Question

I am building a Rails app, and it seems that common practice is to have javascript_include_tags listed on top of a page.

Would it makes browers load javascript before loading the document, and thus makes visible elements take longer to load?

Thank you.

Answer 1

Looks like some answers were right, but none sums it all up:

• How to prevent javascript loading from loading other elements? Simple, put it right before the closing </body> tag. Which usually means a few characters before the end of your HTML page.
• Put all your javascript in external .js files. Why? So that the browsers can cache those files even when the HTML page changes.
• Aggregate and minify all your javascript files into one. Why? Because the fewer HTTP requests your clients make, the faster the page loads.

Also, you don’t have to care about $(document).ready() or window.onload, since all your HTML elements will be loaded before the javascript files (that is, if you put the JS files right before the closing </body> tag).