Definition filename collission

[Bartvds]

I think we got a new fun problem category: a definition filename collision:

I've used https://www.npmjs.org/package/uuid and made a simple definition, put it in a uuid.d.ts in my project. Now I thought to to add it here but there is already a uuid directory with another file with the same name, uppercased: UUID.d.ts.

It is a module that is not on any package manager: https://github.com/LiosK/UUID.js

This is of course something that was bound to happen as we mix many sources... but how are we going to deal with this kind of thing?

Does anybody know if we got many non-npm/bower modules at all?

@staxmanade

[staxmanade]

I post-fixed all of the NuGet versions with <packageName>.TypeScript.DefinitelyTyped - seems to have worked well over there. ex: jquery.TypeScript.DefinitelyTyped

maybe I'm mis-understanding the problem?

[Bartvds]

It is about the repo, not the NuGet exporter, I @mentioned you because it had your name in it :)

I also have a file uuid/uuid.d.ts, but there is a uuid/UUID.d.ts already. So I was wondering how we should solve this, both this case and in general. It seemed we used npm/bower names but then we also have some other non-package code like this one (maybe others too)

[jeffmay]

Yea, since node's uuid package has the same name as UUID, it causes a conflict in picking a matching directory name for both projects (since case doesn't matter on some platforms).

I feel like we should default to not accepting a project into this repo with a conflicting name on npm or bower, since TypeScript modules are all compiled to JavaScript, and those are the de-facto JavaScript package managers. Sorry @staxmanade, UUID is a good name, but it causes confusion, would it be possible to add a suffix or prefix?

How about "uuidgen" or "uuid-gen"?

Note: the actual value in JavaScript does not need to change names, just the package on DefinitelyTyped (and possibly your repo to be consistent)

[jeffmay]

Interestingly, Node's uuid package is named node-uuid on bower.io (http://bower.io/search/?q=uuid) and uuid on npm (https://www.npmjs.org/package/uuid), but it also has a node-uuid handle (https://www.npmjs.org/package/node-uuid). So if we were to go with the rule of not adding libraries with conflicting names in the de-facto JavaScript package managers, we could have to deal with multiple conflicting names on 2 separate package managers.

I feel like these are some of the growing pains of having with 3 de-facto package managers across 2 overlapping languages: TypeScript and JavaScript. We will all have to become more disciplined about naming consistency.

For now though, it seems like the name node-uuid on bower is more specific than uuid on npm, so it wouldn't hurt to reject packages named either uuid or node-uuid, since there is only one contended name, which is uuid, and it is unlikely that someone would define another node-uuid anyway.

This may resolve our conflict in the short-term, as we should be able to include an entry for node-uuid on DefinitelyTyped to match the consistently named node-uuid package on npm and bower. However, if someone is expected to get the same node package on tsd as npm, then they will be confused.

[staxmanade]

I don't have any ties to the name... Feel free to rename. (But can't speak for any others who may have taken a dependency on the old one via NuGet...)

[Bartvds]

Well, what we do is one thing, but first we need to make some general policy because this thing can happen in the future:

I personally feel NPM is the JavaScript package manager and so the leading name registry, and Bower (et al) work as secondary and NuGet tertiary (as almost nobody in the open source JavaScript community uses it as it is so Microsoft specific).

We're modelling JavaScript so it sort of makes most sense to track the main JS package space. For the oddballs we can invent a new rule.

DT should come to a general policy for this.

@basarat @vvakame What do you think? How do we manage the module namespace?

[basarat]

NPM is the JavaScript package manager and so the leading name registry, and Bower (et al) work as secondary

👍

As this (https://github.com/LiosK/UUID.js) isn't on any package manager lets call it UUID.js or even UUIDJS

We might start sending PRs to other repo owners README files telling them their repo name on tsd / DT so that typescript users can see that the project has a definition file.

[Bartvds]

@basarat Oh yeah! ⚡ DT badges! ⚡ (like travis, gemnasium, built-with-grunt etc).

Can be pretty fancy too.. this must happen. 😎

I'll create a ticket.

[Bartvds]

Ticket for badges: #2074

[hellochar]

Hey guys, so the general solution to this is to modify the name slightly? I'd like to write typings for an external library http://notifyjs.com/, whose name conflicts with an existing typing (at https://github.com/borisyankov/DefinitelyTyped/blob/master/notify.js/notify.js.d.ts). It doesn't feel right for me to be changing this 3rd party library's name in DefinitelyTyped. Others will have no idea of my change. In this case I can use "notifyjs", without a period, but is there a general way to do this?

[basarat]

whose name conflicts with an existing typing

Just more info: the existing lib should not have a period : https://github.com/borisyankov/DefinitelyTyped/blob/master/notify.js/notify.js.d.ts as npm is : https://www.npmjs.org/package/notifyjs

In this case I can use "notifyjs", without a period

Don't. As the existing lib is badly named. Always use NPM names when possible. https://github.com/jpillora/notifyjs is not on NPM so I don't see a way of specifying a folder here