If they won't wikify all they need to do is add comments to their page via disqus or some other third party system.
Then people can post corrections and examples.
They can disallow links if they are worried about spam.
An Ode To W3Schools
51–60 of 66 posts
Re: An Ode To W3Schools
#52The problem with W3Schools is not that it's horribly bad in any way.
It's that it's so consistently mediocre, and at the same time, so prevalent.
We need not accept this. The task that they're trying to achieve can be done so much better.
Re: An Ode To W3Schools
#53If they won't wikify all they need to do is add comments to their page via disqus or some other third party system. Then people can post corrections and examples. They can disallow links if they are worried about spam.
Comments wouldn't solve much, I fear. For example take a look at PHP's documentation or MSDN. Both have community content in form of comments. In PHP's case it's a few helpful hints and a lot of bad example code in said comments. Or years-old discussions no one really needs anymore. On MSDN the comments are pretty much only used for P/Invoke signatures of Windows API calls (which is helpful, but I'd argue they're not really the point of comments).
Re: An Ode To W3Schools
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. The reason a lot of newbies start with W3Schools is because they're the plague of Google search results. Popularity isn't everything. If it was, we'd all be promoting Nicki Minaj as the definitive source of quality music.
That may be why they start, but nobody would come back if the site wasn't so terribly useful, concise and easy to navigate.
Nobody ever navigate in w3schools, they come back from Google each time.
Re: An Ode To W3Schools
#55I disagree and I don't think he really responded to any of the criticisms, just sort-of acknowledged them. > They Appear Affiliated With The W3C > For those in the know the W3C is the World Wide Web Consortium, it is an international organization that governs the web. W3Schools rides off the notoriety of that name despite being unaffiliated. Is that really a complaint? How many _Java_Script developers are out there t…
Only problem is that MDN's load times are ass, W3Schools is much faster. This single thing is 99% of the reason why W3Schools will continue to be favored by most people (imo).
No, the single thing that will keep people using w3schools is that they have managed to permanently glue themselves to the top of any Google search related to HTML or JS. Back when Google's site-blocking feature was enabled, they used mirrored domains to keep themselves in your results if you tried to block them. That is, you'd block "www.w3schools.com", and then your searches would have "wwww.w3schools.com" right up at the top.
It's really surprising to me, with abusive tactics like that, that Google hasn't penalized their page rank.
Re: An Ode To W3Schools
#56I love to hate W3Schools as much as anyone these days, but here's a dirty little secret: when I was making the transition from nights-and-weekends coding enthusiast to professional programmer, I needed something (anything) to put on my resume that might suggest to HR that I can do the work. Two W3Schools online certs later I landed the gig that started my development career.
I would suggest that any employer who puts value in a W3Schools certification is not somewhere you want to work. The HTML quiz[1] they recommend to prepare for the certification test includes questions like: 5. What is the preferred way for adding a background color in HTML? * * * yellow (hint: none of them) 10. How can you open a link in a new browser window? * * * (hint: two of them) [1]: http://www.w3schools.com/q…
Question 10 - your hint is incorrect.
target="_blank" opens a link in a new browser window every time.
target="new" opens a link in a browser window called "new". If a window of that name exists it uses it, if it doesn't exist it creates a new window.
(Assuming the browser doesn't override or circumvent the opening of links in something other than the current window)
Re: An Ode To W3Schools
#57Long time ago when I was a newbie, I used w3schools to ramp up on web basics. The format was easy to use. I still to back occasionally for a quick double check on syntax.
For naysayers that believe that better options exist in the space for newbies, perhaps they could provide links to these resources.
Re: An Ode To W3Schools
#58I love to hate W3Schools as much as anyone these days, but here's a dirty little secret: when I was making the transition from nights-and-weekends coding enthusiast to professional programmer, I needed something (anything) to put on my resume that might suggest to HR that I can do the work. Two W3Schools online certs later I landed the gig that started my development career.
I would suggest that any employer who puts value in a W3Schools certification is not somewhere you want to work. The HTML quiz[1] they recommend to prepare for the certification test includes questions like: 5. What is the preferred way for adding a background color in HTML? * * * yellow (hint: none of them) 10. How can you open a link in a new browser window? * * * (hint: two of them) [1]: http://www.w3schools.com/q…
I submit when you're changing careers you typically don't have the luxury of picking and choosing your employer. If you're between jobs the landscape is making rent, career fulfillment doesn't even factor in.
Incidentally while the company was a total sweatshop the job turned out to be a fantastic opportunity. I was able to work with a broad array of technologies in a professional setting and build my professional network. I am now a senior developer for a fantastic company that's helping make the world a better place.
Re: An Ode To W3Schools
#59While I never used w3schools to learn anything, their DOM and CSS references are of immeasurable value and I constantly find myself hitting that part of their site.
Re: An Ode To W3Schools
#60The argument against w3schools is simple: Use Primary Sources Wherever Possible.
If you want to learn about the history of the Holy Roman Empire then Wikipedia is great. The relevant primary sources are numerous, and many of them are probably written in languages you can't even read. But if you want to learn about web development, the primary sources of documentation are few, easily found, and authoritative.
If you want canned solutions to your problem, look to StackOverflow. W3Schools can die in a fire.
The thing that is more annoying than w3schools is that if you tell Google to always exclude w3schools results from your searches, it won't. So I have to manually append "-w3schools" to every.webdev.search.I.do.