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

Either use

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

or

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

second case is useful if you want to actually pass some arguments to start..