I hesitated to ask this question, because it may be too fundamental. However, after digging in to the codex and other topics I became convinced that maybe it is not so fundamental because I could not find an answer to my question.
My question is what purpose does the handle serve in functions like wp_enqueue_script() and wp_enqueue_style()? The codex explains that it is the name of the script or stylesheet, though clearly this does not need to be the name of the file that holds the script or style. I assume that it needs to be unique and I assume that it can be accessed via
global $wp_scripts;
The fact that the handle is explicitly defined suggests that it must have a clear purpose or be re-usable somehow. Otherwise, we would only need to load the script or stylesheet and it would work without the need for a handle. I would appreciate any insights into this.