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W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

w3fools.com

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Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#31

Post by rwaldron »

justinph wrote: post #20

I agree with the sentiment here, but not the way in which this goes about it. W3schools' name is a little scammy, but the info they house is useful. The issues w3fools cite are pretty esoteric and/or very nit-picky. For instance: | www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_q.asp. | Browser Support. The tag is supported in all major browsers, | except Internet Explorer. This is blatantly false; tags work just fine in IE8. Uh, yeah,…

"W3schools obviously fills a niche that the W3C isn't filling"

This alone is the biggest problem - that you think they are somehow related. They are not.

"W3Schools has gone through the work of reading the spec and turning it into a good reference"

No. You're wrong. THIS: http://dmitrysoshnikov.com/ecmascript/

...is a good reference based on a spec.

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#32

Post by unreal37 »

gf3 wrote: post #17
unreal37 wrote: post #10

First let me say, I am a web developer and use W3Schools as a reference. The web would be a worse place without it. They deserve their high Google ranking. So to attack something that is on the whole good, which may be 99% accurate but not 100% accurate, seems mean-spirited. Someone put a lot of time into this, and it's a shame they didn't do something productive instead of destructive.

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.

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#33

Post by peol »

Roridge wrote: post #23

Would it be wrong to point out that the missing parts of the source for w3fools.com ? Or observing that placement of things like the google analytics code at the bottom, instead of the head? Or would that make me pedantic?

Regarding the placement of GA, this is intentional. You don't want to count a visit before the page has actually been displayed to the user.

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#34

Post by alex_c »

rwaldron wrote: post #18
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.

I'm dismissing it because the information is wrong. I also contribute to https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/ in support of the http://promotejs.com/ initiative. So as far as I can tell, you're making comments that are wrong because you're not informed.

I think you might have missed my point.

ExpertsExchange was useful because it had a broad range of obscure technical information, and the ability to get specific questions answered, but it was spammy and a pain to use. StackOverflow came along, took the good parts of that model, combined them with a clean interface and an open community, and won.

W3Schools is useful because it's a good barebones reference that assumes zero prior knowledge of the subject, but it's somewhat shady in how it represents itself, and the information isn't always accurate/complete/up to date. X came along...

As far as I can tell, neither of the two sites you linked, or the parent article, are a good reference for absolute beginners, which is the only thing that will either beat W3Schools or force them to improve.

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#35

Post by alextgordon »

bentruyman wrote: post #27
jacquesm wrote: post #24

Don't bitch, fix it. Build your own w3schools and make a go of it, obviously these are huge oversights that need to be addressed by competent technical professionals that are as dedicated as these guys are. Really, as long as you define yourself by attacking such a mediocre institution as w3schools you still have a ways to go. Google didn't get where they are by pointing at altavista and their crappy search results,…

Maybe you missed this: http://w3fools.com/#build-one-yourselves

They suggest PromoteJS which links to MDC. Imagine you've never written a line of JavaScript. Which one of these would you rather be linked to?

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript/Guide

http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp

The massive table of contents with words like "inheritance", "iterators" and "regular expressions" or the page with a hello world program and a button you can click to run it yourself?

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#36

Post by peol »

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.

By letting beginners learn most stuff the wrong way, you're not helping anyone, and you put them behind in knowledge that is actually usable and good practice.

> The material on W3Schools is split into bite-sized chunks, along with numerous examples, references, quizzes, try it yourself areas... None of the alternatives suggested are this well organized.

Well organized misinformation is still a bad resource.

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#37

Post by justinph »

rwaldron wrote: post #31
justinph wrote: post #20

I agree with the sentiment here, but not the way in which this goes about it. W3schools' name is a little scammy, but the info they house is useful. The issues w3fools cite are pretty esoteric and/or very nit-picky. For instance: | www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_q.asp. | Browser Support. The tag is supported in all major browsers, | except Internet Explorer. This is blatantly false; tags work just fine in IE8. Uh, yeah,…

"W3schools obviously fills a niche that the W3C isn't filling" This alone is the biggest problem - that you think they are somehow related. They are not. "W3Schools has gone through the work of reading the spec and turning it into a good reference" No. You're wrong. THIS: http://dmitrysoshnikov.com/ecmascript/ ...is a good reference based on a spec.

I think your example proves my point perfectly. A blog post on this guy's website might be more technically correct and complete, but it certainly isn't easier to use, or actually reference when you just want to look up how the string.replace() method works, for instance. I think people are underestimating the utility of the easy organization that w3schools provides. They make it accessible, quickly.

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#39

Post by akavlie »

The top placement in Google search results for almost anything W3Schools covers is another sign that Google is broken, in my view.

reference.sitepoint.com is a much better reference for anything they cover -- easier navigation, better presentation, and most importantly, more depth and advice on important topics. In a fair fight, it would far outrank W3Schools.

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#40

Post by jonprins »

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…

How is "numerous examples, references, quizzes, try it yourself areas" even worth anything if said examples, references, quizzes and so forth are... incorrect?

It's like saying, "Well, at least we have textbooks! Too bad half of them say the world is only 6,000 years old, but hey! No body's written a better text book than this yet!"

And how is it decent as a refresher and function reference, if it's just refreshing fallacies? Try using something that's actually accurate. In fact, MDC has a pretty decent xpath section: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/xpath

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