The future of MDN: a focus on web docs • Hacker News Board

Re: The future of MDN: a focus on web docs

#21

Post by MrZeus » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 2:03 PM UTC

vog wrote: post #10

westoque wrote: post #5

I just wish they had better SEO than say W3Schools

Same for RFCs. Let's search for "rfc 1855". The first item is indeed the original plain text source, unfortunately without links or anything: - https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt But the second hit is a third-party source, that doesn't provide much over the plain text version. It doesn't even contain the RFC contents directly. I can't imagine anyone seriously linked to that page, let alone that so many are doing it…

That HTML RFC page is one of the few pages I've ever tested with PageSpeed (by Google) that gets 100/100 marks for Mobile and Desktop versions!

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=...

Re: The future of MDN: a focus on web docs

#22

Post by peternicky » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 2:07 PM UTC

niutech wrote: post #20

There is [edit: was] also a community-driven alternative to MDN: https://webplatform.github.io/docs/

Discontinued in 2015. Why would you recommend anyone use that site?

Re: The future of MDN: a focus on web docs

#23

Post by lucb1e » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 2:09 PM UTC

westoque wrote: post #5

I just wish they had better SEO than say W3Schools

Depending on the topic, I often get MDN above w3schools. And adding mdn is not much of a bother.

Re: The future of MDN: a focus on web docs

#24

Post by amelius » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 2:12 PM UTC

Can we please have a comments section on every page of documentation?

Re: The future of MDN: a focus on web docs

#25

Post by nailer » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 2:13 PM UTC

vog wrote: post #10

westoque wrote: post #5

I just wish they had better SEO than say W3Schools

Same for RFCs. Let's search for "rfc 1855". The first item is indeed the original plain text source, unfortunately without links or anything: - https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt But the second hit is a third-party source, that doesn't provide much over the plain text version. It doesn't even contain the RFC contents directly. I can't imagine anyone seriously linked to that page, let alone that so many are doing it…

I wish someone made a proper HTML RFC, with variable width characters for paragraphs for readability purposes and monospace for code (which should be easily detectable)

Re: The future of MDN: a focus on web docs

#26

Post by nailer » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 2:14 PM UTC

peternicky wrote: post #22

niutech wrote: post #20

There is [edit: was] also a community-driven alternative to MDN: https://webplatform.github.io/docs/

Discontinued in 2015. Why would you recommend anyone use that site?

Maybe because they didn't know? Sheesh.

Re: The future of MDN: a focus on web docs

#27

Post by microcolonel » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 2:24 PM UTC

westoque wrote: post #5

I just wish they had better SEO than say W3Schools

They show up pretty high on DuckDuckGo. I think W3Fools has more traffic and more hyperlinks from the DHTML years.

Re: The future of MDN: a focus on web docs

#28

Post by olau » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 2:27 PM UTC

vog wrote: post #10

westoque wrote: post #5

I just wish they had better SEO than say W3Schools

Same for RFCs. Let's search for "rfc 1855". The first item is indeed the original plain text source, unfortunately without links or anything: - https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt But the second hit is a third-party source, that doesn't provide much over the plain text version. It doesn't even contain the RFC contents directly. I can't imagine anyone seriously linked to that page, let alone that so many are doing it…

FYI, to the best of my knowledge:

- ietf.org/rfc/ - rfc-editor.org - tools.ietf.org/html/ - datatracker.ietf.org <- this is the dynamic (Django-based) site that tracks lots of stuff about the working groups and meeting and documents - the source is open so you can look at it if you like - honestly I think this is the best place to link as it gives an increasing amount of context, although tools.ietf.org/html/ is definitely the nicest way to read the contents

Re: The future of MDN: a focus on web docs

#29

Post by vog » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 2:27 PM UTC

iand wrote: post #18

vog wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same for RFCs. Let's search for "rfc 1855". The first item is indeed the original plain text source, unfortunately without links or anything: - https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt But the second hit is a third-party source, that doesn't provide much over the plain text version. It doesn't even contain the RFC contents directly. I can't imagine anyone seriously linked to that page, let alone that so many are doing it…

rfc-editor.org is an IETF-run service and is the official permanent home for RFCs now. See https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7990

Ouch! I would never have thought that this crappy site originates from the IETF itself. It doesn't even point to their beautiful (and fully inter-linked!) HTML versions.

Re: The future of MDN: a focus on web docs

#30

Post by olau » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 2:29 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #25

vog wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same for RFCs. Let's search for "rfc 1855". The first item is indeed the original plain text source, unfortunately without links or anything: - https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt But the second hit is a third-party source, that doesn't provide much over the plain text version. It doesn't even contain the RFC contents directly. I can't imagine anyone seriously linked to that page, let alone that so many are doing it…

I wish someone made a proper HTML RFC, with variable width characters for paragraphs for readability purposes and monospace for code (which should be easily detectable)

Work started on that last year based on the RFC XML format. Or was it the year before that? It will get here eventually.

I think it's likely someone will go through old RFCs and convert them too.