ServerJS/Modules

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Modules

To date, client side JavaScript has generally been able to get away with something as simple as the <script> tag and no standard way to do namespaces. On the server, it's a bit different because you're more likely to use more libraries and you can potentially load up a lot of code. Having a basic system for loading code and encouraging the use of namespaces to avoid unintentional interference will underlie everything else.

Prior Art

• Spidermonkey (and Jaxer) and Rhino offer a load function, but does not have any specific pattern for namespacing.
• Dojo has a complete incremental loading facility in the form of dojo.require and a standard mechanism for declaring modules. dojo.require ensures that the module is loaded only once. It also manages dependecies between modules.
• The Jack project implements a simple "require" system.
• Persevere uses "require" (similar to Jack) for module loading.
• Helma NG implements a module system with per-module scopes and import, include and require functions.
• jslibs bootstrapping jshost provides only basic code and loading module support, direct from file and either into the global namespace or a chosen namespace http://code.google.com/p/jslibs/wiki/jshost
• Advanced JavaScript Importing & Loading Extension is the browser-independent extension that provides Javascript with namespace and dynamic script loading support ( http://ajile.iskitz.com/ )
• modulesjs an XHR JS module loader provides module loading, singleton modules ( http://modulesjs.com/ )
• Synchronet provides a global load() method which allows a specified scope/sandbox object, passing arguments, and background/concurrent execution: http://synchro.net/docs/jsobjs.html#global
• Ejscript has a loadable module mechanism based on language extensions "module" and "use module" definitions. Modules can have scope, dependencies, incremental loading and optional backing native code.

Proposals

Several proposals have been made:

1. Global File Loading
2. Global Object Loading
3. Pythonic Modules
4. Securable Modules

Related Discussions

• "a module system (difficult to agree)"
• Concerns about the proposed module system(s)
• do we need a Module object instead of require() function?
• Are we agreed on require, in general?

* [2] SecurableModules question
* [3] Do you think require() should be implemented in JS?
* [4] Securable Modules show of hands