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Snookums
Snookums

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Is Javascript's import syntax semantically wrong?

#javascript

In JS, if when import a file as a whole, the syntax is
import XXX from './xxx'

But I think this is semantically wrong, because the word from indicates that the thing you are importing is a part of the file, not the file itself.

For example, if A takes a candy from B, then the candy is just a part of B's belongings, not B himself.

So it should be just import './xxx', and it is like this in other languages such as Java.

If we need to give it an alias, it is import './xxx' as xxx.

If it is like this, then when importing parts from a file, we can omit the dereference curly brackets, so it is import XXX from './xxx' instead of import { XXX } from './xxx'.

In the latter, {} and from are redundant and confusing.

Top comments (4)

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jonrandy profile image
Jon Randy 🎖️ • • Edited

The syntax to just import the file as a whole (without plucking default or individual exports) is:

import './xxx'
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This will import the file for its side-effects only. All variations of the import syntax will import the whole file.

The syntax you show is importing the default export - for which you need to specify a variable name in which to store the import.

You can read more about using import in JS at MDN

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snookums profile image
Snookums •

I see. I didn't know what is "side effects", thanks for teaching me.

But I still think this syntax is wrong in 2 ways:

Firstly, as you said "...you need a name in which to store it", when importing the default export, it is just a renaming operation.

But it semantically doesn't have any meaning of renaming. The English words as indicates an alias, but it is not used here.

Its syntax import a thing from a place means this thing must exist in the place.

For example, "I imported some cattle from Mongolia", meaning there must be cattle in
Mongolia; but if I say "I imported some warships from Mongolia", it will be weird, because Mongolia doesn't have any warships.

So I think this syntax shouldn't allow renaming at all.

Secondly, the dereferencing curly brackets are unnecessary. The English word "import" already indicates a process of selection.

So by "I import cattle from Mongolia", the nation has lots of resources, but I only select cattle to ship to me.

But if I have to dereference like I import { Cattle } from Mongolia, that sound like the whole country of Mongolia is shipped to me, then I select some cattle and ship the rest of the country back to where it is located.

Anyway, will import XXX, YYY, ZZZ from SomeModule cause any confusion?

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jonrandy profile image
Jon Randy 🎖️ •

But it semantically doesn't have any meaning of renaming. The English words as indicates an alias, but it is not used here.

It's just a shortcut to simply import the default export as your required name. Otherwise you would need to do:

import { default as myChosenName } from "./xxx"
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Instead of just:

import myChosenName from "./xxx"
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Which is much less verbose, and is the most common use case. It's shorthand, nothing more.

A variety of different syntaxes are offered to cover different use cases.

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derso profile image
derso •

it had to be the same as python from rest_framework import serializers, I think it's semantically intuitive