better-typescript-lib

better-typescript-lib

An alternative TypeScript standard library with better type definitions.

What is better-typescript-lib?

TypeScript's built-in type definitions are not very type safe. For example, the return type of JSON.parse is any.

const obj = JSON.parse('{"foo": 42}');
//    ^? any

const foo: number = obj.fooo; // oops!

As you know, the any type breaks type safety and makes it far easier to introduce bugs.

If we consider type safety seriously, the return type of JSON.parse should be “any value that can be represented in JSON” and operations on such values should be limited until they are further inspected.

This is why better-typescript-lib uses JSONData as the return type of JSON.parse.

Almost all any usage in TypeScript's built-in type definitions is replaced with safer types in better-typescript-lib. Also, better-typescript-lib includes other improvements to the type definitions.

Why better-typescript-lib?

Why don't we just fix TypeScript's built-in type definitions rather than maintaining a separate package? Actually, most of improvements in better-typescript-lib are unlikely to be accepted by TypeScript's maintainers if presented as possible improvement to TypeScript itself. This is because the improvements are too breaking to existing codebases.

A large part of any usage in TypeScript's built-in type definitions are there before the unknown type was introduced in TypeScript 3.0. Back then, there was no good way to represent “any value” in TypeScript's type system. Therefore, any was used as the best approximation. Aside from any, there are a lot of possible improvements that became possible as TypeScript evolved.

In other words, if you don't care about breaking changes (for example, you are starting a new project), you are just suffering from stale type definitions from the old days without getting any benefits from the maintained backward compatibility.

This is where better-typescript-lib comes in. It is a separate package that can be used in new projects or projects that are willing to fix type errors caused by the improvements.

You can see the diff from the original TypeScript lib here.

Installation

You only need to install better-typescript-lib. For npm and yarn, additional configuration is not needed; your TypeScript project automatically starts to use better-typescript-lib definitions. For pnpm, see below.

npm i -D better-typescript-lib

If you are using TypeScript 4.4 or prior, see the v1 branch.

How it works

Starting from TypeScript 4.5, the TypeScript compiler detects existence of @typescript/lib-xxx packages (e.g. @typescript/lib-es2015) and uses them instead of the built-in definitions. By installing better-typescript-lib, these package names are mapped to corresponding @better-typescript-lib/xxx packages.

With pnpm

With pnpm, you need to append the following line to the .npmrc file:

public-hoist-pattern[]=@typescript/*

With pnpm the @better-typescript-lib/xxx packages are not installed to node_modules/@typescript/xxx without public-hoist-pattern.

This is because, unlike npm and yarn, by default pnpm does not allow your source code to access dependencies that have not been added to your project as dependencies.

Supported TypeScript Versions

better-typescript-lib	TypeScript
2.7.0	TS 5.4 or later
2.6.0	TS 5.3 or later
2.5.0	TS 5.2 or later
2.4.0	TS 5.1 or later
2.3.0	TS 5.0 or later
2.2.0	TS 4.9 or later
2.1.0	TS 4.6 or later
2.0.0	TS 4.5 or later

If you are using TypeScript 4.4 or prior, see the v1 branch.

Goals and Non-Goals

Better-typescript-lib aims to provide better type definitions for TypeScript's standard library. Better means more type safety, therefore they may cause more type errors to existing codebases.

While better type definitions are often more convenient to use, this is not always the case. If type safety and convenience are in conflict, better-typescript-lib prioritizes type safety.

As this is only an alternative to TypeScript's built-in type definitions, we have no plan of providing any runtime implementation through better-typescript-lib.

Versioning Policy

Better-typescript-lib is based on TypeScript's standard library. Therefore, a new TypeScript version will be followed by a corresponding better-typescript-lib version. If you want to use a new feature included in a new TypeScript version, you need to use a better-typescript-lib version that supports that TypeScript version.

Improvements to type definitions may be released as a new minor version even if it may cause new type errors to existing codebases. We recommend regularly updating better-typescript-lib to the latest version and fixing type errors caused by the updates.

This is similar to how TypeScript itself evolves, but better-typescript-lib updates may have more breaking changes than TypeScript itself due to the nature of the improvements.

Contributing

Welcome

License

This work is based on TypeScript's standard library created by Microsoft Corporation. We modify it as programmed in this repository and redistribute it under Apache 2.0 License.