[seldo]

Agreed. On the front-end, module loaders eventually come in handy but their utility isn't immediately useful. If an "anti-pattern" is something that seems useful but eventually isn't, and a "pattern" is something that seems useful and immediately is, we need a phrase for this third state, where it's a pain in the ass to start with and only becomes useful later.

[Chris_Newton]

If an "anti-pattern" is something that seems useful but eventually isn't, and a "pattern" is something that seems useful and immediately is, we need a phrase for this third state, where it's a pain in the ass to start with and only becomes useful later.

Technical investment, by analogy with technical debt?

[jwarkentin]

I disagree that it's really even that hard to start with. It's like any library or framework. You have to learn it initially, but then it's just not that hard. I've been using RequireJS for a couple years as well as node.js and none of the complaints really resonated with me.

I would go so far as saying that the author has probably been using them wrong. If you follow the right patterns and write good code it should be a non-issue.