Browser-require.js brings "require" to the browser (just like node)

https://github.com/marcuswestin/browser-require

by marcuswestin • 15 years ago

17 16 15 years ago

Browser-require lets you write javascript using "require", "exports" and "module" in the browser, just as you would in node. It helps you with your dependency management, and provides a compiler to condense all your required modules into a single file for production.

sjs• 15 years ago

> When a module is required, we fetch it's javascript as a string using a synchronous XHR.

scotth• 15 years ago

Right. What need does this project meet?

Sounds like a great way to create a lousy user experience.

marcuswestin5• 15 years ago

The synchronous XHR requests are only used in your development environment. For production, use `node browser-require/compile.js`, which will compile all your required javascript modules into a single file. It really doesn't make sense to asynchronously request all of your javascript files on production pages.

arthurschreiber4• 15 years ago

Obviously, that's meant for development only and that's why it also ships with it's own compiler for production (where I seriously hope they don't use a synchronous XHR to fetch the compiled code).

marcuswestin5• 15 years ago

no, it does not :)

geuis• 15 years ago

I don't understand. Require.js already works in the browser. http://requirejs.org/

marcuswestin5• 15 years ago

require.js does asynchronous file loading and is supposed to be deployed as-is in production. Browser-require makes it easy to develop your code using synchronous require statements and straight-forward dependency management. For production it has a compiler that combines all the required files into a single file (which is the only way you should serve your javascript in production)

rmurphey3• 15 years ago

RequireJS also has a "compiler" that will combine your files into one or more layers for production use, as well as straightforward dependency management.

arthurschreiber4• 15 years ago

The main difference between this and other solutions like RequireJS is the fact that you don't have to wrap your CommonJS modules in callbacks and thus could in theory use them "unmodified".

marcuswestin5• 15 years ago

That's one of the big differences - I'd say the other big difference is that it comes with a compiler that bundles all your required modules into a single javascript file for production

arthurschreiber4• 15 years ago

RequireJS also has it's own compiler.

julius2• 15 years ago

It uses synchronous XHR to load the JS-File. Then evals the JS-String.

This is great, but I could not figure out debugging my loaded code with this solution.

Any ideas ?

arthurschreiber4• 15 years ago

Firebug and the WebKit Inspector allow you to set breakpoints by just putting "debugger;" where you want to jump into debugging.

julius2• 15 years ago

Thanks. I did not know that.

The problem of getting stacktraces for errors remains.

UPDATE: Just tested in Safari. I get nice stacktraces there. Its only a problem in Chrome.

Browser-require.js brings "require" to the browser (just like node)

Related Stories