Possible to defer loading of jQuery?

Question

Let\'s face it, jQuery/jQuery-ui is a heavy download.

Google recommends deferred loading of JavaScript to speed up initial rendering. My page uses jQuery to set up s

Answer 1

As this is a top ranking question on a important subject let me be so bold to provide my own take on this based on a previous answer from @valmarv and @amparsand.

I'm using a multi-dimensional array to load the scripts. Grouping together those that have no dependencies between them:

var dfLoadStatus = 0;
var dfLoadFiles = [
      ["http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.1/jquery.min.js"],
      ["http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.11/jquery-ui.min.js",
       "/js/somespecial.js",
       "/js/feedback-widget.js#2312195",
       "/js/nohover.js"]
     ];

function downloadJSAtOnload() {
    if (!dfLoadFiles.length) return;

    var dfGroup = dfLoadFiles.shift();
    dfLoadStatus = 0;

    for(var i = 0; i

It loads first jquery after it is loaded it continue to load the other scripts at once. You can add scripts easy by adding to the array anywhere on your page:

dfLoadFiles.push(["/js/loadbeforeA.js"]);
dfLoadFiles.push(["/js/javascriptA.js", "/js/javascriptB.js"]);
dfLoadFiles.push(["/js/loadafterB.js"]);