Clarify Contributing for Typescript 2.0

[ethanresnick]

Hi,

I ran into some points of confusion about contributing to DefinitelyTyped that don't seem to be answered in the contribution guide. I wanted to flag those here so that the answers can be documented in the future. (Answers to these questions would be appreciated, but I understand if StackOverflow is the better venue for that.)

1. Are contributors supposed to send PRs to the master or the types-2.0 branch? Both?
2. The types-2.0 branch seems to have its own naming convention (declaration files are index.d.t.s rather than {libname}.d.ts. Declarations on that branch also seem to be written differently. E.g., the express declarations are wrapped in a declare module "express" {} block on master, but not on types-2.0. Should contributors worry about/account for these differences? Or is there some way that the files on types-2.0 are being automatically pre-processed to account for these changes. (Preprocessing could easily change the name, and seems to be happening in other places; see below.)
3. The types on the types-2.0 branch use a new <reference types=""> directive. I understand that this still needs to be documented further, but the documentation I could find seems to suggest that <reference types=""> should be used to pull in the types for a global, but an import could be used to pull in the types for a module... and yet the express declarations on types-2.0 uses both import and <reference types="">. Why? Since <reference types=""> is new to 2.0, I can't imagine it's for backwards compatibility...
4. In some files on the types-2.0 branch, <reference path=""> to seems to have been updated <reference types=""> manually by @RyanCavanaugh's commit, but other files (e.g.)on the types-2.0 branch still seem to be using the <reference path=""> syntax... and yet, if I install it through NPM, I see the <reference types=""> syntax instead. Does that mean the types publisher is doing some kind of auto-rewriting, as I alluded to above? And, if so, what does this mean for contributors too?

[TonyPythoneer]

I have the same doubt about the first question.

I found most of the contributors send PR to master. Does it cause the differences become larger between master and type-2.0?

Suppose developers install the definitions from type-2.0, do they have the same definitions as master? 😕

[vvakame]

Hi, I'm writing "MY" opinions.

Now, 1.8.10 is latest stable release version of TypeScript.
master branch support "latest stable version" only.
Beta and RC is experimental versions.

I suggestion we should send PR to master branch.
We can merge master into types-2.0, but We can't reverse it before TypeScript 2.0 stable release.
If we merge PR into master and types-2.0 branch both. Merge operation require veeeeery high calories.
I want to avoid it.

I just added @types label to Issue and PR.
I wait and see Microsoft TypeScript team. e.g. @RyanCavanaugh @mhegazy @zhengbli @andy-ms and more.

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latest Merge master into types 2.0 is #10708 .
I think follow-up to the head it has become difficult...?

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I am not confident. but...
<reference types=""> is similar to --types options.
It construct --types chain automatically.

check kind property in this document.
https://github.com/Microsoft/types-publisher#fields-in-datadefinitionsjson

see
https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/wiki/What%27s-new-in-TypeScript#augmenting-globalmodule-scope-from-modules
https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/wiki/What%27s-new-in-TypeScript#support-for-umd-module-definitions

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If you can read japanese. I'm writing technical article for TypeScript 2.0.
http://qiita.com/vvakame/items/7c9103289da1d8ca5841
http://typescript.ninja/typescript-in-definitelyland/definition-file.html

[simonbear89]

@vvakame @RyanCavanaugh When does master get merged into types-2.0? Is this done automatically on a regular basis?

For example, I want to merge the latest mongoose definitions on master
https://github.com/DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped/blob/master/mongoose/mongoose.d.ts

into the one on types-2.0
https://github.com/DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped/blob/types-2.0/mongoose/index.d.ts

The version on master was update a couple weeks ago. There's a commit on types-2.0 2 days ago that says master was merged into types-2.0, but it looks like the mongoose definitions on types-2.0 are not up to date.

[tomwanzek]

FYI you might find some value in reviewing this issue and the responses therein #10711 .

[ghost]

This should now be answered by the new README: #12070