Is there any disadvantage to putting ES6 import statements at the bottom of code files?

Question

I only came across this practice recently while looking at Apollo Client examples - I didn't realize all import statements could be at the bottom of a .js file. This seems like a great idea because it's rare that on opening a file the import statements are what I'm looking primarily to deal with.

In cases where order does not matter, is there any disadvantage we should be aware of with this practice?

This may be an example-only practice since the same company puts imports at the top in production code - but I'm not sure why it couldn't apply to production code. We're using TypeScript but I believe the concerns are the same with vanilla ES6.

Answer 1

Normally, you'd want to declare/define something first, then use it. Using it first and then defining it seems weird. Someone reading your code would expect the imports to be at the top of the file.

This is also true for functions: you could use them before you declare them, but someone who reads the code would expect to find the declaration of the function a few lines above, not below:

var result = add(10, 5);

// some other code

function add (a, b) {
  return a + b;
}

This seems like a great idea because it's rare that on opening a file the import statements are what I'm looking primarily to deal with.

I disagree. When I look at a file, I'm interested in its dependencies and its relation to other files in the project.

Let's say you want to understand what a certain file is about. Normally, you would glance through the code, first looking at the imports, then looking at the code that uses these imports. Otherwise, you would encounter a whole lot of things that you've never seen.