CommonJS-style Asset Bundling

gistfile1.md

The rough underlying implementation is more or less done. Right now we're deciding betwen two forms, require('a.png') vs. requireStatic('a.png').

require('a.png')

• Pros: more familiar. One single require for assets too.
• Cons: Doesn't follow the CommonJS specs. Overloads require.

requireStatic('a.png')

• Pros: isn't tied to CommonJS.
• Cons: another thing to learn.

My feeling about this is that is require() is sweeeeet, requireStatic() is explicit and doesn't break anything.

I want to say require(), but I think the right choice is to use requireStatic() simply because this it "scales", it doesn't prevent anyone from implementing requireBlaBla() and still keeping it in the style, would anyone actually find that useful? I don't know. I often end up implementing intuitive (but magic) behavior, but when I have to choose I'm always drawn to clean descriptive and unambigiuous APIs.

For that reason I would personally vote for requireStatic() (even though I love the idea of require()).

I agree with @syranide, this should definitely not use require.

What does it return – the file contents? a URL? If the latter, I definitely think require is wrong; otherwise I don't have a strong opinion.

Requiring an image returns the image path. Requiring a css returns an object that maps from the class name to a (possibly) namespaced class name.
<div className={a['.class']} />