Alias package name to root directory

[ccorcos]

The benefit of using absolute file paths is it's easier to lookup where a file is being used and its easier to move a file using a find-replace-all on the file's path. I like to use absolute paths for all all of my imports.

As discussed here, it would be great if this feature was supported natively by Node.js. For example:

mkdircool-appcdcool-appnpminit-yecho"module.exports = { name: 'chet' }">defs.jsecho"console.log('hello' + require('cool-app/defs').name)">index.jsnodeindex.js>hellochet

The interesting thing is approach is if you publish a Node.js library with this pattern and another project tries to require this package, all the paths would resolve correctly because the project-name now resolved to the node_module!

Anyways, the first commit is the specific feature I'm interested in. And if you feel like this is a good pattern to encourage, the second commit changes the generated templates to use absolute imports.

P.S. some additional discussion here: #636

[ccorcos]

Seems a little odd that we're testing the template like this...

[gaearon]

Thanks for submitting a PR! Let’s let this hang for a while. I’ll come back to make some decision on this later but I definitely want to address the use case in one way or another.

[ccorcos]

Awesome. Well you just let me know then!

[gaearon]

I’m going to close because that’s not the route I decided to take, mostly to avoid incompatibilities with wider ecosystem like Node, editors, type checkers, etc. See #741 for the approach I want to take, and the relevant discussion. Please feel free to send a PR implementing it!