RequireJS 0.2.0 Released

RequireJS 0.2.0 is available for download. The highlights: stronger, faster, and prettier.

• Refactored core.
• New loader plugin API support.
• Improved Rhino and Node adapters.
• Bug fixes around loader plugins and the optimizer.
• require.modify removed.
• Removed Transport D files.

Stronger: The refactored core is more robust vs. the 0.1x releases, and the new plugin API makes it much easier to construct loader plugins. The plugin API is an implementation of Kris Zyp's plugin API proposal. The optimizer/build support is different than what he proposed, and I plan on discussing the changes on the CommonJS list where he sent the proposal. But the basic API for defining a plugin in that proposal is supported.

The Rhino and Node adapters are even better in this release. I want to improve the Node adapter in a future release by allowing the use of npm installed modules without setting up a package path config.

Faster: The refactored core responds faster to loaded modules, and it will execute a module as soon as its dependencies load. In practice you will probably not notice an appreciable speed change, but it allows the new plugin API to work well.

Prettier: The web site got a much needed facelift and a logo, thanks to the talented Andy Chung. So much better than my feeble attempt.

As part of the refactoring, I removed the Transport D files. I believe they are no longer in use by other projects. I also removed require.modify. It could not support relative path names, and was always an odd thing that did not quite fit in with the rest of the code.

The refactored code is also more strict. If you do this in main.js:

require(['foo'], function () {});

And then in foo.js, it does:

require(['bar'], function () {});

The require callback in main.js will be called before the require callback in foo.js, because foo.js did not define a module. The loader thinks it just needs execute foo.js in order to call the require callback in main.js. To make sure the require callback in main.js waits for foo's factory function to get called, change the require call in foo.js to define:

//In foo.js:
define(['bar'], function () {});

Thanks to the community for filing bugs and contributing to the discussions on the mailing list. Thanks to Ben Hockey for drilling in deep and working out how to load the Dojo trunk code with RequireJS. It prompted some great bug fixes, and a few patches from Ben.

Rawld Gill, along with Kris Zyp, has done a lot of work to convert the Dojo trunk code to use the AMD API proposal. Rawld has even done an alternative loader that implements the AMD API. Check out his work if you want a different look at an AMD implementation.

What's next? I want to move closer to a 1.0 for RequireJS, but I would like to get these things settled first:

• Get feedback from the community on the loader plugin API. I need to do some better documentation for it too.
  
• I want to do a has.js plugin generator, and I want to integrate support in the optimizer to trim if(has['test']){} if the configuration passed to the optimizer indicates that has['test'] will always be true.
  
• Allow the optimizer to run on top of Node. Right now the optimizer runs on top of Java via Rhino, but that is increasingly becoming a liability.
  
• Sort out full packages support. Right now RequireJS can load modules in packages, but it cannot handle two versions of the same package in a project. While this is a minority use case, I would like to have a story for it. I think it is workable in source form, but I am not sure how it will work out yet for optimized scripts that want to include modules from two different versions of the same package.