Simplify modules=instantiate|register mess

[vojtajina]

My suggestion:

1/ rename "instantiate" to something like "es6loader" 2/ remove "register" - what is the purpose of it? (AFAIK, there is no Loader.register API in the spec) 3/ make it possible to use modules="es6loader" output with es6-module-loader, without systemjs - what needs to be done?

What do you think? Am I missing something?

[vojtajina]

@guybedford

[johnjbarton]

What mess?

Traceur compiles itself using 'register'. You can load these modules with only ModuleStore, that's what we do do bootstrap.

If you don't want a system registry, use 'inline'.

[guybedford]

I know it is not ideal but backwards compatibility around this may be important now - we've been communicating for 9 months now the modules=instantiate option, so I'd be hesitant to change this.

You can use System.register on its own by simply adding it at the end of es6-module-loader.js.

[arv]

What mess?

I agree that this is a bit messy.

Here are the modes I would prefer

1. AMD/CJS
2. Bundle - No runtime module support. All bindings are shared across modules so import and export use the same binding.
3. System - all at runtime, no precompiled files.

[domenic]

It's worth looking at es6-module-transpiler for alternative approaches. I think they do it pretty well. Out of the box they only have "bundle." There are plugins for AMD and for CJS. I don't think they have anything System-related (but I never understood what parts of System are standard and which are @guybedford's extensions).

[johnjbarton]

Well I think we should switch to use 'instantiate' for Traceur and remove 'register'. As far as I know, es6-module-loader uses 'instantiate' for bundles. I tried switch one time as part of trying to replace TraceurLoader with es6-module-loader, but I could not solve all of the problems. May just the switch would be easier.

I would be against using 'inline' for Traceur, it's too hard to read.

[vojtajina]

@arv what does bundle mean? Is it all files into one?

Right now, I have to use es6-module-loader and systemjs (with "register" extension) to load Traceur's output. It should be possible to load code generated by Traceur using plain es6-module-loader.

[johnjbarton]

To me a good solution is the one we use for Traceur. Start with runtime file like bin/traceurRuntime.js and a compiled file generated from a command line compile like ./traceur <options> --module <rootModule>. Including both files in <script> tags and you can run a web page. Or add more <rootModule> based files. Or concatenate them. Or try out the code without compilation by putting a <script> tag withbin/traceur.jsin the web page and usingSystem.import().then(...). Or usees6-module-loaderthen useSystem.import().then(...). Ifbin/traceurRuntime.js` is really too large, build a smaller one with a custom script.

If you want to go to the next level and mix cjs/requirejs into the app use type='module' tags, and allow both static and dynamic loads then you want @guybedford's systemjs, it deals with all that.