Evolution of the Script Tag
A Story of Web Tech Politics: The Evolution of JavaScript's Script Tag
Yesterday, i removed all type="text/javascript"
on my site. That is:
<script type="text/javascript">
becomes
<script>
This is a story of political chaos of the web.
In the beginning of time, a time of Netscape kingdom, ~1996, it was just
<SCRIPT>
.
Then, with Microsoft's meddling, with JScript and VBScript, it became
language="JavaScript"
or
language="JScript"
.
By ~1999, a entity called W3C
emerged, over-peering correctness on earth, it declared that the attribute
should be
type="text/javascript"
, and is required.
However, in practice, both the “language” and “type” are always optional, and no browser's parser actually give a flying faak about it.
Then, around ~2007, the standard body changed its mind and thought that the type really should be
type="application/javascript"
or
type="application/ecmascript"
.
(See:
[ Internet media type ] [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_media_type ])
Nobody in their right mind ever used that.
Then, in our glorious HTML5 era, ~2009, ruled by Google and Apple, in their HTML5 spec, it's back to
<script>
.