How can Webpacker be used to load JS code remotely?

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Webpacker is primarily used as a build system for JavaScript applications, but it can also be used to load remote JavaScript code. To do this, you would need to use the import() function provided by Webpack, also known as dynamic imports.

Dynamic imports allow you to load JavaScript modules asynchronously at runtime. This means that you can use them to load remote modules or chunks of code that aren't part of your main bundle. Here's an example of how to use dynamic imports in a Webpacker project:

// app/javascript/my_module.js
export const add = (a, b) => a + b;

// app/javascript/index.js
async function main() {
  const { add } = await import('./my_module.js');
  console.log(add(2, 3));
}

main();

In this example, my_module.js exports a simple function that adds two numbers. The index.js file uses dynamic imports to load this module asynchronously and then calls the add function to print the result to the console.

To load remote JavaScript code, you would simply replace the module path with the URL of your remote script:

// app/javascript/index.js
async function loadRemoteScript(url) {
  const module = await import(url);
  module.default.init();
}

loadRemoteScript('https://example.com/my_script.js');

In this example, we're loading a JavaScript script from a remote URL and calling an init function on the default export. The module could contain anything: a library, a framework, or just some standalone code.

Note that when you load remote scripts in this way, they will be cached by the browser just like any other script. If you need to force a refresh, you'll need to append a query parameter or version number to the URL.