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W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

w3fools.com

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Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#51

Post by extension »

jacquesm wrote: post #29
bentruyman wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't see any building, I just see a strange kind of entitlement mixed with a taste of blackmail. Really, they're just bitching about the google rankings when you really think about it, because 'they know closures' or something to that effect. w3schools is ranked highly because lots of people linked to it and it seems to have helped them in some way or other. If you feel that that ranking is not correct then maybe…

Truth through Google ranking?

Yes, you can gain a massive audience by telling lies people want to hear i.e. "I can teach you how to be a competent web developer!" They are still lies and they deserve criticism. There are extreme errors on that site that will break you for years and cause a lot of damage. They have a blatant SQL injection bug in their MySQL lesson, for example.

And "I don't see you doing any better" is schoolyard justice. An entry level site that's accurate and current is a fine idea. Someone should do it. That's irrelevant to this matter.

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#52

Post by bentruyman »

peol wrote: post #33
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.

Sauce: http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/gaTracki...

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#53

Post by bermanoid »

jonprins wrote: post #40
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 f…

The organizational differences between the two sites:

1) http://www.w3schools.com/xpath/ 2) https://developer.mozilla.org/en/xpath

pretty clearly show why W3Schools is capturing so much beginner mindshare.

From 1), it's trivially clear where to start: the link is labeled "Start Learning XPath Now!", and even if you skip that, below there's a linear list of topics. When and if I do click on the "start" link (or the first item in the ToC), I'm greeted with what is very clearly the first part of a walkthrough. Going through the sections, it's all pretty clearly marked, chunked up into easily digestible pieces, etc. Perfect for a first glance through the topic, even though I'll definitely admit that in general W3Schools content leaves something to be desired.

Conversely, from 2), the Mozilla.org page, it's pretty difficult to figure out where I want to be clicking, assuming I know nothing. After I discard the "tools" section as probably irrelevant to learning from scratch about this, I'm left with the "Documentation" column. So far, so good.

The first item in that list says "Introduction to using XPath in JavaScript", which still sounds pretty good, except wait! At the top of the page, it says that XPath is primarily used with XSLT, but this tutorial gives an intro to XPath without XSLT, so that can't be right...why would the special case that doesn't match what people usually use this for be the first item in the documentation list?

And yikes, those other links don't really look like introductions to XPath, either, they look like special topics about XPath. The last link (http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2000/08/holman/) is probably the closest to what a beginner might want, but it's a lot of material, not the ~10 minute introduction to the topic that we'd really be looking for.

It's alright, though. If we poke around at the "Using XPath" link (https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Using_XPath), we find that "Mozilla" (yeah, I'm aware that's a wiki, but you know what I mean...) has a suggestion as to where to go to learn more:

This article does not attempt teach XPath itself. If you're unfamiliar with this technology, please refer to W3Schools XPath tutorial.

Sigh.

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#54

Post by jacquesm »

extension wrote: post #51
jacquesm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any building, I just see a strange kind of entitlement mixed with a taste of blackmail. Really, they're just bitching about the google rankings when you really think about it, because 'they know closures' or something to that effect. w3schools is ranked highly because lots of people linked to it and it seems to have helped them in some way or other. If you feel that that ranking is not correct then maybe…

Truth through Google ranking? Yes, you can gain a massive audience by telling lies people want to hear i.e. "I can teach you how to be a competent web developer!" They are still lies and they deserve criticism. There are extreme errors on that site that will break you for years and cause a lot of damage. They have a blatant SQL injection bug in their MySQL lesson, for example. And "I don't see you doing any better" i…

In grade school I learned that the country I live in can be represented on a flat map. That doesn't mean there aren't any levels of knowledge above grade school.

w3schools does not portend to be the 'be all end all' of knowledge about the web or developing on the web. They're just another resource and they probably serve their intended purpose a very large number of the times.

Example code usually does not come with guarantees of correctness or even applicability to your problem. It just shows you the basics. It's the cut-and-paste mentality that causes such samples to be used in production code and that's a real problem, but that problem does not lie with the source of the information.

A MySQL lesson that shows you the basics is explicitly not going to go in to details like prepared statements, sql injection and prevention and so on.

Just like you don't teach physics to a kid that you're teaching to walk.

If you're using w3schools as a source for cut-and-paste examples or even best practices then you're doing it wrong, think of it as the 'grade school' of web development. Good enough to get your feet wet, not good enough to build an enterprise grade web application.

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#55

Post by iansym »

ajpiano wrote: post #50
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

i like how the menu's on the right :) but then again, maybe i'm not seeing the whole picture.

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#56

Post by alanstorm »

bentruyman wrote: post #12
radioactive21 wrote: post #11

huh I always use w3schools just to quickly see what a language is. I never took it as serious learning, that's for books and other sources. Attacking this site is like attacking a flyer for being too gimped on information.

So what you're saying is W3Schools should not be called out for posting misinformation?

A the risk of being tarred and feathered for pedantic behavior, the W3Schools doesn't post misinformation. They posted information that was accurate at the time, and then let is sit up there for 5-8 years as the state of the art improved.

[edited for grammar]

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#57

Post by radioactive21 »

bentruyman wrote: post #12
radioactive21 wrote: post #11

huh I always use w3schools just to quickly see what a language is. I never took it as serious learning, that's for books and other sources. Attacking this site is like attacking a flyer for being too gimped on information.

So what you're saying is W3Schools should not be called out for posting misinformation?

I never said anything about the accuracy of w3schools. And as the person below has commented, the issue is more or less about out dated information.

Re: W3Fools - A W3Schools Intervention

#58

Post by Roridge »

peol wrote: post #33
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.

Actually the modern GA way is using the async javascript the snippit for which goes before the but hey W3Fools wasn't about being accurate... oh wait, it was.

http://code.google.com/intl/en-GB/apis/analytics/docs/tracki...

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