The mind-boggling universe of JavaScript module strategies

The Lua community experienced a similar "Cambrian explosion" of module standards followed by standardization. This stemmed from Lua's "mechanisms, not policy" design philosophy:

"Despite our “mechanisms, not policy” rule — which we have found valuable in guiding the evolution of Lua—we should have provided a precise set of policies for modules and packages earlier. The lack of a common policy for building modules and installing packages prevents different groups from sharing code and discourages the development of a community code base." [1]

The same problem occurs when implementing commonly-used patterns where standards aren't defined, like OOP class hierarchies and object instances. History repeating, etc.

[1] The Evolution of Lua - http://www.lua.org/doc/hopl.pdf