IDependOnYou ♥

IDependOnYou is a very bare approach to JavaScript asynchronous module definition, also known as AMD. An approach so bare that it only resolves the dependencies between what you define and what you require. It does not fetch code from the server, nor does it manipulates it in cool ways. In other words, it's not a stunning replacement for RequireJS.

"Why bother then ?" you ask yourself, well because the following code produces a very unexpected result with RequireJS:

define('one', function() {

	alert('here0')

	return 'one'

})

define('two', [ 'one' ], function(one) {

	alert('here1')

	return 'two'

})

define([ 'two' ], function(two) {

	alert('here2')

})

document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function() {

	alert('here3')

})

http://jsfiddle.net/olvlvl/z9jPn/

You see RequireJS resolves dependencies once the document is ready, not when dependencies are available. Thus instead of alerts popping "here0", "here1", "here2", "here3"; "here3" pops first.

That's a shame because since the dependency requirements are met I expected my code to work properly. More over, waiting for domready is a deal breaker for Brickrouge since the event is used to construct custom elements, and because its handler is executed before RequireJS's one, the constructors defined using define() fail miserably.

Since I didn't care about loading code from the server, I decided to write my own little piece of code. That's ~1ko once compressed.

Requiring a dependency

IDependOnYou also provides a require method, although it is not exposed by default. This method returns the result of a dependency factory, or throw an exception if the dependency is not defined or not ready.

var require = IDependOnYou.require

try
{
	var one = require('one')
}
catch (e)
{
	// should throw an exception because "one" is not defined
}

define('two', [ 'one' ], function (one) {

	return 2

})

try
{
	var two = require('two')
}
catch (e)
{
	// should throw an exception because "two" is not ready, 
	// still waiting for "one"
}

define('one', function () {

	return 1

})

var one = require('one')
var two = require('two')

console.log(one + two) // 3

Is IDependOnYou suitable for your project ?

Between Brickrouge and Icybee, I use a lot of JavaScript to power custom elements which I create using PHP classes. When these elements are rendered the required JavaScript and CSS assets are collected and automatically added to the document, thus I rarery require code from the server, and when I do Brickrouge is here to help, and it supports JavaScript as well as CSS assets.

So, if like me your code is already available when you need it, or you have your own means to fetch it from the server, and you just need something to keep things in order, IDependOnYou might be for you too.

Usage

Include idependonyou.js before the code you want to define/require. As with RequireJS you use define(id, dependencies?, factory) to define something and define(dependencies, factory) to require dependencies. define.amd.engine equals "IDependOnYou" if IDependOnYou is used. A IDependOnYou variable is available as well.

Using IDependOnYou with the previous example finally produces the expected results:

http://jsfiddle.net/olvlvl/szJzL/

---

Testing

The test suite is ran with the make test command. Dependencies are installed if required. The directory can later be cleaned with the make clean command.

The package is continuously tested by Travis CI.

License

The module is licensed under the MIT License - See the LICENSE file for details.