jquery ready vs domcontentloaded

Assuming browser that supports the event:

1. The real event can support any document. jQuery will only use the document it was loaded in, no matter what you pass to it.
2. jQuery will fire the event asynchronously even if the event has already happened. Attaching 'DOMContentLoaded' event will do nothing if the event has already happened.

There is no delay in these browsers, see http://jsfiddle.net/rqTAX/3/ (the offsets logged are in milliseconds).

For browsers that don't support the event, jQuery's will obviously work for them as well. It will use a hacky mechanism that is not the same as the real DOMContentLoaded and will not necessarily fire as soon as the real DOMContentLoaded would:

// The DOM ready check for Internet Explorer
function doScrollCheck() {
    if ( jQuery.isReady ) {
        return;
    }

    try {
        // If IE is used, use the trick by Diego Perini
        // http://javascript.nwbox.com/IEContentLoaded/
        document.documentElement.doScroll("left");
    } catch(e) {
        setTimeout( doScrollCheck, 1 );
        return;
    }

    // and execute any waiting functions
    jQuery.ready();
}