Develop Reference

Why are some imports capitalised but some aren't?

I've just been following a tutorial about Axios and I noticed that in it, they import it as axios but when they import React it's as React.
Why are some imports capitalised? is there a technical reason?

is there a technical reason?
Yes and no.
Both of the ones you've listed are the default export of their relevant modules, which means the name you use for them in your code is largely up to you (with a frequent exception in the case of React, more below). (It's different if they're named exports, more below on that as well). I've seen people use Axios instead of axios, for instance.
// Valid:
// ESM
import axios from "axios";
// CommonJS
const axios = require("axios");
// Also valid:
// ESM
import Axios from "axios";
// CommonJS
const Axios = require("axios");
With React, is used to be (and may well still be in some environments) that you needed to call it React if you were using JSX, because JSX is compiled to calls to React.createElement, and if you've used the name react instead, it won't match. (With some modern bundlers and configurations, you don't have to import React at all anymore.)
Named exports have to be imported with the name that they're exported with (so the names are defined by the module author), like this:
// ESM
import { memo } from "react";
// CommonJS
const { memo } = require("react");
although you could rename your local binding if you wanted to with as (perhaps to avoid conflicts with something else you're importing):
// ESM
import { memo as reactMemo } from "react";
// CommonJS
const { memo: reactMemo } = require("react");
With ESM it's an import of a named export using import renaming syntax. With CommonJS, it's destructuring with destructuring renaming syntax.

How to publish a library to npm that can be used both with import and require?

tealium-tracker is written in es6 and transpiled using Babel before published to npm.
When consumers do:
import initTealiumTracker from "tealium-tracker";
everything works as expected.
However, some consumers want to use a require instead of an import, and have to append .default:
const initTealiumTracker = require("tealium-tracker).default;
How could I publish the library to avoid appending .default?
I want consumers to be able to do either:
import initTealiumTracker from "tealium-tracker";
or
const initTealiumTracker = require("tealium-tracker);
Source code

In your source code, If you are ok with using commonJS syntax for import and export...
One option would be to replace all import and export with require and module.exports. Looks like webpack doesn't allow mixing the syntaxes (ES6 and commonJS modules).
So your index.js file can require the functions from dependent module as
const { callUtag, flushUtagQueue } = require("./utagCaller");
and export the default function as
module.exports = initTealiumTracker;
module.exports.default = initTealiumTracker;
Likewise your dependent module can export the functions as
module.exports = { callUtag, flushUtagQueue };
This way, consumers should be able to use either
import initTealiumTracker2 from "tealium-tracker";
OR
const initTealiumTracker1 = require("tealium-tracker");

Meteor: importing whole module doesn't work

I am trying to make my Meteor code ES6 compatible. I had a file called /both/global.js containing functions and constants that I wanted to be accessible globally. For ES6 purposes, I moved it to /both/imports/global.js and prefaced all the functions and constants with export const.
I haven't changed the whole directory structure yet. The template javascript files are still in /client/controller/. I have added to them import statements for the exported functions and constants. When I write the import statements in the form:
import { fn1, fn2, ... } from '../../both/imports/global.js';
they work fine.
I would rather import all the functions and constants with a single:
import from '../../both/imports/global.js';
but that doesn't seem to do anything.
What am I doing wrong?

It's to do with the way imports and exports work.
What you need is
import * from '/both/imports/global.js'
Alternatively...
import something from '/both/imports/global.js'
Will look for the default export, and assign it to the variable called something.
import { fn1, fn2, ... } ...
Will import the named variables into your namespace
Another way is to do this:
import globalFunctions from '/both/imports/global.js'
Then your functions are callable like this:
globalFunctions.fn1()
globalFunctions.fn2()

Dynamically reference static ESNext imports

Say I have these imports:
import clearLineReporter from '../modules/clear-line-reporter';
import karmaReporter from '../modules/karma-reporter';
import metaTestReporter from '../modules/meta-test-reporter';
import stdReporter from '../modules/std-reporter';
import tapJSONReporter from '../modules/tap-json-reporter';
import tapReporter from '../modules/tap-reporter';
import webSocketReporter from '../modules/websocket-reporter';
these must be referenced like I do above, in other words, I obviously can't do this:
const imports = {
stdReporter: import(...),
tapJSONReporter: import(...),
...
webSocketReporter: import(...)
}
Is there any way I can reference imported files through some form of reflection? Because it seems like I can't group them together to reference them somehow.
Instead of import syntax, I could use require(), but I am wondering if there is some way I can do some dynamic things with import statements, for example reference them all dynamically, such that if I add or remove an import, I don't have to change any other code.

There is a great answer to this question that I discovered by asking a different question, here:
exporting imports as a namespace with TypeScript
Create a file name grouped-modules.ts for example, where you want to simply list only the modules and export each one.
export {default as clearLineReporter} from '../modules/clear-line-reporter';
export {default as karmaReporter} from '../modules/karma-reporter';
export {default as metaTestReporter} from '../modules/meta-test-reporter';
...
export {default as stdReporter} from '../modules/std-reporter';
export {default as tapJSONReporter} from '../modules/tap-json-reporter';
Then in your module you can just do :
import * as mods from './grouped-modules'
export {mods}
It will export both types and values in a namespace called s. You can then import them using :
import {mods} from 'your-module'
const anObject: mods.clearLineReporter = ...;
This allows you to dynamically group your modules into one variable.

Is there any way I can reference imported files through some form of reflection?
Answer is dependent on environment, meant in questing, because import statement can be ES native modules implementation in browser, or babel-ed to require statements in node.js, or compile-time resolved bindings in webpack.
So, in each case there is solution to do something reflection. In node.js with babel-ed code import is just require wrapper, so any information is available there.
In browser with native ES modules, all requests to them can be served via ServiceWorker, so it can provide necessary information about fetched ES modules. Also in browser ES modules can be dynamically imported that way: https://matthewphillips.info/posts/loading-app-with-script-module
Most interesting part is webpack: compile-time resolve and semi-reflection can be achieved by externals resolver in functional style (https://webpack.js.org/configuration/externals/#function), and runtime by load module API (https://webpack.js.org/api/module-variables/#webpack_modules-webpack-specific- )

Should I use both `import 'rxjs/Rx'` and `import { Observable } from '#rxjs/Observable'`

import { Injectable } from '#angular/core';
import { Headers, Http, Response } from '#angular/http';
import { Observable } from '#rxjs/Observable';
import 'rxjs/Rx';
import 'rxjs/add/observable/throw';
#Component({});
export shellModule{}
This is a piece of code form my Angular app that I copied from somewhere (I have removed the definitions in the exported module. I am using it to make a service to call APIs.
In the imports in this particular file, why is it that Observable is imported separately even though the entire rxjshas been imported. If a particular module is being imported in its entirety, why is a particular object from it imported separately? I tried asking this question at the forum from where I took it, but there was no answer. I want to understand if this somehow helps with optimization of code.

In general:
In Typescript, the way modules are handled would require you to either load in the entire library with the import * as rx from 'rxjs/Rx', or a specific exported module within the library to use it, so the the compiler loads in the types.
Reducing your imports to only the specific modules you need sets up your app to use tree shaking from Angular's AOT compilation. This is not done by the typescript compiler, but by a tool called rollup. So, it can help with optimizing code later, but it doesn't automatically do so.
As far as compilation overhead, bringing in the whole library might slow down the compiler a bit... but this isn't a very strong point except for massively complex libraries.
I, personally, prefer importing in specific modules because it makes the calling code a little cleaner since I don't need to use that global name to get to the specific name. rx.Observable vs Observable. A good example of this is the lodash library (rxjs is a bit more complex...)
Honestly, importing entire libraries like the line you have there: import 'rxjs/Rx' doesn't make sense to me. You should only import specific exported modules. Try removing it, seeing what errors you get, and then using the * as rx syntax instead.
As far as rxjs goes - it is a little wonky when you want to import specific operators like this question does - so the way to get specific operators is with: import 'rxjs/add/observable/from' - but that also requires a tinkering with your webpack set up as outlined in the referenced question's answer.

Let's see what the rxjs/Rx module exports:
export { Subject, AnonymousSubject } from './Subject';
export { Observable } from './Observable';
export { Operator } from './Operator';
export { Observer } from './Observer';
export { Subscription } from './Subscription';
export { Subscriber } from './Subscriber';
export { AsyncSubject } from './AsyncSubject';
export { ReplaySubject } from './ReplaySubject';
export { BehaviorSubject } from './BehaviorSubject';
...
import './add/observable/bindCallback';
import './add/observable/bindNodeCallback';
import './add/observable/combineLatest';
...
So it exports RxJs classes and also imports operators from the add folder. So as you can see it loads everything in the library. It doesn't export any global object though. So you need to use named export like this:
import * as Rx from 'rxjs/Rx'
to be able to use an exported class:
Rx.Observable.of(12, 3);
This emulates what you would have if you loaded the library using the bundle - a global Rx object:
<script src="rxjs/bundles/Rx.js">
If you want to use Observable without Rx global object, you need to import it separately:
import { Observable } from '#rxjs/Observable';
Observable.of(1);
Importing both
import { Observable } from '#rxjs/Observable';
import 'rxjs/Rx';
is not a good practice, but may be used if you don't want to import every operator separately.
Also see How to correctly import operators from the rxjs package.