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Asked: 2026-05-19T11:07:27+00:00

I have recently inherited some web code and found that all the Java Script

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I have recently inherited some web code and found that all the Java Script scripts are contained within HTML comment tags

For example:

<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript"><!--
    function ValidateForm() { ... }//-->

As I understand it, this method prevented older, non-supported, browsers from interpreting your Java Script. However this is not something I was ever taught to do, and I wonder if this is now considered to be unnecessary, or is this still a common practice? If so, why?

Update: Thanks to kennebec for your advice to leave them in, which I have done for now, and thanks to Emmett also: I’ll be sure to leave them out of any future code I write!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    http://javascript.crockford.com/script.html:

    Do not use the <!-- //--> hack with
    scripts. It was intended to prevent
    scripts from showing up as text on the
    first generation browsers Netscape 1
    and Mosaic. It has not been necessary
    for many years. <!-- //--> is supposed
    to signal an HTML comment. Comments
    should be ignored, not compiled and
    executed. Also, HTML comments are not
    to include –, so a script that
    decrements has an HTML error.

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