History of the JavaScript script Tag
History of the JavaScript script Tag
in the beginning, around 1987, it is this:
<script language="JavaScript">...</script>
Then, around maybe year 2000, the standard body W3C says it should be this:
type="text/javascript"
Then, around 2006-04, the standard body W3C says it should be this:
type="application/javascript"
Then, around 2010, HTML5, the standard body, now WHATWG running the show, says it should be just:
<script>...</script>
History: HTML Script Tag Survey, Year 2006
the following is written around 2006.
In practice, you'll see
type="text/javascript"
instead of
type="application/javascript"
The text/javascript
is still ok, but has been deprecated since 2006-04.
Of existing code on the web, you will also see:
<script language="JavaScript">...</script>
or just
<script>...</script>
The language=
is the original specification when Netscape invented JavaScript in 1997.
Later on, standard bodies invented the type=
and made it a required attribute.
However, as of 2005-08, major websites do not clearly show any of them
winning the popularity contest:
- amazon.com uses both
type=
andlanguage=
and sometimes just thelanguage=
. - apple.com uses just the
language=
. - yahoo.com uses just the
language=
. - orkut.com uses just the
type=
. - msn.com sometimes uses both, sometimes one or the other.
- ebay.com sometimes uses both, sometimes one or the other.
- google.com simply uses just
<script>
For all practical purposes, one can just use
<script>
and it doesn't make any difference. If you want your code to conform to w3c standard, use
<script type="application/javascript">
. This is recommended in RFC4329 (published in 2006-04), which also declares
text/javascript
as obsolete.