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 the second case, you're calling the function directly, instead of passing it as a parameter.

start() will call start immediately, and pass the return value of that to .animate(). This causes the infinite self recursion.