section provides insight into the differences between the standard DOM specifications and TypeScript typings for methods like querySelector and getElementById. While the specs suggest that these methods should return either an Element instance or null, lib.dom.ts specifies more specific return types such as Element | null for querySelector and HTMLElement | null for getElementById in HTML documents.
The discussion surrounding this discrepancy was brought up in the TypeScript GitHub repository with maintainers weighing in on whether to align the typings with the standard or keep them as is for practicality reasons. Ultimately, the decision was made to maintain the current typings to avoid breaking existing codebases.
If you require access to properties like style on the result of querySelector, suggestions include type-casting it to HTMLElement using assertions or annotations, performing runtime type checks, or utilizing generic parameters in querySelector.
Overall, the functionality reflects the intentional choices made by the TypeScript maintainers in defining these methods' return types based on usability considerations.