README

Bundless

Experimental bundle-free JavaScript dependency loader.

Bundless is an experimental dependency loader inspired by JSPM, browserify and webpack, while trying to solve some of their inherent problems. Its goal is to deliver all JavaScript dependencies to the client without creating aggregate files ("bundles"), while sticking to npm as the package manager and to its project structure.

Installation

npm install bundless --save

Usage

At its core, bundless generates a script and set of hooks which make your local project accessible to the SystemJS loader without any additional configuration.

For an easy start, use the sample ExpressJS router included in the project:

const bundless = require('bundless/sample-server');
const express = require('express');
const path = require('path');

const app = express();
const topology = {};
app.use(bundless.express(topology));
app.get('/', (req, res) => res.sendFile(path.resolve(process.cwd(), 'index.html')));

app.listen(8080, function (err) {
    err ? console.error(err) : console.log(`Listening at ${this.address().address}:${this.address().port}`);
});

Your /index.html file should then contain:

<body>
    <script src="/lib/systemjs/dist/system.js"></script>
    <script src="/$bundless"></script>
    <script>
        $bundless(System);
        System.import('/modules/main');
    </script>
</body>

(Note that you must have SystemJS installed.)

Your entry point, in this example, should be then src/main.js.

You can modify your application structure by setting properties of the topology variable:


const topology = {
    rootDir: process.cwd(),
    srcDir: 'src',             // Your local .js files, relative to rootDir
    srcMount: '/modules',       // URL prefix of local files
    libMount: '/lib',           // URL prefix of libraries (npm dependencies)
    nodeMount: '/$node',        // Internal URL prefix of Node.js libraries
};

For more details, check the /sample-server/express.ts file.

Note, that bundless should work with any static web server, provided it has been configured according to the topology.

How it works

Bundless is a set of hooks which lets the browser to resolve and load dependencies (via SystemJS) in almost exactly the same way as NodeJS does, with some neat tricks inspired mostly by browserify.

This, of course, means that for larger projects, we're going to load quite a bunch of files. This, of course, raises some performance issues, comparing to "bundled" solutions. So far, we see HTTP/2 serving as a solution, while researching other possibilities.

Contributing

Bundless is currently in a wild, alpha, development-and-research stage. We'll be happy for any comments, opinions, insights, thoughts, pull-requests, suggestions and bits of wisdom from the community.

Fork it!
Create your feature branch: git checkout -b my-new-feature
Commit your changes: git commit -am 'Add some feature'
Push to the branch: git push origin my-new-feature
Submit a pull request

License

See LICENSE.md

Usage no npm install needed!