Main is an alias

[josh]

Regardless of an extension to main being accepted #7, I want to clarify the original main intent and how build tools are already using it.

main is a way to alias the package name to a file inside the package. Its a convenience to package authors so they can organize their internal directories however they wish but still export there module as a simple symbol.

Bower already understands the index.js convention. Again taken from node, but Sprockets also supports it as well. When you install a package from a url, it writes to foo/index.js. index.js is the implicit value of main.

index is fine, but not everything wants to name their file that in the package. main is a way to rewrite that path to another.

[unscriptable]

Nice! I like the wording and it clearly states the purpose of main. However, the default is not consistent with current implementations of AMD loaders and builders which assume "main" is the default, not "index": https://github.com/amdjs/amdjs-api/wiki/Common-Config#packages-

[josh]

Hmm, I guess I can remove that language and leave the default to be implementation specific.

For single file resources bower already generates a main property with a path to the index.js. In practice build tools don't actually need to be configured handle a fallback main property.

[necolas]

The wording is a bit clumsy. This change also seems to merge 2 different ideas for main. If we change things, then I'd suggest that main should be used the same way as npm and Component(1) - the entry point for the component's JS if it uses a module format.

[briandipalma]

This spec is for bower though and for bower index.js is the default entry point of a package if no main is supplied, a build tool creator would still find some use in having that specified in the spec I think.