Question

The previous pattern is commonly used by JavaScript modules intended for the browser. The module will claim a single global variable and wrap its code in a function in order to have its own private namespace. But this pattern still causes problems if multiple modules happen to claim the same name or if you want to load two versions of a module alongside each other.

With a little plumbing, we can create a system that allows one module to directly ask for the interface object of another module, without going through the global scope. Our goal is a require function that, when given a module name, will load that module’s file (from disk or the Web, depending on the platform we are running on) and return the appropriate interface value.

This approach solves the problems mentioned previously and has the added benefit of making your program’s dependencies explicit, making it harder to accidentally make use of some module without stating that you need it.

For require we need two things. First, we want a function readFile , which returns the content of a given file as a string. (A single such function is not present in standard JavaScript, but different JavaScript environments, such as the browser and Node.js, provide their own ways of accessing files. For now, let’s just pretend we have this function.) Second, we need to be able to actually execute this string as JavaScript code.

This is a book about getting computers to do what you want them to do. Computers are about as common as screwdrivers today, but they contain a lot more hidden complexity and thus are harder to operate and understand. To many, they remain alien, slightly threatening things.