What's the difference between type="text/javascript" and type="javascript"?

[java_junkie]

what's the difference between:
<script type="text/javascript"> and <script type="javascript">

[colandy]

One has the word 'text' in it

lol

[java_junkie]

I have been running a script with <script type="text/javascript"> and it's functioning when I tried using <script type="javascript"> it isn't running that's why i asked lol

[colandy]

OK, the difference is that one works and the other doesn't.

I've never seen the statement:

<script type="javascript">

before, only ever with the 'text' wording included. I think it's just a case of that's what the browser expects to see.

[encyclo]

It will work if you use

<script>

, as Javascript is the default scripting language. However the HTML specification requires that you define the mime type of the script.

You have two versions, the older

language="Javascript"

(only required for very old browsers), and the more usual

type="text/javascript"

. The latter is required to pass validation.

[Bernard Marx]

I consider Douglas Crockford to be a good candidate for an "authority" on Javascript. Check out his video, "Theory of The DOM" (Pt 1) [video.yahoo.com] at Yahoo video. 16 minutes in, he talks about this issue.

The gist is that, in fact, we might as well leave out the type attribute entirely for the time being, since "text/javascript" is non-standard.

[edited by: Bernard_Marx at 11:12 am (utc) on June 18, 2007]