In defense of static imports

[bgchen]

You’re right, but I don’t see why it has to be only one or the other (dammit I want both! ). @mootari’s comments here made sense to me:

Feature request: conditional imports

If I might add my two cents: I think the current import with syntax should be deprecated and replaced with an import helper in the stdlib or runtime that works similarly to d3-require (and would likely just end up being a custom resolver?). Let’s be honest, the current syntax is confusing as hell when you’re not familiar with this Observable feature: syntax mimics static import syntax, but only supports a fraction of the actual syntax allows only notebook imports notebook imports look like np…

Which means I guess I’d be OK with a new version of the “Observable language”. As I said I’m not too fussy about syntax, as long as the capability is still around.