Is there any good reason for javascript to be inline

Question

I've been building a site. At some stage I noticed that IE display was a little broken and Chrome had all but rendered nothing but the body tag (empty), and FF all looked good.

After throwing my keyboard around the room and bashing my head against my mouse, I discovered the problem. I had left (don't ask how or why, must have been some lightning speed cut and paste error) an HTML comment unclosed in an inline script block.

<script type="text/javascript">
        <!--
        ...
    </script>

I'm guessing (not tested) the problem would have either not come up, or manifested itself in a far more noticeable way if the script was external. So anyways, I got to thinking, is there ever a time when you have a really good reason to write inline script??

Answer 1

No. Write Unobtrusive Javascript.

Answer 2

If you want your Javascript to run as early as possible, it might make sense to include inline Javascript, since it will run before any other HTTP requests have necessarily completed.

And in some cases, you're including Javascript from a 3rd party provider and you don't really have a choice. Certain ad systems, as well as Google Analytics, spring to mind.