This is quite a nice topic for discussion as it touches on various important theoretical and practical issues.
"All my sites validate perfectly with <script> tags just before closing </body>. What standard are you talking about? " - Mika Yes its valid, and it is important to remember that validation is not the goal at the end of the day. The goal is to have a website/ application that performs well and does whats meant to do. So having your <script>s just before </body> its a good way to decrease the loading time, and unobtrusive JS (like jQuery's) is a great way to maintain your code separate for content (thereby reducing possible future problems) However, by not keeping your scripts and styles in one place (<head>) could be headache when maintaining your application. I agree with jake that this is an issue that has to be resolved by each developer on a case by case basis. Personally I prefer to keep essential scripts (like jquery.js) at the head, and then use some kind of lazy loading (there are a couple of plugins for this) to import additional scripts (and styles) as needs arise after the page has finished loading. I would say its the best of both worlds, but again it depends. On Apr 8, 12:19 pm, "Jake McGraw" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From the comments on Yahoo Performance Rule # > 5http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2007/07/high_performanc_5.html: > > :: snip :: > > There are some cases where you wouldn't want your JS at the bottom. > For example, if you were using an "ondomready" event that many of the > js libraries supply, you would want the code to execute towards the > top. If you were to move all your JS to the bottom of the page, the > event would be rendered useless. > > However, it's nice to know that having it at the top is a performance > hit so that I can weigh the positives with the negatives before moving > forward. > > :: snip :: > > So there is an instance where, using jQuery $(document).ready() or any > JavaScript library DOM ready functionality, it makes more sense to > keep your script tags in the document head. > > In the end, it's up to the developer which method to use, as both can > be utilized successfully. I said in my original post that this is > mostly the territory of debate for "standardistas", therefore its > worth inside of real-world web application development is > questionable. Considerations of end user experience often override > whatever the W3C or ECMA specificies. I'm just providing an alternate > opinion so developers can make an informed consideration. Thankfully, > jquery-en provides a professional environment where we can have this > discussion. > > - jake > > On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 11:40 AM, Mika Tuupola <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > On Apr 8, 2008, at 6:23 PM, Jake McGraw wrote: > > > > Regardless of whether it validates, it's considered best practices to > > > keep all <script> tags out of the body: > > > It all depends who "consideres". > > > http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#js_bottom > > > > If you put your scripts at the very end of a page, it is possible that > > > a user already sees part of the page including a button with a > > > JavaScript function call, while the rest of the page hasn't loaded > > > yet. Result: user pushes button and gets JavaScript Error Message > > > Alerts, because the browser can't find the script (yet). > > > True, if you do things like: > > > <input type="button" onclick="checkform()" /> > > > Then again not a problem if you write unobtrusive JavaScript. > > > $(function() { > > $("input").bind("click", checkform); > > }); > > > And isn't jQuery about writing unobtrusive JavaScript? ;) > > > -- > > Mika Tuupola > > http://www.appelsiini.net/
