For the record, inside ResourceLoader context $ is a local variable provided by the ResourceLoader built-in closure.

See also bug 48886.

I suggest for standalone we introduce an module-intro/outro that is used to wrap around individual modules (not per file).

So e.g. dist/ve.core.js would be:

• intro

( function ( ve, $ ) {

• include ve.js
• include ve.A.js
• include ve.B.js
• include ve.C.js
• outro

}( VisualEditor, jQuery ) );

And in MediaWiki the same would effectively happen but on-demand by ResourceLoader (since we don't want to use a build system for MW, but instead work on the raw source files directly and have them build dynamically).

See bug 48886 for details, but the end result would be:

• startup:

register(
..,
[ 'ext.visualEditor', 1234, ...., ['VisualEditor']
);

• mw.loader: script( $, global[propKeys..].. );

• load.php response when loading visualeditor:

mw.loader.implement( 'ext.visualEditor.core', function ( $, ve ) {

• include ve.js
• include ve.A.js
• include ve.B.js
• include ve.C.js

} );

Rephrasing bug.

Problems:

• We're repeatedly referencing $/mw from global scope instead of securing the reference. This is worse for performance and for proper functioning (e.g. jQuery might be redefined at a later time causing version mismatches, this is why ResourceLoader maps $)

• We're using $ and mw directly instead of mapping jQuery and mediaWiki.

• In standalone, our code executes in the global scope. This is bad.

Solution:

• For standalone, build the dist/ files with a closure mapping, securing and caching '$' from 'jQuery'. And for VE modules other than ve.base, it would also map 've' to 'VisualEditor' (bug 67642)

• In MediaWiki, ResourceLoader already provides a closure which we'd extend to also map 've' to 'VisualEditor'.