You can get the second method to achieve the same effect by:
var mySecondDiv = $('<div></div>');
$(mySecondDiv).find('div').attr('id', 'mySecondDiv');
$('#myDiv').append(mySecondDiv);
Luca mentioned that html()
just inserts hte HTML which results in faster performance.
In some occassions though, you would opt for the second option, consider:
// Clumsy string concat, error prone
$('#myDiv').html("<div style='width:'" + myWidth + "'px'>Lorem ipsum</div>");
// Isn't this a lot cleaner? (though longer)
var newDiv = $('<div></div>');
$(newDiv).find('div').css('width', myWidth);
$('#myDiv').append(newDiv);