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This is discussed in the link I posted. Bundlers manage to statically analyze CommonJS just fine. With require("stringliteral") and exports.thing = thing, that cover 99.9% or so usage, this is just as easy to statically analyze as ESM.

Saying that you need declarative for static analysis is like saying tail call optimization is impossible.

And if a stricter module system would be still required, it could have been quite easy to make compatible with, well, require.



Require is fine but I totally hate the CJS exports. Feels like writing '90s era Perl code. On the other hand ESM dynamic imports like

  import('this').then(r => that()) 
rather suck.




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