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W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

w3fools.com

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Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#41

Post by alex_c »

danheberden wrote: post #26
alex_c wrote: post #14

While everyone else was busy bitching about ExpertsExchange, a few people got together, built a much better alternative, and now dominate Google search results. As far as I can tell, these guys are dismissing that option because it's too much work.

Yeah, I spend my time on an open-source library used by thousands of people and supported said library, helping users with problems and contributing to documentation. So dumb to link to already available, good resources instead of building a better alternative. I wish I wasn't so lazy!

Out of curiosity, can you link to one of those good resources, and to an equivalent w3schools page?

Setting aside questions of Google rank and discoverability, I suspect the "good resource" will have much more information, will be more correct, but will also be more verbose, may assume more prior knowledge from the reader, and will be less likely to provide instant gratification.

There's a big difference between a good resource for an experienced developer and a good resource for an absolute newbie, and I haven't seen that addressed yet.

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#42

Post by RyanMcGreal »

W3Schools has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, but it scores over more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly easier to use; and secondly it has the best SEO of any major beginners' web tutorial.

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#43

Post by bbatsell »

unreal37 wrote: post #32
gf3 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me get this straight, you take pity on a business because people are outraged that the information they are providing is incorrect and they are deliberately tricking people into believing they are affiliated the W3C standards group? As well, it's not as if several better resources don't already exist. Too bad they don't have the advantage of such a deceptive name.

Is there any human on the planet that thinks W3Schools is affiliated with W3C? If you're smart enough to know what W3C is, then you know W3Schools is different. It's a strawman, knock it down. W3C did not invent the term world wide web, www, or w3 - there is no deception.

> W3C did not invent the term world wide web, www, or w3 - there is no deception.

W3C was founded by (and remains directed by) Tim Berners-Lee, who did, in fact, invent both the term "world wide web" and the actual world wide web.

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#44

Post by ajpiano »

alextgordon wrote: post #25

W3Schools is great because it covers everything , in an approachable manner. For the one occasion a year I use XPath, W3Schools has a nice refresher and function reference. Sure, the information may be imprecise or just plain wrong, but we have to remember that this is for absolute beginners. Merely having errors does not make w3schools worthless, and a lack of errors does not make alternatives better. The material o…

"Sure, the information may be imprecise or just plain wrong, but we have to remember that this is for absolute beginners. Merely having errors does not make w3schools worthless, and a lack of errors does not make alternatives better."

This is the biggest problem. When you're an absolute beginner, you don't know what's right and what's wrong, and if wrong things are being presented in the middle of right things, it's impossible to discern the difference. Accuracy should be of the utmost concern for people who are providing information to people who are at the beginning of their learning journey.

"Just think what kind of HTML tutorial could have been created with the time and effort it took to build w3fools.com."

Not a very good one. w3fools came together in about a week of on-and-off collaboration after several months of having an etherpad where people were dumping errors they came across. The effort to create a comprehensive HTML tutorial and then position it in a place where it could counter w3schools is many orders of magnitude larger.

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#45

Post by ajpiano »

ambirex wrote: post #6
gf3 wrote: post #2

If you read through the content you'll see it's not an attack. It simply addresses some major flaws in W3Schools as well as some sketchy business practices.

Perhaps the using the term "fools" could be seen as an attack. They do bring up some interesting grievances.

or a good rhyme...

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#46

Post by camtarn »

unreal37 wrote: post #32
gf3 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me get this straight, you take pity on a business because people are outraged that the information they are providing is incorrect and they are deliberately tricking people into believing they are affiliated the W3C standards group? As well, it's not as if several better resources don't already exist. Too bad they don't have the advantage of such a deceptive name.

Is there any human on the planet that thinks W3Schools is affiliated with W3C? If you're smart enough to know what W3C is, then you know W3Schools is different. It's a strawman, knock it down. W3C did not invent the term world wide web, www, or w3 - there is no deception.

Call me dumb, but I never realised they weren't affiliated.

I originally learned HTML and CSS from the W3 specs, but when I needed a quick reference page W3Schools were usually on the top of the Google search results. I usually spent about ten seconds clicking the link, reading the page, then leaving with the info I needed. Sure, I knew what W3C stood for, vs just plain W3, but I never even thought about the name.

I actually feel pretty bad now: I recommended W3Schools as a beginner PHP tutorial for a non-coding friend, after a StackOverflow thread recommended it. I just used the PHP manual myself, but she was after something friendlier. Don't suppose anyone knows a decent alternative beginners' tutorial which promotes modern PHP practices and will steer her away from shooting herself in the foot?

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#47

Post by ajpiano »

steverenz wrote: post #9
ambirex wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the using the term "fools" could be seen as an attack. They do bring up some interesting grievances.

Their points are valid of course...but it seems laughably naive to treat this as some kind of cause that developers should rally around. And their response to "why don't you build a better version' made me laugh - it sort of encapsulates internet culture in general. I'd like to see more links to better sites for rank beginners than this "call to arms" stuff.

I wrote the "why don't you build a better version" text as a response to "Internet Culture," which mandates that if you want to point out that something is bad, you actually have to build a better alternative yourself.

If I ride on a boring, crappy rollercoaster, I don't need to open up my own theme park in order to air my frustrations.

A lot of the people who worked on w3fools spend a lot of time helping actual other human beings who need support in building websites, and encounter the errors from w3schools regularly, and we invest our time in those and other endeavours. W3schools said "we're going to spend OUR time on building an entry-level reference that everyone can use," and we want

a) the community to be well-aware of its caveats b) it to improve

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#48

Post by sdizdar »

I went thru http://w3fools.com/#htmlsucks and errors reported there are very minor (I guess using Facebook API documentation trained me to be more forgiving).

The w3school is a perfect for what it is. Is it reference? No - they don't claim to be. Is it school for beginners? Yes - and the excellent school. The organization is very good, there are examples, etc.

Can somebody make better school which is wiki based? Yes.

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#50

Post by ajpiano »

sdizdar wrote: post #48

I went thru http://w3fools.com/#htmlsucks and errors reported there are very minor (I guess using Facebook API documentation trained me to be more forgiving). The w3school is a perfect for what it is. Is it reference? No - they don't claim to be. Is it school for beginners? Yes - and the excellent school. The organization is very good, there are examples, etc. Can somebody make better school which is wiki based? Yes.

"Is it reference? No - they don't claim to be."

They don't? http://gyazo.com/61a797188fa6045b23e6f5cf22006e1c.png

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