onclick="" vs event handler

Question

If I want a function to be executed, I prefer doing inline js:

<p id="element" onclick="doSomething();">Click me</p>

because it is easier to debug.

However, I hear people saying not to use inline js, and do:

document.getElementById('element').onclick = doSomething;

Why is the js event listener recommended?

Answer 1

One big argument against inline event handlers, and the argument that is addressed by the other answers here is the separation of presentation and logic.

However, there is actually a bigger problem IMO: The somehow elusive way how inline event handlers are evaluated.

As you may know, the content of the on* attributes will be used as body of the event handler function. But what characteristics does this function have?

One of the surprising ones is that properties of some ancestor elements and of the element itself are in the scope of the inline event handler.

<form>
    <input name="foo" />
    <button type="button" onclick="console.log(foo); console.log(window.foo);">
        Click me
    </button>
    <div onclick="console.log(foo);">Click me as well!</div>
</form>

Clicking the button logs

<input name="foo"></input>
undefined

in the console. The fact that window.foo is undefined tells you that there is no global variable foo. So where does the variable foo come from? Why does console.log(foo) log the input element and not throw a reference error?
Because the properties of the form element are in the scope of the event handler and the form element has a property for each named form control element it contains. You can easily test this with console.log(document.querySelector('form').foo).

Now, clicking the div element actually throws a reference error:

ReferenceError: foo is not defined

So apparently the form element is only in scope of form control elements, not any descendant. How confusing is that?

Similarly, the properties of the document object are also in the scope of inline event handlers, which can lead to some surprising bugs (did you know that document has a property plugins?).

How exactly inline event handlers are evaluated is formalized in the HTML5 spec. Have a loop at step 10 in particular where he scope chain creation is described.

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Conclusion:

Because of this implicit connection between elements and inline event handlers, bugs can be really hard to track. It's of course fine to use inline event handlers if you just want to test something. But using them in production code comes with a higher maintenance cost.

The articles at quirksmode.org explain the different ways of binding event handlers and their (dis)advantages very well.