Browserify with typescript modules - what are best design practices?

Question

I've got a browserify javascript project, where I include modules with the require statement. I'm now adding in some typescript, and it's working fine when I simply require the compiled javascript.

But typescript also has its own module statement. How does this relate to browserify/node's modules? Should I be using both? That seems redundant. Which type of modules should be used, and under what circumstances? Thanks.

Answer 1

In newer versions of TypeScript (1.5) the module is deprecated in favour of namespace keyword. The keyword is to be used to create internal modules - allows you to organise your code internally.

So now it is more obvious that those are different things. Still TypeScript provides ability to create browserify/node's modules - external modules. For that you can use ES6 module syntax or older TypeScript's syntax. Then use browserify plugin (such as tsify) for more convenient builds.

More documentation about TypeScript modules and namespaces can be found here (also describing the older external modules syntax)

Which type of modules should be used depends on the project and taste of developers. If you target Node.js it worth to use CommonJS modules (IMHO ES6 syntax in TS and transpile it to CommonJS). If you are using browserify it is reasonable to use external modules, too. Namespaces is recommended to use only inside one file - hence internal modules.