Anyone here has experience with Gradle kotlin-fron...

# javascript

[Joffrey]

Anyone here has experience with Gradle kotlin-frontend-plugin? I'm wondering whether npm dependencies with typescript definitions are directly usable from Kotlin without manual declaration of external declarations. I guess I could generate Kotlin externals using ts2kt, but is it done out-of-the box by the plugin?

[Lawik]

If you want to use them in a typesafe manner you must declare externals.

[Joffrey]

Thanks for your reply. That's a pity, this would be a nice feature for the plugin. Do you know if create-react-kotlin-app provides this on the other hand? I'm trying to compare both approaches in the context of react apps development

[Lawik]

Yeah, the CRKA provides wrappers for react and react-dom, you can also get the wrappers individually (among others): https://github.com/JetBrains/kotlin-wrappers

[Joffrey]

This I understood, but what I wonder is whether adding an npm dependency to the package.json of a CRKA will automatically trigger ts2kt on it and allow Kotlin files to use it without ceremony

[Lawik]

I am not sure about that (never used CRKA myself) I think I read a while ago that JetBrains is working on making Kotlin compatible directly with TS definitions though.

[Joffrey]

I believe that would be a huge boost in Kotlin's adoption in the JS scene

[Lawik]

Actually, they said "better interop with JS" and didn't mention TS definitions specifically. See this thread: https://kotlinlang.slack.com/archives/C0B8L3U69/p1554827960039400

[Joffrey]

Thanks for pointing that out!

[Joffrey]

It doesn't seem that Kotlin is really ready to eat the frontend scene like it has done for Java, but there does seem to be hope here 🙂

[tapchicoma]

also check this one: https://github.com/Kotlin/dukat

[tapchicoma]

yesterday it was presented on Kotlin meetup and should a replacement for ts2kt

[Joffrey]

Thanks, I will take a look. My main concern so far is really about the integration of this kind of conversion tool into the build plugins