facebook like button not displaying :: FB.getLoginStatus() called before calling FB.init()

Question

I just want a basic facebook like button on my site. I follow the instructions per facebooks site (http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/). I tried the

Answer 1

On the Facebook Developer page where we obtain the script for the Like Button, Facebook says nothing of needing to implement the init() as well (which would presumably solve this problem, but what WOULD you use as the APP ID if you also called the init() function ??).

And an APP ID is not needed anyway for the Like Button to work. I believe that Facebook is just giving us the Like Button code -- even though the absence of the init() function is going to cause this js error (but apparently the init() is not actually needed!).

This seems like a shortcoming in FB's deployment of the Like Button API.