RxJS6 asObservable() needed on a Subject?

Question

When is asObservable() needed on a Subject (e.g. BehaviorSubject) to get a observable of the subject? The subject isself can be casted to an Observable as well.

Questions

1. What are the technical differences between name1$ and name2$?
2. Which one should be used (name1$ or name2$)?

Code Sample

import { Observable } from 'rxjs/Observable';
import { BehaviorSubject } from 'rxjs';

export class Person {
  private nameSubject: BehaviorSubject<string> = new BehaviorSubject<string>('lorem');

  public get name1$(): Observable<string> {
    return this.nameSubject.asObservable();
  }

  public get name2$(): Observable<string> {
    return this.nameSubject;
  }

  public setName(value: string): void {
    this.nameSubject.next(value);
  }
}

Thank You for your answers in advance!

Answer 1

In general, it's recommended to use asObservable() only when using RxJS in JavaScript. With TypeScript you can use just type casting and it won't let you call next() and so on.

private nameSubject: BehaviorSubject<string> = new BehaviorSubject<string>('lorem');
public nameSubject$: Observable<string> = this.nameSubject;

This is the officially recommended way of turning Subjects to Observables in TypeScript.
For details see https://github.com/ReactiveX/rxjs/pull/2408#issuecomment-282077506.