Is $(document).ready necessary?

Is $(document).ready necessary?

no

if you've placed all your scripts right before the </body> closing tag, you've done the exact same thing.

Additionally, if the script doesn't need to access the DOM, it won't matter where it's loaded beyond possible dependencies on other scripts.

For many CMS's, you don't have much choice of where the scripts get loaded, so it's good form for modular code to use the document.ready event. Do you really want to go back and debug old code if you reuse it elsewhere?

off-topic:

As a side note: you should use jQuery(function($){...}); instead of $(document).ready(function(){...}); as it forces the alias to $.

No, if your javascript is the last thing before close you won't need to add those tags.

As a side note, a shorthand for $(document).ready is the code below.

$(function() {
// do something on document ready
});

This question might be good. Did you read it? jQuery: Why use document.ready if external JS at bottom of page?