[SOLVED] Why do people leave comments in javascript code?

[pkedpker]

Are those people just bad JavaScript programmers or is it a trick to get other browsers with bad JavaScript parsing to make it work?

 

here is a example

 

<script language="JavaScript">
<!--
function setsmiley(what){
tmp=document.getElementById("mytext");
    tmp.value = tmp.value+" "+what+" ";
    tmp.focus();
}
//-->
</script>

 

why the hell did he leave <!-- when --> is commented out anyways its pure stupidity from my side.

 

Found this kind of error on google ads as well! had to remove the <!-- and //--> to save a few bytes!

 

but is there any trick to this? leaving them in I mean

[Zane]

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/interact/scripts.html

 

The JavaScript engine allows the string "" from the JavaScript parser.

[.josh]

The point of it is back in the day when javascript was new enough that there were browsers that didn't know what to do with it, it was a hack to keep js from being displayed as plain text, if the browser didn't support it.  So basically it's a backwards compatibility thing.  Why people are still doing it I have no idea, as it's been a long time since virtually every single browser out there at least recognizes javascript. 

[haku]

I don't like it either. Same as I don't like document.write

[Mchl]

Hey! I've no JS support in my mobile!

[haku]

Ya, but I doubt that sites that have javascript on them cause your browser to freak out. It's only the really old one that couldn't handle it.

[pkedpker]

Oi see