Suggestion: use tsd for type definitions

[joewood]

Consider using tsd to pull down and keep the Type Definitions up to date.

[mwilc0x]

Hey @joewood, thanks for the suggestion! I'm not too familiar with tsd but it looks interesting. I'd be open to adding it, feel free to submit a PR!

[mwilc0x]

Ok, tsd is sweet :) I added support for it here 176b6a1

I'll work on getting the code paths switched over to the new typings locations later.

Thanks for the great suggestion! Cheers.

[mwilc0x]

Question for you though: I have some local typings which aren't part of DT repo. Do you think I should have them checked in under the typings folder?

[joewood]

Depends on what you mean by local types.

• For types for external libs that are missing from DT, I would suggest you add them and send a pull request. The way I handle this is to clone the DT repo, add a new dir and the missing types, then configure tsd to use your local cloned repo instead of the official one.
• For private type definitions (non-public libraries) I still add these into the typings directory. Where I can I add the configuration for these types into the package.json file and use tsd link to pull the typings into the tsd.d.ts file.
• For private Typescript packages I run dts_bundle on the dependent files. This generates a single .d.ts file which I think pull in with an npm install and tsd link.

I also use grunt, browserify and contrib_watch in my build process too, along with the tsify plugin. This seems to be working well with react based apps.

[mwilc0x]

Hmm, so I tried the tsd link approach for the non-public definitions but it seemed to only link to ones under node_modules. Is that the right behavior? I did a similar approach to what you have said in your second bullet point.

[joewood]

Right, tsd link is for node_modules that have been installed that carry their own type definitions. I use npm for non-public packages, even across local directories. npm install /path/to/private/package. With react's modular approach this works really well.

[mwilc0x]

ok cool. one more question if you don't mind :) for tsd should it be reinstall or update ?

currently in the readme i have it as so:

node_modules/tsd/build/cli.js reinstall --save --overwrite

I'd really not like to add another step to install one package as global...

[joewood]

I use:

tsd update -so

I also use 0.6, so I install it with

npm install -g tsd@next

But, if you want to avoid the global install you could use:

npm install
node_modules/.bin/tsd update -so

Hopefully tsd will support the npm script field in the future to make this easier.

I also check these type definitions into source control, as they tend to be quite volatile.

[mwilc0x]

Hm, ok. I will make that change. Volatile? Really? It seemed this was a nice way to not have them in source control ala node_modules.

[joewood]

In an ideal world I would remove them.
Maybe, one day, everybody will be shipping type definitions and this won't be an issue. :-)

[mwilc0x]

the problems of working on the bleeding edge :)

thanks for your help!