jQuery and JavaScript Coding: Examples and Best Practices - RULE #1: SEPARATE JAVASCRIPT FUNCTIONALITY

Bad markup:

Never include Javascript events as inline attributes. This practice should be completely wiped from your mind.

<a onclick="doSomething()" href="#">Click!</a>

Good markup:

All Javascript behaviours should be included in external script files and linked to the document with a <script> tag in the head of the page. So, the anchor tag would appear like this:

<a href="backuplink.html" class="doSomething">Click!</a>

And the Javascript inside the myscript.js file would contain something like this:

...

$('a.doSomething').click(function(){
 // Do something here!
 alert('You did something, woo hoo!');
});
...