Q:

Weird RequireJS call on JQuery source

I was looking into the JQuery's source code when I noticed a weird pattern on some of its files. Sometimes they declare a lot of dependecies that never got used inside the code. The most bizarre instance of this is the jquery.js file. They basically did this:
define([
    "./core",
    "./selector",
    // +27 dependencies here
], function( jQuery ){

return (window.jQuery = window.$ = jQuery);

});

So my question is: what happens to all the dependecies they declared? Do they live on this single jQuery variable somehow? If not, why did they declare them if they'd never use them?
Here's the code on GitHub: https://github.com/jquery/jquery/blob/master/src/jquery.js
Thanks in advance.

A:

They are required because when they are required is as if the file is ran i.e. core.js is ran. By looking at the core.js code, it will create the core functionality and it will expose it. i.e. 
jQuery.extend = jQuery.fn.extend = function() {
var options, name, src, copy, copyIsArray, clone,
    target = arguments[0] || {},
    i = 1,
    length = arguments.length,
    deep = false;
    ...
    ... etc

Snippet taken from jQuery core
If they are not required, the functionality will not be exposed.
Hope that helps.

