The require() function was actually part of the old CommonJS standard: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;wiki.commonjs.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Modules&#x2F;1.1" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;wiki.commonjs.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Modules&#x2F;1.1</a><p>node was originally an implementation of it before eclipsing it. Between the original advocacy by CommonJS and the rising popularity of node, browserify, and Webpack, things like require() leaked out to become the pre-ES2015 de facto standard for importing modules.<p>require() is so widespread now, and the transform to the ES2015 syntax so trivial, that it&#x27;s not going away anytime soon.