Back to Documentation
Q1: What's the difference between Load and Import?
A1-General: The Load and Import directives are
both designed to allow scripts to programmatically define their
dependencies.
A1-Part 1: The
purpose of the Load directive is to
provide developers with a means to programmatically load other arbitrarily named
scripts. The Load directive should be used when you simply want to load an
external script file from a known location.
A1-Part 2: The
Import directive serves two purposes. The first
being to provide developers with a means to programmatically load "
namespace'd" scripts. Namespace'd means that a script has
been named in a manner, or stored in a directory structure that reflects the
namespace it programmatically defines. Ajile allows developers to package
namespace'd scripts by:
1. Using a directory structure that
reflects the namespace. For example:
/com/iskitz/ajile.js indicates that this script
defines the namespace
com.iskitz and
the type/object ajile within it.
2. Naming
the script in a manner that reflects the namespace. For
example:
com.iskitz.ajile.js indicates
that this script defines the namespace
com.iskitz and the type/object ajile within
it.
The two approaches are made available
to accommodate developers' different organizational styles, either one can be
used; the choice is the developer's. When the Import directive is used
without its optional url and packaging style parameters it
automatically determines the script's packaging style and location based on those
of previously loaded scripts with a common namespace, or if no others have been
loaded, then the location and packaging style of Ajile itself.
A1-Part 3: The second purpose of the Import directive is to
provide "short-name" access to types/objects defined within loaded scripts.
After the namespace'd script is loaded its short-name is mapped to its
fully-qualified name. For example:
Import ("com.iskitz.examples.Site");
instructs Ajile to load
com.iskitz.examples.Site.js and map its contained
com.iskitz.examples.Site object to the short-name Site.
For an overview of the Import directive with examples, see Ajile's
Wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJILE#Namespace_Importing.
Back to Documentation
