research-article

JavaScript module system: exploring the design space

Authors:

Sukyoung RyuAuthors Info & Claims

MODULARITY '14: Proceedings of the 13th international conference on Modularity

Pages 229 - 240

https://doi.org/10.1145/2577080.2577088

Published: 22 April 2014 Publication History

Abstract

While JavaScript is one of the most widely used programming languages not only for web applications but also for large projects, it does not provide a language-level module system. JavaScript developers have used the module pattern to avoid name conflicts by themselves, but the prevalent uses of multiple libraries and even multiple versions of a single library in one application complicate maintenance of namespace. The next release of the JavaScript language specification will support a module system, but the module proposal in prose does not clearly describe its semantics. Several tools attempt to support the new features in the next release of JavaScript by translating them into the current JavaScript, but their module semantics do not faithfully implement the proposal.

In this paper, we identify some of the design issues in the JavaScript module system. We describe ambiguous or undefined semantics of the module system with concrete examples, show how the existing tools support them in a crude way, and discuss reasonable choices for the design issues. We specify the formal semantics of the module system, which provides unambiguous description of the design choices, and we provide its implementation as a source-to-source transformation from JavaScript with modules to the plain JavaScript that the current JavaScript engines can evaluate.

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Cited By

Ryu SPark JPark J(2019)Toward Analysis and Bug Finding in JavaScript Web Applications in the WildIEEE Software10.1109/MS.2018.11011340836:3(74-82)Online publication date: May-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/MS.2018.110113408
Park CLee HRyu S(2017)Static analysis of JavaScript libraries in a scalable and precise way using loop sensitivitySoftware: Practice and Experience10.1002/spe.255248:4(911-944)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2017
https://doi.org/10.1002/spe.2552
Ryu S(2016)Scalable framework for parsingSoftware—Practice & Experience10.1002/spe.238046:9(1219-1238)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1002/spe.2380
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

JavaScript module system: exploring the design space
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages
      1. Language features
        Modules / packages

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Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

MODULARITY '14: Proceedings of the 13th international conference on Modularity

April 2014

264 pages

ISBN:9781450327725

DOI:10.1145/2577080

Conference Chair:
Achille Peternier
University of Lugano, Switzerland
,
General Chair:
Walter Binder
University of Lugano, Switzerland
,
Program Chairs:
Erik Ernst
Aarhus University, Denmark
,
Robert Hirschfeld
Hasso-Plattner-Institut Potsdam, Germany

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 22 April 2014

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National Research Foundation of Korea

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MODULARITY '14

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AOSA

MODULARITY '14: 13th International Conference on Modularity

April 22 - 26, 2014

Lugano, Switzerland

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MODULARITY '14 Paper Acceptance Rate 21 of 60 submissions, 35%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 41 of 139 submissions, 29%

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Citations

Cited By

Ryu SPark JPark J(2019)Toward Analysis and Bug Finding in JavaScript Web Applications in the WildIEEE Software10.1109/MS.2018.11011340836:3(74-82)Online publication date: May-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/MS.2018.110113408
Park CLee HRyu S(2017)Static analysis of JavaScript libraries in a scalable and precise way using loop sensitivitySoftware: Practice and Experience10.1002/spe.255248:4(911-944)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2017
https://doi.org/10.1002/spe.2552
Ryu S(2016)Scalable framework for parsingSoftware—Practice & Experience10.1002/spe.238046:9(1219-1238)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1002/spe.2380
Cho JRyu SPeternier ABinder WErnst EHirschfeld R(2014)JavaScript module systemProceedings of the 13th international conference on Modularity10.1145/2577080.2577088(229-240)Online publication date: 22-Apr-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2577080.2577088

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