11 ms·

Why I'm Planning to Kill W3Schools

172 points by kixxauth 13y ago

W3Schools has dominated the search results for longer that it deserves, yet we haven't been able to do anything about it.

lttlrck 13y ago
W3Schools is why I installed Chromes Personal Blocklist extension...
tingletech 13y ago
"Any one of us would be lying if we said we didn't learn plenty of web development from that site when we were getting started." Well, I remember where I was sitting in the summer of 1993 when I first read about the www -- while browsing gopher. I made my first web page in 1994. I can honestly I didn't learn anything from that site when I was getting started.
KingdomSprite 13y ago
I have personally found that Tizag[1] provides a much better HTML, CSS, PHP, and MySQL tutorial than W3Schools while still having a really easy to navigate website. Instead of reinventing the wheel all the time, maybe we should all focus our efforts into making the Web Platform[2] better or encourage people to use higher quality websites like Tizag. [1] http://www.tizag.com/htmlT/ http://www.tizag.com/htmlT/ [2] http://www.webplatform.org/ http://www.webplatform.org/
pmelendez 13y ago
I was expecting to see some examples about why there are so much hate in W3schools but I didn't find any on this rant. I remember to have seen some bad examples showing bad habits but to be honest, I have seen more people ranting about W3S than bad examples on the website, maybe it would be more useful to show why W3S sucks that much.
- DanBC 13y ago
  Members of W3C have asked W3schools to make it clear that there's no link between W3C and W3Schools, but W3Schools declined. W3Schools offer "certification" - (http://www.w3schools.com/cert/default.asp http://www.w3schools.com/cert/default.asp) - of dubious value. This is troublesome because people know of W3schools, and sometimes think there's a link between W3schools and W3C.
  - pmelendez 13y ago
    Indeed that is misleading but that doesn't invalidate the content though.
    - stretchwithme 13y ago
      Its only misleading if you know what w3c is. And those who do know what it is probably figure out the difference quickly.
- thoughtpalette 13y ago
  This points out some good reasons to dislike it. http://www.w3fools.com/ http://www.w3fools.com/
thisishugo 13y ago
I've conditioned myself to prefix any HTML, CSS or JavaScript question with "mdn" so I get Mozilla's docs. They're always excellent in my experience.
- AnSavvides 13y ago
  I do the exact same thing; MDN is an absolutely brilliant network and anyone can contribute to it.
lucisferre 13y ago
I've had a lot of people tell me to start using MDN, but--don't hate me--the thing is I generally find W3S easier to use and more useful (at least for the basic stuff I usually need to Google for). I hate to admit it but I continue to use W3S even if it is at least partially because it's usually the top result, even when I make the effort to scroll down to the MDN entry I'm usually rewarded with something tangentially related and/or missing the actually thing I needed to know. That said I think there is definitely a lot of room for improvement, I just haven't found MDN fills that gap yet so I wish the author of this luck but I hope they realize MDNs folly. Ad free isn't necessarily better. W3S is, despite it's flaws, fairly simple, easy to use and understand (mostly) and the relevant results almost always show up at the top of a Google search.
- kixxauth 13y ago
  Thanks so much :) That's great feedback. And yeah, I totally agree. The site navigation for Mozilla Developer Network is really terrible. And the open wiki -- crowd sourced -- style of content editing means there is no consistency. I land on W3Schools all the time when I'm looking stuff up, probably more so than StackOverflow. I just think we really deserve something better.
- spoiler 13y ago
  It never had a problem with MDN, but MDN is a lot. our detailed, so I see why it might potentially be hard to use at first. Takes some time to get used to changes, even if said things are an improvement.
- colmvp 13y ago
  I don't think one should be hated for opting for the quickest resource. W3S arguably does have a better design. Some people look for examples in finding out how to code something and as you mentioned, W3S is almost always usually at the very top of the page with browser compatibility at the bottom. It would be interesting to test out a feature where the user could select simple vs. complex document layout.
jstsch 13y ago
Quite some people, even professionals I've encountered, think that W3Schools is related to W3C.
- kixxauth 13y ago
  Yeah, I thought W3Schools was an endorsed site of the W3C for a long time -- like years.
  - petercooper 13y ago
    This is why we have trademark law.
- code_duck 13y ago
  They leverage that misperception to sell useless 'certifications' - over 10k sold so far (at $99 each), they claim.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    I dunno, seems to me that prospective applicants trumpeting W3Schools certifications is a valuable signal...
- TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
  The W3C have explicitly asked them to disavow any connection to them, multiple times. W3Schools have, obviously, refused.
jplur 13y ago
Why not throw your support at https://developer.mozilla.org/ https://developer.mozilla.org/? They've done an amazing job of documenting HTML/CSS/JS.
- pekk 13y ago
  What kind of support are they looking for? and will this solve the problem or is it a different kind of problem they are solving?
- kixxauth 13y ago
  I really love MDN, and in some ways I feel guilty for doing this. I've been a MDN contributor. But the MDN information architecture/navigation is terrible, the crowd sourced content is inconsistent, the pages load very slowly. When you put it all together, it's difficult to focus on winning the search engine game with those flaws. There was a "Better JS docs" movement a few years ago that moved the needle a little, but in the end it was just the wrong content to do the job.
  - ubernostrum 13y ago
    MDN is, in the near future, launching a redesign. Might be worth checking it out. (source: I work for Mozilla, on MDN)
  - sequoia 13y ago
    > the crowd sourced content is inconsistent You don't plan on crowd sourcing content? You're going to write all these documents, tutorials, cheat sheets and videos by yourself?
    - dinkumthinkum 13y ago
      You realize there used to be these very useful, very accurate things written by either one or very few persons ... they were called "books" ... They were kind of a crazy idea, I admit ...
mathias 13y ago
http://www.w3fools.com/ http://www.w3fools.com/
- vezzy-fnord 13y ago
  Ah, the joys of linking W3Fools to everyone who even mentioned the word "W3Schools". I wonder if anyone's made a Reddit bot or something of the sort to do just that automatically?
  - aroman 13y ago
    I can't really think of another article where posting that link would be more appropriate. Seriously now, we're talking about the flaws of W3Schools. How is W3Fools not relevant here?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - chplx 13y ago
    @mathias is actually one of the contributors http://www.w3fools.com/#contributors http://www.w3fools.com/#contributors not a bot.
- nivla 13y ago
  I have a confession to make and a risky one, well to the extend of every karma I got. I own http://www.w3fool.com/ http://www.w3fool.com/, the one with missing 's' and you don't want know where it redirects to. I bought it when I saw it at an expired auction. I couldn't stand at thought of a website existing just to shame another. On one hand, I agree with most of you that W3School isn't accurate or up-to-date or is riled with example that have security holes but on the other I am really thankful for them for getting me into web development. Back then there weren't much options, W3School was the easiest and the best we had. I remember sitting late nights learning to build simple web apps by referencing W3School every few minutes. Getting someone interested into something is very hard, to get a kid interested in sports, you don't start with a ruleset, instead you give him a start and correct him as he makes mistakes. That start was what W3School was for me. Although I have been defending it, I think they should expire/update w3school. Times have changed and there are better resources to take its place.
abhididdigi 13y ago
more excellent points here : http://www.w3fools.com/ http://www.w3fools.com/ I have stopped going to W3C schools for various mentioned in the above website.
leephillips 13y ago
This is part of why I think I've developed a reflex, after searching Google, to skip over the first few results after the sponsored links and start looking near the middle of the page. W3Schools, Wikipedia, and a few others. And it's a great example of the central failure of the pagerank idea: if the strongest signal is popularity measured through linkage, the highest quality results will rarely be at or even near the top. Right now Stackoverflow is good and deservedly ranks highly, but I fully expect it to be supplanted in Google's search rankings by an inferior copycat within a few years: one that just happens to generate more revenue for Google by carrying more advertising.
- kyberias 13y ago
  I don't have the slightest idea why you're getting downvoted because I think that's a valid observation.
  - leephillips 13y ago
    First downvote was < 60 seconds after I posted. There are at least a handful of Google employees here. EDIT: and yes, I deserve the downvotes I'm getting for this useless meta-comment.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > W3Schools, Wikipedia, and a few others. And it's a great example of the central failure of the pagerank idea: if the strongest signal is popularity measured through linkage, the highest quality results will rarely be at or even near the top. Actually, I find that the top ranked things usually have what I was searching for -- often that's W3Schools or Wikipedia. I'm not a big fan of W3Schools site design, and I wish they had output examples, but, really, the site design isn't bad enough that it makes it unusable as a reference, and usually when I get it at the top of a search results page, I'm usually looking for a quick reference.
- moultano 13y ago
  >but I fully expect it to be supplanted in Google's search rankings by an inferior copycat within a few years: one that just happens to generate more revenue for Google by carrying more advertising. Google does not take revenue into account in its ranking, or the decisions on how it changes its ranking. It is neither a signal, nor does it influence which signals are used.
danso 13y ago
This is a good initiative, but it's a big task, so I think it's worth nitpicking now if you're going to have any chance of displacing w3schools: Fix the font. It's too faint and if I were a newbie landing on this and comparing it to W3Schools, I'd immediately switch to W3Schools. Your site's wide body width also hurts readability. I'm not trying to nitpick for nitpick's sake...coming from experience, it's harder to change these things (not technically, but mustering the will to do so) later on in the process. And readability is key in winning the masses over, and is not just a minor detail in relation to the overall goal.
- kixxauth 13y ago
  Thanks so much for the feedback :) I about 70% developer and 30% designer, so I'm actually looking for a designer to hire and help me out with this effort. Know anyone?
code_duck 13y ago
Why does the author find the young female Java students pictured on the other site insulting?
- kyberias 13y ago
  Yes! I hate this innuendo. Why? What _really_ is wrong with these pictures? "Tutorial Point seems to think that Java programming students look like this." Well, they haven't claimed that at all. All they did was use some stock photos of attractive women in their ads. Is that any different that in any other ad? Why is that insulting? It doesn't insult me. Why would it insult anyone?
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  Maybe because it is typical cheap poorly-shooped up stockphoto tripe that appears to be intended to appeal to naive but sincere neophytes for the purpose of roping them in, sucking their money, and giving them a useless certification. Such certifications are more likely to serve as a warning to the potential employers who know better, and have the tendency to discredit education in general when an unsuspecting employer is duped by one. Double negative points for targeting women, making it harder for them to pursue a career.
SpenserJ 13y ago
I use Google's Personal Blocklist extension (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist-by-goo/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist...) to block W3S from my search results, which usually results in the first result pointing to MDN.
- kixxauth 13y ago
  I wow, that's a great idea. Thanks!
kijin 13y ago
Nobody denies that W3Schools is a terrible place to learn how to program. Their examples are outdated, insecure, and don't really explain why things work in a certain way. Their tutorials are optimized for copy & paste, and God knows how many security bugs in the wild are due to somebody copying W3Schools. But W3Schools also carries some of the most easy-to-use indexes of pretty much everything related to web development. Can't remember the exact name of that CSS property and its possible values? Can't remember the order of arguments of a JS string/array function? Go to W3Schools and browse their lists, get the answer in 5 seconds. Of course, there's Mozilla Developer Networks, too. But MDN's CSS Reference [1] is just an alphabetical list of CSS properties with no explanation. W3Schools' CSS Reference [2] is neatly categorized, and each entry has a short explanation next to it. Very useful when you're trying to remember, for example, "word-wrap: break-word", which is not the same as "word-break: break-all". [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference [2] http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/default.asp http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/default.asp W3Schools is good ol' Web 1.0 stuff. Just some lists and a bunch of links. No need to ask somebody and wait for an answer. No need to watch any annoying videos. No need to follow an animated tutorial designed by someone who thinks they know how a person should learn programming. W3Schools is like an old dictionary. A dictionary isn't particularly helpful when you're trying to learn a foreign language properly, but it's quite handy when you're face to face with a foreigner and you need to think up a word for "toilet paper" quickly. I use W3Schools when I need to remember something quickly, and MDN when I need to learn more deeply about it. When I write CSS, I always keep W3Schools open in one tab and MDN in another tab. I wish somebody would link W3Schools' lists to MDN's details. That would make the best of both worlds.
- j_baker 13y ago
  Out of curiosity, what examples are insecure?
  - jre 13y ago
    Their SQL examples don't seem to perform any kind of input sanitization. They just use raw $_POST. http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_mysql_insert.asp http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_mysql_insert.asp
pamelafox 13y ago
My background: In my free time, I teach web development to complete beginners, for the SF GirlDevelopIt chapter (using http://www.teaching-materials.org/ http://www.teaching-materials.org/). A few observations I've made: 1) For the sort of things that they are trying to learn (basic HTML tags), W3Schools is a great resource. It's clear and fairly up to date. No other resource has managed to overtake them for beginner friendliness. I was hoping http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/Main_Page http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/Main_Page might, but right now it seems like just a skin over MDN and searching doesn't work so well. I don't know if they've given up or what. (One idea: You could help them) 2) After I teach the second HTML lesson, I will explicitly show students "okay, here's how you search for HTML help on the internet." At that point, I'll show them W3Schools and MDN and explain the drawbacks/benefits of each. Don't know how much of that sticks with them, but it's worth a shot. 3) It took me a long time to put together HTML/CSS/JS curriculum. I first started several years ago, when teaching our first workshop, and have been adding to it since (and there are still more topics I want to add). I did also start video taping my lectures, as I figured it could be a resource for people who didn't make it to the workshops, and that also took me a long time - about an hour to record and edit a 10 minute video. So, I support anyone putting out more great knowledge material in the world, I just hope you have a fair amount of time allocated to work on this, so that you can it proper justice. 4) I recommend having a test audience for your material, like somebody that you tutor, so you can see how they respond to it and where their knowledge holes are. Also, a feedback button. :-)
- stephen_g 13y ago
  In regard to (1), I've been finding recently that I'll look up a CSS property, and it lists the properties and has an example, but I find it's really crap for actually learning anything because the example doesn't actually show you the output. And more than example with screenshots and explanations of each would be useful to actually learn how to use it... I've been deliberately avoiding it for ages now.
  - xerophyte12932 13y ago
    Umm... don't they have that very simple (yet pretty cool) "Try it Now" button? they let you play around with the stuff they teach so you can get the hang of it
mcphilip 13y ago
Feedback: 1) Excellent site look and feel. 2) Juvenile language and problem statement. Off putting pitch to developers that found W3Schools useful. At some point it'll have to switch to a more professional approach. 3) Reading between the lines, apparently the author's goal is to crowdsource basic tutorial development with a long term for profit motive involving premium content. While transparent to mention this up front, it leaves me uninterested in participation.
- 300bps 13y ago
  Juvenile language and problem statement. You really took the high road with this understatement. If OP didn't reference he was in his senior year of college over a decade ago I would've thought he was an angry young teenager.
  - walshemj 13y ago
    Yeah i got that too cant people just get a book and read it - thats what I did on my first web project back in 94. Played around at lunch times a BT and volunteered for a month in Edinburgh on secondment brought the only book on HTML published at the time and read it through a couple of times on the train up to Waverly station.
draegtun 13y ago
Sitepoint produced a good W3Schools alternative - http://reference.sitepoint.com http://reference.sitepoint.com
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
octref 13y ago
I just want to say there ARE some thing that W3School did right, and better than MDN: 1: Navigation 2: Give what its targeted users(newbies) need and no others 1: Just look at a random page in MDN's HTML reference. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a The top navigation (DOCS/APPS/FIREFOX/DEMOS/INVOLVED) are of no use to me if I just want to look for another HTML elment. The only way to go back to the reference page is back button(not many poeple would notice the breadcrumbs), the "Table of contents" is just a fancy decoration there(thanks, I can see the boldfaced enormous headings and I know how to scroll to what I want in a less-than-two page webpage). If you look at W3School, the left navigation lets you access to the page of the element you want to learn very easily. The top navigation bar is also helpful because I might just forget some CSS tricks while learning JQuery. 2. Still a tag on MDN. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a . For a newbie does he need to know "Charset : obsolete. This attribute defines the character encoding of the linked resource. The value is a space- and/or comma-delimited list of character sets as defined in RFC 2045. The default value is ISO-8859-1."? Should this "Usage note: This attribute is obsolete in HTML5 and should not be used by authors. To achieve its effect, use the HTTP Content-Type header on the linked resource." be put on the most prominent place? I believe the most being-looked-for attribute is href. Why MDN can't you put a working example on the top and leave your verbosity to the bottom? Look at W3School, whenever you visit a page, it just gives what 95% of people need: Very short description; an intereactive editor(this feature is awesome but MDN doesn't have it); working-out-of-box example; reference at the very bottom(that's where references should be put). I do not hate MDN. I like Firefox and Mozilla and what people there are doing. But I feel things have come to a stage where some people, to show their passionate love for so-called "open source spirit", discriminate against bussiness effort to build better things although they don't have a better open source alternative. Back to the article. I support what the author is doing, but unless you show at least some decent work, I won't donate. To MDN maintainers: Please read some "The Elements of Style" by Strunk & White and some "Don't make me think" by Steve Krug, and improve MDN. You guys could have done better. W3SChools is targeted to newbies, and they succeed as a great resource for learning HTML/CSS at least(That's what I used it for. I'm not learning PHP and SQL on it). Don't deny it, unless you have a better resource for NEWBIES.
phaedryx 13y ago
reminds me of: http://www.w3fools.com/ http://www.w3fools.com/
moocowduckquack 13y ago
'Why' is easy to state for things like this. 'How' is a lot more work. Also, given that w3schools is a non-profit, why not just help them. Yes, they have adverts, however they state that their aim is to always have everything on the site freely available, rather than a business plan of "Actually, I hope to make a living by selling high quality video tutorials", which leads to perverse incentives to keep the quality of the free stuff low, to stop it from outcompeting the paid stuff.
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago
  > given that w3schools is a non-profit Really? According to Wikipedia it’s a commercial company. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W3Schools http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W3Schools The footer on the w3schools site states “Copyright 1999-2013 by Refsnes Data.” Company site: http://www.cprenterprisesonline.com/elearning/about/about_refsnes.asp.htm http://www.cprenterprisesonline.com/elearning/about/about_re...
  - moocowduckquack 13y ago
    Why would you reference a wikipedia article to support your position without reading it through? from the article - "W3Schools is not for profit, while maintaining normal W3Schools operation is very expensive." The holding company may be for-profit in some things, but it would seem that w3schools itself is not a for-profit concern. As far as the fact that they copyright things, that doesn't tell us whether they make profit from it or not.
    - Samuel_Michon 13y ago
      As far as I can tell, W3Schools is not a company, it is a project by a commercial company. That means they’re not tax exempt and any donations made to them can’t be written off. The company may not make any profit from the project now, but it’s unclear whether that’s by choice. Blackberry doesn’t make any profit, but that doesn’t make them a non-profit.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
dragonwriter 13y ago
> "Any one of us would be lying if we said we didn't learn plenty of web development from that site when we were getting started." W3Schools was launched in 1999. I was "getting started" with web development well before that. I often use it, via Google, as a reference source now, because its good enough as that. I'm not real attached to it, but don't see the reason for the hate. It may be that the introductory material isn't the best for most users, but, you know, even when books were the main source of tutorial material, you couldn't always rely on whatever book was merchandised in the most prominent position with a title that seemed to be on point for what you are looking for, you comparison shopped, looked through several, and figured out which one spoke to you. I'm not going to develop "hate" because the digital equivalent of the most-prominently-merchandised title isn't necessarily the best for all people. Its a lot easier to check out multiple sources from a search results page than it was to check the limited selection at multiple bookstores to find the right resource, and, ultimately, what is the best learning resource for you is a subjective thing.
welder 13y ago
I was tired of W3Schools good SEO so I use this Chrome extension to remove W3Schools from my Google search results: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist-by-goo/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist... Now MDN's JS and CSS reference shows up on top!
nahreally 13y ago
Why does nobody ever mention HTML Dog? I learned all the basics the right way reading from it, the ideas behind them, and what to avoid. It's a seriously great website (and formerly a book, I think? I was a penniless teenager back when I read it), serving as both a tutorial and reference, and it's been around for a really long time. http://www.htmldog.com/ http://www.htmldog.com/ For everything else, there's http://www.quirksmode.org/ http://www.quirksmode.org/ and Stack Overflow ;)
- eplumlee 13y ago
  That and http://htmlgoodies.com http://htmlgoodies.com I learned everything I know about web development from htmlgoodies which has been around for long before w3schools came on the scene.
zenocon 13y ago
> These are really great resources, and I highly recommend them, however, they don't rank high in the search results. Like it or not, the googles is the gateway to the craft of web development, and anything more than an incremental improvement in learning needs to rank well to have an impact. Wouldn't a much easier path be to help those resources cited improve their search results? If w3schools falls down to the second page on a Google search, no one would be having this conversation. There's nothing wrong with wanting to build yet another online learning resource, but if the goal is really to just get people to stop using w3schools, it doesn't require building yet another online learning resource.
jameswyse 13y ago
I use a chrome extension to remove their entries from my search results, along with quora, experts-exchange, etc https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist-by-goo/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist...
- jaredmcateer 13y ago
  I wish Google would bring back actual results blocking, you used to be able to maintain a list of sites that would be blocked from the results and they'd be removed before the result set was returned so you'd never run the risk of an empty page that happens with this extension. Better than nothing though.
gesman 13y ago
It's not W3S's fault, it's Google's fault for misjudging the value of sites they put on top. Essentially you're on a quest to win the attention of Google, and this often is not correlated with the value you trying to built.
paul9290 13y ago
CodePupil would be interested in helping out with this initiative and doing so in an open source/free manner. We feel strongly too that w3Schools is outdated. here's our interactive width & height exercise for newbies http://codepupil.com/ex1.html http://codepupil.com/ex1.html
- rolandm 13y ago
  Even though I use Firefox, the site says that my browser is not supported and I should download e.g. Firefox http://codepupil.com/not-supported.html http://codepupil.com/not-supported.html
arbuge 13y ago
These are really great resources, and I highly recommend them, however, they don't rank high in the search results. Like it or not, the googles is the gateway to the craft of web development... Same in alot of other spaces. Coupon codes for online shopping for example. We operate a site which carries the exact same coupons as the largest coupon site out there does, but the latter hogs all the rankings and is impossible to displace whilst ours goes begging. No obvious reason apart from the fact that they were around earlier when coupon sites were a novelty and picked up plenty of backlinks from media outlets for that reason.
mtts 13y ago
W3Schools is nothing more than a simple to use (google) and navigate (google) collection of pages with tons of reminders to jog your memory about what exactly it was that a specific css selector or html tag did again. If you use it to learn PHP programming you're doing it wrong. If you use it to learn MySQL, you're doing it wrong. If you use it to learn how browsers work, you're doing it wrong. As a Cliff's notes for HTML and CSS, however, it is more than adequate.
null_ptr 13y ago
Your own site currently consists of smack talk, memes, and a mailing list button. How about you focus on creating great content instead of link-bait headlines, and let your work speak for itself?
- peteretep 13y ago
  Exactly. Just do it, come back when you've got some content, and then ask for help promoting it.
- racecar789 13y ago
  Agree. The blog post spews a lot of hatred for a resource that is meant to "help" people.
nullgeo 13y ago
I use the Personal Blocklist app in Google Chrome to block w3schools.com results. Additionally, I saw http://mdn.io http://mdn.io website surfacing in the internet recently. I use mdn.io to get redirected to MDN without doing a Google Search. Examples: http://mdn.io/parseint http://mdn.io/parseint http://mdn.io/window http://mdn.io/window http://mdn.io/math http://mdn.io/math
ulisesrmzroche 13y ago
"I know this is starting to sound like another labor of love, where I now ask you to hit the donation button at the top of the page and contribute to a GitHub repository. Actually, I hope to make a living by selling high quality video tutorials and other material outside of all the awesomeness you can get for free here at The HTML and CSS tutorial. I plan on making a living at this someday; with your help." Let's just put that up and center and keep it honest. It does feel pretty bait-and-switch since you even apologized for the open-source feel and are really begging to make your project #1 on web development google searches and make you rich in the process.
iopq 13y ago
Disappointed this didn't link to w3schools and this is not the owner of the site talking...
Wintamute 13y ago
I recommend the Personal Blocklist Chrome plugin (by Google). I have it setup to remove any w3schools results from my Google searches. Suddenly a simple search for "css background-image" returns lovely looking results, with MDN on the top. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist-by-goo/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist...
brownbat 13y ago
Skimming the comments, there are two camps on W3Schools, those that find it an abomination, and those that find it useful as a quick reference. It's replacement(s) should disaggregate the goals of programming quick reference and beginning instruction, realize those are different things with different design needs. And maybe all other sites should learn the value of putting the information that covers 90% of use cases above the fold. We've gotten a little too impressed with scrolling and the infinite canvas of a webpage, underrating the usability impact of scrolling around to find information, and the beauty of having everything fit on one screen. (I know, dealing with resized browser windows and different sized monitors and high-DPI is hard, but there would be gains...)
getdavidhiggins 13y ago
If a network uses a filtering system and blocks certain keywords, we can modify the W3Schools URL as follows, and submit the URL to search engines: cialis.w3schools.com vardenafil.w3schools.com levitra.w3schools.com milfcuckold.w3schools.com We can't get rid of W3Schools, but we can demote and disavow the URL on Google SERPs. We should submit the link to mechanical turk services on fiverr·com and get the links demoted on Google that way. It is advertised that bulk submitting a URL into spam-silos helps with SEO, when infact Google hates this and implements their Panda algorithm if this occurs. It could backfire and increase SEO temporarily - but because we are practicing 'paid links', Google will punish the site owner for this. I think a crack team of Internet vigilantes should link-blast the W3Schools URL into spam-silos, and the W3Schools problem can finally go away.
Scryptonite 13y ago
I used to use http://help.dottoro.com/ http://help.dottoro.com/ when I was learning to program. I would recommend it if someone was looking for a good go-to doc. But for quick reminders (which is rare) I use generally MDN or read the official spec. They (help.dottoro.com) also have links (when available) to the Microsoft Developer Network, Mozilla Developer Network, Safari Developer Library, and the official W3C spec, which can be helpful. The only thing I would really change about their site is the URL structure. Completely nondescript and not user-friendly. Once you move from using W3S to MDN or really anything else there is no going back. CSS's display: W3S: http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_display_visibility.asp http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_display_visibility.asp MDN: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/display https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/display Dottoro: http://help.dottoro.com/lchnsqsb.php http://help.dottoro.com/lchnsqsb.php
coopdot 13y ago
I learned writing compliant HTML and CSS by reading the specifications "from cover to cover" (or rather the online equivalent of that) in 2001 or so. A few years later I learned PHP and MySQL from reading the documentation on their official websites. (Well, reading and trying it out on my own purposeless projects.) Never saw W3Schools until 2010 when a co-worker (web developer) showed it to me.
m90 13y ago
> ...the use of Microsoft ASP... So the use of ASP makes a resource "unworthy" already?
tlogan 13y ago
I'm not amateur web developer (I can kinda hack something when my main guy busy with something). If W3School is so bad, can somebody suggest something better? Something which follows Edward Tufte rules on how to make information concise, organized and discoverable. The problem with many alternatives is that they are definitely visually attractive but unfortunately not very efficiently organized and presented. Maybe MDN has a chance but I haven't see any improvements on that front.
orionblastar 13y ago
I used to use Webmonkey but it stopped being updated. I used to keep a website of ASP, PHP, and HTML example and learning sites as a bookmark and kept them updated until my site got hacked and files deleted. I might do that again some day. Having a web site devoted to learning different web standards in programming is always a good idea. Just make sure you keep providing examples and lessons and don't end up like Webmonkey and just quit.
raymondh 13y ago
Key quote: "Any one of us would be lying if we said we didn't learn plenty of web development from that site when we were getting started." I've found w3schools to be a fanastic resource for my students. I've used it myself to learn the basics of the SVG format and as a quick way to look the syntax for arcane things I've forgotten. If w3schools didn't exist, we would have to invent it. The OP seems hell-bent on destroying a popular web resource. He would be better served to generate improvements rather than trying to raise an army to kill it (see the "I'm In") button at the bottom of the page (without an "I'm Out" button for those who dissent). If you need to direct your hate somewhere (his words from the article, not mine), there are plenty of better targets (for example, MSDN could stand a few improvements).
arseniclifeform 13y ago
W3Schools is popular, but also note that it engages in SEO chicanery to rank highly and bypass the "block this domain" option in Google. http://www.impressivewebs.com/web-development-search-results-manipulated/ http://www.impressivewebs.com/web-development-search-results...
Axsuul 13y ago
Do you know SEO? Cause that's going to be determining factor of whether you will be killing.
Axsuul 13y ago
Do you know SEO? Cause that's going to be determining factor of whether you will be killing.
Axsuul 13y ago
Do you know SEO? Cause that's going to be determining factor of whether you will be killing.
nickcolley 13y ago
I think one of the reasons http://www.webplatform.org/ http://www.webplatform.org/ was setup was for this?
znowi 13y ago
It's a fine initiative, but its angry-teen, hatred attitude isn't very appealing. I think it lost a lot of potential contributors right in the first paragraph.
bingeboy 13y ago
I agree but the mozilla dev site is so slow to load i often open a new window and find the same info from another site, I hope they tune its load time as it's a great resource. The dash app on osx is now my first choice currently.... i know the free version is annoying. I'd love some kind of cli.
Axsuul 13y ago
Do you know SEO? Cause that's going to be determining factor of whether you will be killing. a
NovemberWest 13y ago
Wow, such hubris. And negativity. Geez. With, apparently, nothing to show yet. But big plans to be #1. Though I appreciate the list of currently available resources and have saved the link for that reason.
ausjke 13y ago
Why should I buy in? just because you blamed w3schools as other guys did? you win by providing something better, at least show something instead of just talking, do you have any of those? how about one chapter for CSS3 to give me a basic idea that why you will be better? It's never a good way to start by blaming someone else publicly while you have _nothing_ to offer on the table.
dinkumthinkum 13y ago
Honestly, I don't want to be too critical, it feels mean, but why all the childish stuff? W3Schools is not hurting you. Just because you saw a video with a basketball player saying he's learning to code, is not a call to action to destroy some site that probably, if we're being honest, has helped more than hurt, though yes it has "so badly hurt us." Boycott Google if you're so angry that they come up so much. I'm not sure how videos are the answer ... that is a different problem, videos, despite their popularity, are pretty inefficient for a reference. Let's face it, beginners will make mistakes no matter what. Create an alternative that is good, with quality info, and easier to use than W3Schools but let's be adults about and just do it first, then get on the soapbox. Google will award you if you succeed. Jeff Atwood belittled EE to no end ... but he actually created Stackoverflow, so he won the game. Just hating on W3Schools will get nowhere.
lucaspottersky 13y ago
Maaan, we're here wasting our times. If anybody is angry/upset/whatever about it just do your search excluding W3Schools from the results: "your_keyword -site:w3schools.com"
shiftb 13y ago
I'm excited to see a competitor to W3Schools if only to have a more useful, up-to-date index. That said, a large part of the problem newcomers have learning to program is not the available materials, but rather the reason. I've seen many people start these tutorials but fail to complete them. They wanted to learn to code because it's something they want to know how to do, not because they had something to build. Programming is a means to an ends, a solution to a problem. I'm not sure what the solution is, but a product that started with the reason why someone is learning to code or, even better, could give them a reason, would be very successful.
walesmd 13y ago
1. W3Fools did this post a year ago, at least. 2. Your time and effort is better served contributing to http://webplatform http://webplatform org, which has the collective financial might of Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google, HP, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, Nokia, Opera and the W3C.
jimmoi1 13y ago
Google is rubbish, im a noob at css and html... i couldnt find at all the difference between class and id... hmmm DUCKDUCKGO TIME!!!!!!! QUACK QUACK

172 points by kixxauth 13y ago

W3Schools has dominated the search results for longer that it deserves, yet we haven't been able to do anything about it.

lttlrck 13y ago

W3Schools is why I installed Chromes Personal Blocklist extension...

tingletech 13y ago

"Any one of us would be lying if we said we didn't learn plenty of web development from that site when we were getting started." Well, I remember where I was sitting in the summer of 1993 when I first read about the www -- while browsing gopher. I made my first web page in 1994. I can honestly I didn't learn anything from that site when I was getting started.

KingdomSprite 13y ago

I have personally found that Tizag[1] provides a much better HTML, CSS, PHP, and MySQL tutorial than W3Schools while still having a really easy to navigate website. Instead of reinventing the wheel all the time, maybe we should all focus our efforts into making the Web Platform[2] better or encourage people to use higher quality websites like Tizag. [1] http://www.tizag.com/htmlT/ http://www.tizag.com/htmlT/ [2] http://www.webplatform.org/ http://www.webplatform.org/

pmelendez 13y ago

I was expecting to see some examples about why there are so much hate in W3schools but I didn't find any on this rant. I remember to have seen some bad examples showing bad habits but to be honest, I have seen more people ranting about W3S than bad examples on the website, maybe it would be more useful to show why W3S sucks that much.

DanBC 13y ago
Members of W3C have asked W3schools to make it clear that there's no link between W3C and W3Schools, but W3Schools declined. W3Schools offer "certification" - (http://www.w3schools.com/cert/default.asp http://www.w3schools.com/cert/default.asp) - of dubious value. This is troublesome because people know of W3schools, and sometimes think there's a link between W3schools and W3C.
- pmelendez 13y ago
  Indeed that is misleading but that doesn't invalidate the content though.
  - stretchwithme 13y ago
    Its only misleading if you know what w3c is. And those who do know what it is probably figure out the difference quickly.
thoughtpalette 13y ago
This points out some good reasons to dislike it. http://www.w3fools.com/ http://www.w3fools.com/

thisishugo 13y ago

I've conditioned myself to prefix any HTML, CSS or JavaScript question with "mdn" so I get Mozilla's docs. They're always excellent in my experience.

AnSavvides 13y ago
I do the exact same thing; MDN is an absolutely brilliant network and anyone can contribute to it.

lucisferre 13y ago

I've had a lot of people tell me to start using MDN, but--don't hate me--the thing is I generally find W3S easier to use and more useful (at least for the basic stuff I usually need to Google for). I hate to admit it but I continue to use W3S even if it is at least partially because it's usually the top result, even when I make the effort to scroll down to the MDN entry I'm usually rewarded with something tangentially related and/or missing the actually thing I needed to know. That said I think there is definitely a lot of room for improvement, I just haven't found MDN fills that gap yet so I wish the author of this luck but I hope they realize MDNs folly. Ad free isn't necessarily better. W3S is, despite it's flaws, fairly simple, easy to use and understand (mostly) and the relevant results almost always show up at the top of a Google search.

kixxauth 13y ago
Thanks so much :) That's great feedback. And yeah, I totally agree. The site navigation for Mozilla Developer Network is really terrible. And the open wiki -- crowd sourced -- style of content editing means there is no consistency. I land on W3Schools all the time when I'm looking stuff up, probably more so than StackOverflow. I just think we really deserve something better.
spoiler 13y ago
It never had a problem with MDN, but MDN is a lot. our detailed, so I see why it might potentially be hard to use at first. Takes some time to get used to changes, even if said things are an improvement.
colmvp 13y ago
I don't think one should be hated for opting for the quickest resource. W3S arguably does have a better design. Some people look for examples in finding out how to code something and as you mentioned, W3S is almost always usually at the very top of the page with browser compatibility at the bottom. It would be interesting to test out a feature where the user could select simple vs. complex document layout.

jstsch 13y ago

Quite some people, even professionals I've encountered, think that W3Schools is related to W3C.

kixxauth 13y ago
Yeah, I thought W3Schools was an endorsed site of the W3C for a long time -- like years.
- petercooper 13y ago
  This is why we have trademark law.
code_duck 13y ago
They leverage that misperception to sell useless 'certifications' - over 10k sold so far (at $99 each), they claim.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  I dunno, seems to me that prospective applicants trumpeting W3Schools certifications is a valuable signal...
TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
The W3C have explicitly asked them to disavow any connection to them, multiple times. W3Schools have, obviously, refused.

jplur 13y ago

Why not throw your support at https://developer.mozilla.org/ https://developer.mozilla.org/? They've done an amazing job of documenting HTML/CSS/JS.

pekk 13y ago
What kind of support are they looking for? and will this solve the problem or is it a different kind of problem they are solving?
kixxauth 13y ago
I really love MDN, and in some ways I feel guilty for doing this. I've been a MDN contributor. But the MDN information architecture/navigation is terrible, the crowd sourced content is inconsistent, the pages load very slowly. When you put it all together, it's difficult to focus on winning the search engine game with those flaws. There was a "Better JS docs" movement a few years ago that moved the needle a little, but in the end it was just the wrong content to do the job.
- ubernostrum 13y ago
  MDN is, in the near future, launching a redesign. Might be worth checking it out. (source: I work for Mozilla, on MDN)
- sequoia 13y ago
  > the crowd sourced content is inconsistent You don't plan on crowd sourcing content? You're going to write all these documents, tutorials, cheat sheets and videos by yourself?
  - dinkumthinkum 13y ago
    You realize there used to be these very useful, very accurate things written by either one or very few persons ... they were called "books" ... They were kind of a crazy idea, I admit ...

mathias 13y ago

http://www.w3fools.com/ http://www.w3fools.com/

vezzy-fnord 13y ago
Ah, the joys of linking W3Fools to everyone who even mentioned the word "W3Schools". I wonder if anyone's made a Reddit bot or something of the sort to do just that automatically?
- aroman 13y ago
  I can't really think of another article where posting that link would be more appropriate. Seriously now, we're talking about the flaws of W3Schools. How is W3Fools not relevant here?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- chplx 13y ago
  @mathias is actually one of the contributors http://www.w3fools.com/#contributors http://www.w3fools.com/#contributors not a bot.
nivla 13y ago
I have a confession to make and a risky one, well to the extend of every karma I got. I own http://www.w3fool.com/ http://www.w3fool.com/, the one with missing 's' and you don't want know where it redirects to. I bought it when I saw it at an expired auction. I couldn't stand at thought of a website existing just to shame another. On one hand, I agree with most of you that W3School isn't accurate or up-to-date or is riled with example that have security holes but on the other I am really thankful for them for getting me into web development. Back then there weren't much options, W3School was the easiest and the best we had. I remember sitting late nights learning to build simple web apps by referencing W3School every few minutes. Getting someone interested into something is very hard, to get a kid interested in sports, you don't start with a ruleset, instead you give him a start and correct him as he makes mistakes. That start was what W3School was for me. Although I have been defending it, I think they should expire/update w3school. Times have changed and there are better resources to take its place.

abhididdigi 13y ago

more excellent points here : http://www.w3fools.com/ http://www.w3fools.com/ I have stopped going to W3C schools for various mentioned in the above website.

leephillips 13y ago

This is part of why I think I've developed a reflex, after searching Google, to skip over the first few results after the sponsored links and start looking near the middle of the page. W3Schools, Wikipedia, and a few others. And it's a great example of the central failure of the pagerank idea: if the strongest signal is popularity measured through linkage, the highest quality results will rarely be at or even near the top. Right now Stackoverflow is good and deservedly ranks highly, but I fully expect it to be supplanted in Google's search rankings by an inferior copycat within a few years: one that just happens to generate more revenue for Google by carrying more advertising.

kyberias 13y ago
I don't have the slightest idea why you're getting downvoted because I think that's a valid observation.
- leephillips 13y ago
  First downvote was < 60 seconds after I posted. There are at least a handful of Google employees here. EDIT: and yes, I deserve the downvotes I'm getting for this useless meta-comment.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> W3Schools, Wikipedia, and a few others. And it's a great example of the central failure of the pagerank idea: if the strongest signal is popularity measured through linkage, the highest quality results will rarely be at or even near the top. Actually, I find that the top ranked things usually have what I was searching for -- often that's W3Schools or Wikipedia. I'm not a big fan of W3Schools site design, and I wish they had output examples, but, really, the site design isn't bad enough that it makes it unusable as a reference, and usually when I get it at the top of a search results page, I'm usually looking for a quick reference.
moultano 13y ago
>but I fully expect it to be supplanted in Google's search rankings by an inferior copycat within a few years: one that just happens to generate more revenue for Google by carrying more advertising. Google does not take revenue into account in its ranking, or the decisions on how it changes its ranking. It is neither a signal, nor does it influence which signals are used.

danso 13y ago

This is a good initiative, but it's a big task, so I think it's worth nitpicking now if you're going to have any chance of displacing w3schools: Fix the font. It's too faint and if I were a newbie landing on this and comparing it to W3Schools, I'd immediately switch to W3Schools. Your site's wide body width also hurts readability. I'm not trying to nitpick for nitpick's sake...coming from experience, it's harder to change these things (not technically, but mustering the will to do so) later on in the process. And readability is key in winning the masses over, and is not just a minor detail in relation to the overall goal.

kixxauth 13y ago
Thanks so much for the feedback :) I about 70% developer and 30% designer, so I'm actually looking for a designer to hire and help me out with this effort. Know anyone?

code_duck 13y ago

Why does the author find the young female Java students pictured on the other site insulting?

kyberias 13y ago
Yes! I hate this innuendo. Why? What _really_ is wrong with these pictures? "Tutorial Point seems to think that Java programming students look like this." Well, they haven't claimed that at all. All they did was use some stock photos of attractive women in their ads. Is that any different that in any other ad? Why is that insulting? It doesn't insult me. Why would it insult anyone?
fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
Maybe because it is typical cheap poorly-shooped up stockphoto tripe that appears to be intended to appeal to naive but sincere neophytes for the purpose of roping them in, sucking their money, and giving them a useless certification. Such certifications are more likely to serve as a warning to the potential employers who know better, and have the tendency to discredit education in general when an unsuspecting employer is duped by one. Double negative points for targeting women, making it harder for them to pursue a career.

SpenserJ 13y ago

I use Google's Personal Blocklist extension (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist-by-goo/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist...) to block W3S from my search results, which usually results in the first result pointing to MDN.

kixxauth 13y ago
I wow, that's a great idea. Thanks!

kijin 13y ago

Nobody denies that W3Schools is a terrible place to learn how to program. Their examples are outdated, insecure, and don't really explain why things work in a certain way. Their tutorials are optimized for copy & paste, and God knows how many security bugs in the wild are due to somebody copying W3Schools. But W3Schools also carries some of the most easy-to-use indexes of pretty much everything related to web development. Can't remember the exact name of that CSS property and its possible values? Can't remember the order of arguments of a JS string/array function? Go to W3Schools and browse their lists, get the answer in 5 seconds. Of course, there's Mozilla Developer Networks, too. But MDN's CSS Reference [1] is just an alphabetical list of CSS properties with no explanation. W3Schools' CSS Reference [2] is neatly categorized, and each entry has a short explanation next to it. Very useful when you're trying to remember, for example, "word-wrap: break-word", which is not the same as "word-break: break-all". [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference [2] http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/default.asp http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/default.asp W3Schools is good ol' Web 1.0 stuff. Just some lists and a bunch of links. No need to ask somebody and wait for an answer. No need to watch any annoying videos. No need to follow an animated tutorial designed by someone who thinks they know how a person should learn programming. W3Schools is like an old dictionary. A dictionary isn't particularly helpful when you're trying to learn a foreign language properly, but it's quite handy when you're face to face with a foreigner and you need to think up a word for "toilet paper" quickly. I use W3Schools when I need to remember something quickly, and MDN when I need to learn more deeply about it. When I write CSS, I always keep W3Schools open in one tab and MDN in another tab. I wish somebody would link W3Schools' lists to MDN's details. That would make the best of both worlds.

j_baker 13y ago
Out of curiosity, what examples are insecure?
- jre 13y ago
  Their SQL examples don't seem to perform any kind of input sanitization. They just use raw $_POST. http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_mysql_insert.asp http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_mysql_insert.asp

pamelafox 13y ago

My background: In my free time, I teach web development to complete beginners, for the SF GirlDevelopIt chapter (using http://www.teaching-materials.org/ http://www.teaching-materials.org/). A few observations I've made: 1) For the sort of things that they are trying to learn (basic HTML tags), W3Schools is a great resource. It's clear and fairly up to date. No other resource has managed to overtake them for beginner friendliness. I was hoping http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/Main_Page http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/Main_Page might, but right now it seems like just a skin over MDN and searching doesn't work so well. I don't know if they've given up or what. (One idea: You could help them) 2) After I teach the second HTML lesson, I will explicitly show students "okay, here's how you search for HTML help on the internet." At that point, I'll show them W3Schools and MDN and explain the drawbacks/benefits of each. Don't know how much of that sticks with them, but it's worth a shot. 3) It took me a long time to put together HTML/CSS/JS curriculum. I first started several years ago, when teaching our first workshop, and have been adding to it since (and there are still more topics I want to add). I did also start video taping my lectures, as I figured it could be a resource for people who didn't make it to the workshops, and that also took me a long time - about an hour to record and edit a 10 minute video. So, I support anyone putting out more great knowledge material in the world, I just hope you have a fair amount of time allocated to work on this, so that you can it proper justice. 4) I recommend having a test audience for your material, like somebody that you tutor, so you can see how they respond to it and where their knowledge holes are. Also, a feedback button. :-)

stephen_g 13y ago
In regard to (1), I've been finding recently that I'll look up a CSS property, and it lists the properties and has an example, but I find it's really crap for actually learning anything because the example doesn't actually show you the output. And more than example with screenshots and explanations of each would be useful to actually learn how to use it... I've been deliberately avoiding it for ages now.
- xerophyte12932 13y ago
  Umm... don't they have that very simple (yet pretty cool) "Try it Now" button? they let you play around with the stuff they teach so you can get the hang of it

mcphilip 13y ago

Feedback: 1) Excellent site look and feel. 2) Juvenile language and problem statement. Off putting pitch to developers that found W3Schools useful. At some point it'll have to switch to a more professional approach. 3) Reading between the lines, apparently the author's goal is to crowdsource basic tutorial development with a long term for profit motive involving premium content. While transparent to mention this up front, it leaves me uninterested in participation.

300bps 13y ago
Juvenile language and problem statement. You really took the high road with this understatement. If OP didn't reference he was in his senior year of college over a decade ago I would've thought he was an angry young teenager.
- walshemj 13y ago
  Yeah i got that too cant people just get a book and read it - thats what I did on my first web project back in 94. Played around at lunch times a BT and volunteered for a month in Edinburgh on secondment brought the only book on HTML published at the time and read it through a couple of times on the train up to Waverly station.

draegtun 13y ago

Sitepoint produced a good W3Schools alternative - http://reference.sitepoint.com http://reference.sitepoint.com

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

octref 13y ago

I just want to say there ARE some thing that W3School did right, and better than MDN: 1: Navigation 2: Give what its targeted users(newbies) need and no others 1: Just look at a random page in MDN's HTML reference. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a The top navigation (DOCS/APPS/FIREFOX/DEMOS/INVOLVED) are of no use to me if I just want to look for another HTML elment. The only way to go back to the reference page is back button(not many poeple would notice the breadcrumbs), the "Table of contents" is just a fancy decoration there(thanks, I can see the boldfaced enormous headings and I know how to scroll to what I want in a less-than-two page webpage). If you look at W3School, the left navigation lets you access to the page of the element you want to learn very easily. The top navigation bar is also helpful because I might just forget some CSS tricks while learning JQuery. 2. Still a tag on MDN. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a . For a newbie does he need to know "Charset : obsolete. This attribute defines the character encoding of the linked resource. The value is a space- and/or comma-delimited list of character sets as defined in RFC 2045. The default value is ISO-8859-1."? Should this "Usage note: This attribute is obsolete in HTML5 and should not be used by authors. To achieve its effect, use the HTTP Content-Type header on the linked resource." be put on the most prominent place? I believe the most being-looked-for attribute is href. Why MDN can't you put a working example on the top and leave your verbosity to the bottom? Look at W3School, whenever you visit a page, it just gives what 95% of people need: Very short description; an intereactive editor(this feature is awesome but MDN doesn't have it); working-out-of-box example; reference at the very bottom(that's where references should be put). I do not hate MDN. I like Firefox and Mozilla and what people there are doing. But I feel things have come to a stage where some people, to show their passionate love for so-called "open source spirit", discriminate against bussiness effort to build better things although they don't have a better open source alternative. Back to the article. I support what the author is doing, but unless you show at least some decent work, I won't donate. To MDN maintainers: Please read some "The Elements of Style" by Strunk & White and some "Don't make me think" by Steve Krug, and improve MDN. You guys could have done better. W3SChools is targeted to newbies, and they succeed as a great resource for learning HTML/CSS at least(That's what I used it for. I'm not learning PHP and SQL on it). Don't deny it, unless you have a better resource for NEWBIES.

phaedryx 13y ago

reminds me of: http://www.w3fools.com/ http://www.w3fools.com/

moocowduckquack 13y ago

'Why' is easy to state for things like this. 'How' is a lot more work. Also, given that w3schools is a non-profit, why not just help them. Yes, they have adverts, however they state that their aim is to always have everything on the site freely available, rather than a business plan of "Actually, I hope to make a living by selling high quality video tutorials", which leads to perverse incentives to keep the quality of the free stuff low, to stop it from outcompeting the paid stuff.

Samuel_Michon 13y ago
> given that w3schools is a non-profit Really? According to Wikipedia it’s a commercial company. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W3Schools http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W3Schools The footer on the w3schools site states “Copyright 1999-2013 by Refsnes Data.” Company site: http://www.cprenterprisesonline.com/elearning/about/about_refsnes.asp.htm http://www.cprenterprisesonline.com/elearning/about/about_re...
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  Why would you reference a wikipedia article to support your position without reading it through? from the article - "W3Schools is not for profit, while maintaining normal W3Schools operation is very expensive." The holding company may be for-profit in some things, but it would seem that w3schools itself is not a for-profit concern. As far as the fact that they copyright things, that doesn't tell us whether they make profit from it or not.
  - Samuel_Michon 13y ago
    As far as I can tell, W3Schools is not a company, it is a project by a commercial company. That means they’re not tax exempt and any donations made to them can’t be written off. The company may not make any profit from the project now, but it’s unclear whether that’s by choice. Blackberry doesn’t make any profit, but that doesn’t make them a non-profit.
deleted 13y ago
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dragonwriter 13y ago

> "Any one of us would be lying if we said we didn't learn plenty of web development from that site when we were getting started." W3Schools was launched in 1999. I was "getting started" with web development well before that. I often use it, via Google, as a reference source now, because its good enough as that. I'm not real attached to it, but don't see the reason for the hate. It may be that the introductory material isn't the best for most users, but, you know, even when books were the main source of tutorial material, you couldn't always rely on whatever book was merchandised in the most prominent position with a title that seemed to be on point for what you are looking for, you comparison shopped, looked through several, and figured out which one spoke to you. I'm not going to develop "hate" because the digital equivalent of the most-prominently-merchandised title isn't necessarily the best for all people. Its a lot easier to check out multiple sources from a search results page than it was to check the limited selection at multiple bookstores to find the right resource, and, ultimately, what is the best learning resource for you is a subjective thing.

welder 13y ago

I was tired of W3Schools good SEO so I use this Chrome extension to remove W3Schools from my Google search results: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist-by-goo/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist... Now MDN's JS and CSS reference shows up on top!

nahreally 13y ago

Why does nobody ever mention HTML Dog? I learned all the basics the right way reading from it, the ideas behind them, and what to avoid. It's a seriously great website (and formerly a book, I think? I was a penniless teenager back when I read it), serving as both a tutorial and reference, and it's been around for a really long time. http://www.htmldog.com/ http://www.htmldog.com/ For everything else, there's http://www.quirksmode.org/ http://www.quirksmode.org/ and Stack Overflow ;)

eplumlee 13y ago
That and http://htmlgoodies.com http://htmlgoodies.com I learned everything I know about web development from htmlgoodies which has been around for long before w3schools came on the scene.

zenocon 13y ago

> These are really great resources, and I highly recommend them, however, they don't rank high in the search results. Like it or not, the googles is the gateway to the craft of web development, and anything more than an incremental improvement in learning needs to rank well to have an impact. Wouldn't a much easier path be to help those resources cited improve their search results? If w3schools falls down to the second page on a Google search, no one would be having this conversation. There's nothing wrong with wanting to build yet another online learning resource, but if the goal is really to just get people to stop using w3schools, it doesn't require building yet another online learning resource.

jameswyse 13y ago

I use a chrome extension to remove their entries from my search results, along with quora, experts-exchange, etc https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist-by-goo/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist...

jaredmcateer 13y ago
I wish Google would bring back actual results blocking, you used to be able to maintain a list of sites that would be blocked from the results and they'd be removed before the result set was returned so you'd never run the risk of an empty page that happens with this extension. Better than nothing though.

gesman 13y ago

It's not W3S's fault, it's Google's fault for misjudging the value of sites they put on top. Essentially you're on a quest to win the attention of Google, and this often is not correlated with the value you trying to built.

paul9290 13y ago

CodePupil would be interested in helping out with this initiative and doing so in an open source/free manner. We feel strongly too that w3Schools is outdated. here's our interactive width & height exercise for newbies http://codepupil.com/ex1.html http://codepupil.com/ex1.html

rolandm 13y ago
Even though I use Firefox, the site says that my browser is not supported and I should download e.g. Firefox http://codepupil.com/not-supported.html http://codepupil.com/not-supported.html

arbuge 13y ago

These are really great resources, and I highly recommend them, however, they don't rank high in the search results. Like it or not, the googles is the gateway to the craft of web development... Same in alot of other spaces. Coupon codes for online shopping for example. We operate a site which carries the exact same coupons as the largest coupon site out there does, but the latter hogs all the rankings and is impossible to displace whilst ours goes begging. No obvious reason apart from the fact that they were around earlier when coupon sites were a novelty and picked up plenty of backlinks from media outlets for that reason.

mtts 13y ago

W3Schools is nothing more than a simple to use (google) and navigate (google) collection of pages with tons of reminders to jog your memory about what exactly it was that a specific css selector or html tag did again. If you use it to learn PHP programming you're doing it wrong. If you use it to learn MySQL, you're doing it wrong. If you use it to learn how browsers work, you're doing it wrong. As a Cliff's notes for HTML and CSS, however, it is more than adequate.

null_ptr 13y ago

Your own site currently consists of smack talk, memes, and a mailing list button. How about you focus on creating great content instead of link-bait headlines, and let your work speak for itself?

peteretep 13y ago
Exactly. Just do it, come back when you've got some content, and then ask for help promoting it.
racecar789 13y ago
Agree. The blog post spews a lot of hatred for a resource that is meant to "help" people.

nullgeo 13y ago

I use the Personal Blocklist app in Google Chrome to block w3schools.com results. Additionally, I saw http://mdn.io http://mdn.io website surfacing in the internet recently. I use mdn.io to get redirected to MDN without doing a Google Search. Examples: http://mdn.io/parseint http://mdn.io/parseint http://mdn.io/window http://mdn.io/window http://mdn.io/math http://mdn.io/math

ulisesrmzroche 13y ago

"I know this is starting to sound like another labor of love, where I now ask you to hit the donation button at the top of the page and contribute to a GitHub repository. Actually, I hope to make a living by selling high quality video tutorials and other material outside of all the awesomeness you can get for free here at The HTML and CSS tutorial. I plan on making a living at this someday; with your help." Let's just put that up and center and keep it honest. It does feel pretty bait-and-switch since you even apologized for the open-source feel and are really begging to make your project #1 on web development google searches and make you rich in the process.

iopq 13y ago

Disappointed this didn't link to w3schools and this is not the owner of the site talking...

Wintamute 13y ago

I recommend the Personal Blocklist Chrome plugin (by Google). I have it setup to remove any w3schools results from my Google searches. Suddenly a simple search for "css background-image" returns lovely looking results, with MDN on the top. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist-by-goo/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist...

brownbat 13y ago

Skimming the comments, there are two camps on W3Schools, those that find it an abomination, and those that find it useful as a quick reference. It's replacement(s) should disaggregate the goals of programming quick reference and beginning instruction, realize those are different things with different design needs. And maybe all other sites should learn the value of putting the information that covers 90% of use cases above the fold. We've gotten a little too impressed with scrolling and the infinite canvas of a webpage, underrating the usability impact of scrolling around to find information, and the beauty of having everything fit on one screen. (I know, dealing with resized browser windows and different sized monitors and high-DPI is hard, but there would be gains...)

getdavidhiggins 13y ago

If a network uses a filtering system and blocks certain keywords, we can modify the W3Schools URL as follows, and submit the URL to search engines: cialis.w3schools.com vardenafil.w3schools.com levitra.w3schools.com milfcuckold.w3schools.com We can't get rid of W3Schools, but we can demote and disavow the URL on Google SERPs. We should submit the link to mechanical turk services on fiverr·com and get the links demoted on Google that way. It is advertised that bulk submitting a URL into spam-silos helps with SEO, when infact Google hates this and implements their Panda algorithm if this occurs. It could backfire and increase SEO temporarily - but because we are practicing 'paid links', Google will punish the site owner for this. I think a crack team of Internet vigilantes should link-blast the W3Schools URL into spam-silos, and the W3Schools problem can finally go away.

Scryptonite 13y ago

I used to use http://help.dottoro.com/ http://help.dottoro.com/ when I was learning to program. I would recommend it if someone was looking for a good go-to doc. But for quick reminders (which is rare) I use generally MDN or read the official spec. They (help.dottoro.com) also have links (when available) to the Microsoft Developer Network, Mozilla Developer Network, Safari Developer Library, and the official W3C spec, which can be helpful. The only thing I would really change about their site is the URL structure. Completely nondescript and not user-friendly. Once you move from using W3S to MDN or really anything else there is no going back. CSS's display: W3S: http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_display_visibility.asp http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_display_visibility.asp MDN: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/display https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/display Dottoro: http://help.dottoro.com/lchnsqsb.php http://help.dottoro.com/lchnsqsb.php

coopdot 13y ago

I learned writing compliant HTML and CSS by reading the specifications "from cover to cover" (or rather the online equivalent of that) in 2001 or so. A few years later I learned PHP and MySQL from reading the documentation on their official websites. (Well, reading and trying it out on my own purposeless projects.) Never saw W3Schools until 2010 when a co-worker (web developer) showed it to me.

m90 13y ago

> ...the use of Microsoft ASP... So the use of ASP makes a resource "unworthy" already?

tlogan 13y ago

I'm not amateur web developer (I can kinda hack something when my main guy busy with something). If W3School is so bad, can somebody suggest something better? Something which follows Edward Tufte rules on how to make information concise, organized and discoverable. The problem with many alternatives is that they are definitely visually attractive but unfortunately not very efficiently organized and presented. Maybe MDN has a chance but I haven't see any improvements on that front.

orionblastar 13y ago

I used to use Webmonkey but it stopped being updated. I used to keep a website of ASP, PHP, and HTML example and learning sites as a bookmark and kept them updated until my site got hacked and files deleted. I might do that again some day. Having a web site devoted to learning different web standards in programming is always a good idea. Just make sure you keep providing examples and lessons and don't end up like Webmonkey and just quit.

raymondh 13y ago

Key quote: "Any one of us would be lying if we said we didn't learn plenty of web development from that site when we were getting started." I've found w3schools to be a fanastic resource for my students. I've used it myself to learn the basics of the SVG format and as a quick way to look the syntax for arcane things I've forgotten. If w3schools didn't exist, we would have to invent it. The OP seems hell-bent on destroying a popular web resource. He would be better served to generate improvements rather than trying to raise an army to kill it (see the "I'm In") button at the bottom of the page (without an "I'm Out" button for those who dissent). If you need to direct your hate somewhere (his words from the article, not mine), there are plenty of better targets (for example, MSDN could stand a few improvements).

arseniclifeform 13y ago

W3Schools is popular, but also note that it engages in SEO chicanery to rank highly and bypass the "block this domain" option in Google. http://www.impressivewebs.com/web-development-search-results-manipulated/ http://www.impressivewebs.com/web-development-search-results...

Axsuul 13y ago

Do you know SEO? Cause that's going to be determining factor of whether you will be killing.

Axsuul 13y ago

Do you know SEO? Cause that's going to be determining factor of whether you will be killing.

Axsuul 13y ago

Do you know SEO? Cause that's going to be determining factor of whether you will be killing.

nickcolley 13y ago

I think one of the reasons http://www.webplatform.org/ http://www.webplatform.org/ was setup was for this?

znowi 13y ago

It's a fine initiative, but its angry-teen, hatred attitude isn't very appealing. I think it lost a lot of potential contributors right in the first paragraph.

bingeboy 13y ago

I agree but the mozilla dev site is so slow to load i often open a new window and find the same info from another site, I hope they tune its load time as it's a great resource. The dash app on osx is now my first choice currently.... i know the free version is annoying. I'd love some kind of cli.

Axsuul 13y ago

Do you know SEO? Cause that's going to be determining factor of whether you will be killing. a

NovemberWest 13y ago

Wow, such hubris. And negativity. Geez. With, apparently, nothing to show yet. But big plans to be #1. Though I appreciate the list of currently available resources and have saved the link for that reason.

ausjke 13y ago

Why should I buy in? just because you blamed w3schools as other guys did? you win by providing something better, at least show something instead of just talking, do you have any of those? how about one chapter for CSS3 to give me a basic idea that why you will be better? It's never a good way to start by blaming someone else publicly while you have _nothing_ to offer on the table.

dinkumthinkum 13y ago

Honestly, I don't want to be too critical, it feels mean, but why all the childish stuff? W3Schools is not hurting you. Just because you saw a video with a basketball player saying he's learning to code, is not a call to action to destroy some site that probably, if we're being honest, has helped more than hurt, though yes it has "so badly hurt us." Boycott Google if you're so angry that they come up so much. I'm not sure how videos are the answer ... that is a different problem, videos, despite their popularity, are pretty inefficient for a reference. Let's face it, beginners will make mistakes no matter what. Create an alternative that is good, with quality info, and easier to use than W3Schools but let's be adults about and just do it first, then get on the soapbox. Google will award you if you succeed. Jeff Atwood belittled EE to no end ... but he actually created Stackoverflow, so he won the game. Just hating on W3Schools will get nowhere.

lucaspottersky 13y ago

Maaan, we're here wasting our times. If anybody is angry/upset/whatever about it just do your search excluding W3Schools from the results: "your_keyword -site:w3schools.com"

shiftb 13y ago

I'm excited to see a competitor to W3Schools if only to have a more useful, up-to-date index. That said, a large part of the problem newcomers have learning to program is not the available materials, but rather the reason. I've seen many people start these tutorials but fail to complete them. They wanted to learn to code because it's something they want to know how to do, not because they had something to build. Programming is a means to an ends, a solution to a problem. I'm not sure what the solution is, but a product that started with the reason why someone is learning to code or, even better, could give them a reason, would be very successful.

walesmd 13y ago

1. W3Fools did this post a year ago, at least. 2. Your time and effort is better served contributing to http://webplatform http://webplatform org, which has the collective financial might of Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google, HP, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, Nokia, Opera and the W3C.

jimmoi1 13y ago

Google is rubbish, im a noob at css and html... i couldnt find at all the difference between class and id... hmmm DUCKDUCKGO TIME!!!!!!! QUACK QUACK