jQuery .animate() callback infinite loop

Question

A simple question: Why can I do this

var start = function() {
    $(\'#element\').animate({}, 5000, \'linear\', start);
}

but not this

Answer 1

In your second function you are executing the function instead of passing a reference to the function, hence it's going into an infinite loop.

Change your second function from:

function start() {
 $('#element').animate({}, 5000, 'linear', start());
}

to

function start() {
  $('#element').animate({}, 5000, 'linear', start); //Notice the change to start
}