I wouldn't choose to use requirejs on a project where I was making choices about the architecture for reasons mentioned here [1], but the current project I'm on was setup similarly and loads over 350 .js and .tpl files via AJAX in development mode pushing the DOMReady to a staggering 7.5s. (This is inside of Rails 3.2 using the requirejs gem).

Every time I've encountered requirejs in an application this has been representative of my experience with the tool and the pain of having to wait that long every time I reload a page simply doesn't seem worth it to me. There's also somewhat of a mismatch between async loading assets in development and sync loading them in production which I've seen responsible for bugs that show up in one environment but not the other, and/or vice versa.

A couple of questions for you: do you think the r.js optimizer taking 2.5s to compile is related to the complexity of the dependency tree in your application or just the number of files being loaded? Also, considering the previously mentioned mismatch between dev/prod and async loading, do you think it is appropriate to use something like SPDY to obviate the pain of a lengthy DOMReady event in development?

[1] - http://searls.testdouble.com/posts/2013-06-16-unrequired-lov...