".

then it would be killer. This could break compatibility if you change the type of a field and a compiled client using the code were to expect "string" when it's been changed to "number". But I'd rather live in that world than the one we live in now

Just some basic RTTI would make a lot of ugly codesmelly boilerplate Typescript code evaporate instantly.