| Cross post from the site comments: I really can't see the problem of harm #1. If you use require.js, by default the same javascript file you are editing will be used by the browser, not changed in any way. You don't even need source maps for this. The order of the modules don't really matter. For example you have module A and in order to work properly requires "module B" and "C". You don't care when the modules A, B or C are loaded because when you use the module A, the module B and C are already available to be used (thanks to the module loader).
For example: // moduleA
define(['moduleB', 'moduleB'], function(A, B){
// here you have module A and B
// and I don't really care the real download order.
// That's the job of the module loader
}) In require.js you can also define the dependencies of third party libraries and which variable they export (check require.js config). For just 20 lines a library can work with require.js AMD modules and with Commonjs. This is nothing compared with the total lines of the libraries, when you take in account the benefits. I never liked to have multiple script tags in my html files because when you need more than 20 it really get messy. You also have to take care about dependencies at a global level, which is harder. From what are you saying you write some big javascript files that contains your whole application.
I prefer to keep each class in their javascript file and keep it as organized as possible. The order of the loading of the modules is not up to me to think about. I just want to define a module and it's dependencies.
I also don't want to manually select the files I need to have in the build file (a file that contains all the small files). Require.js allows you to create a big javascript file for deployment with only the modules you required, not more. It's just crazy to not use some kind of module loader today. Check my explanation on how to use require.js with yeoman (http://www.webdesignporto.com/3-steps-to-fully-automatized-j...). It's just a lot more easier to develop big web applications, if this is what you want.
Of course if you only build some websites that requires jquery to show up some popups and this kind of stuff, is overkill to use a module loader. Hope you might change your mind about module loaders. |