Feature: Automatic Install

[fny]

It would be lovely to have a flag that would just take care of any installation issues (e.g. typings install --do-whatever-you-need-to-do-to-install some-module.) I know this might seem pretty minor, but this back-and-forth has become tiresome:

typings install some-module

typings ERR! message Unable to find "some-module" ("npm") in the registry.
typings ERR! message However, we found "some-module" for 1 other source: "dt"

typings install dt~some-module

typings ERR! message Attempted to compile "some-module" as an external module, but it looks like a global module. You'll need to enable the global option to continue.

typings install dt~some-module --global

Finally! 

[blakeembrey]

See existing issues about this. It used to be automatic once. But that just brings up a different set of issues with people asking why global doesn't automatically install when using sub-dependencies. The locations are all pretty straightforward though and documented in the README. Only dt is odd, but it's global 99% of the time anyway.

[blakeembrey]

Also, I don't think it will never do the first thing you want. There's a huge difference between a definition that's global vs local. It's possible the global version isn't even for the same thing, just because a name matches it doesn't mean it's the same.

[blakeembrey]

A good example is probably stripe in NPM vs stripe in global. One is for a browser, usually the stripe.js checkout code. One is for node. They are two completely different APIs. What do you think should be done?

[fny]

Very good points, here are my thoughts:

• This would be implemented with a flag, so it would be an opt-in feature (e.g. --lazy)
• "I don't think it will never do the first thing you want." In practice, this would have always done the first thing I've wanted. We can warn the user when conflicting local/global packages
• Stripe is a very good example! typings install --lazy stripe should run typings install dt~stripe --global instead of me having to manually test typings install stripe and typings install dt~stripe to figure out the final command needs to be typings install dt~stripe --global
• My vote would be to install a package from the next most popular repository (e.g. npm > dt > global) adding the global flag on any given failure

[blakeembrey]

@fny I don't think you understand. This is all how it worked when I first released it, before I even announced it. It turned out to be not great for various reasons.

Also, why would you expect it to install dt~stripe? This is exactly the issue, introducing things others dislike. I would prefer global > dt. I personally don't use any definitions from dt because I find them unmaintained more often than not. In fact, pre-1.0 had an option for defaultGlobalSource which was set to dt. I dropped that, because a few people disliked that it was the default (E.g. people using env is more common).

[blakeembrey]

Sorry, that wasn't meant to be harsh. Multitasking can be bad. Popular is just subjective. The best one isn't possible to automatically know. Would it be useful to re-add a defaultGlobalSource? You can always try install [email protected] or earlier to get an idea of how some of this used to work. It's mostly compatible. It used to search by name, prompt, etc.

[martinjezek]

Hi @blakeembrey where do you get definitions from then? Do you write and maintain your own set of typings?

I personally don't use any definitions from dt because I find them unmaintained more often than not.