6 ms·

> But W3Schools also carries some of the most easy-to-use indexes of pretty much everything related to web development. Which is why I use it. Any competitor n

> But W3Schools also carries some of the most easy-to-use indexes of pretty much everything related to web development. Which is why I use it. Any competitor needs to beat it in this department.

RBerenguel 13y ago
Indeed. I'm always ashamed of using it, but I have a stupid tendency to forget css selectors from time to time (I don't do web design or tweaking that often) and the same goes for how string.match or regexp.test or the likes in JS.
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  Never be ashamed of looking up a reference if it saves you time, besides web standards are too much of a moving target to bother committing all of them to memory.
  - kiba 13y ago
    I suggest memorizing it. Knowing it from the top of your head is much faster than googling or looking it up. That being said, a reference is helpful in the beginning stage.
    - ulisesrmzroche 13y ago
      Why does speed (what, like at most a few seconds?) matter in this case? Just a waste of memory if you ask me.
    - moocowduckquack 13y ago
      I been at this since the mid 90's and I really can't be bothered committing it all to memory every time it changes. I keep meaning to buy a copy of this - http://www.visibone.com/products/everythingbook.html http://www.visibone.com/products/everythingbook.html - although my standard memory jog for web development is still "view source", same as it ever was.
      - RBerenguel 13y ago
        For me it's not only web development, is most of the CS stuff I need when coding. Probably it is due to my training as a mathematician, but I usually just keep an index of what I know and what it's used for, but I don't remember the specific details. I.e. Implicit Function Theorem can be used for proofs involving X, Y and Z under hypotheses H, unless you are fancy and go for H2 and more work. I just know what I need and where I can look it up – Nirenberg for fancy, any basic Differential Analysis text for the others, that Russian book on my shelf for a neat simple proof, Moser's for a simple proof and application, the list goes on with 6 or more 7 items. Well, this is actually stretching it a little thin, I could prove the basic differential versions without much trouble, and some functional versions given enough hypotheses. When coding I'm more or less the same. I know there's a Javascript function that returns true or false when matching against a regexp, I just don't remember its name. Since it's kind of shelved in my mind as regexp test, I just look for this, and it's hole in one. Once I learn something I may not remember it exactly, but I have a pretty good "indexed memory" in the fact that I know that piece of knowledge exists and I've seen it, so I only need a few moments to dig it up. Of course, I'd rather remember all CSS selectors and rules, or most of the Javascript machinery and the Go standard library. But I'm not doing this every day, so I just use it, every time I do a little more sticks to memory and the rest is easily found. If it got me more than 1 minute to look something up, I'd stick a big post-it in front of me until it sank, so far I have not needed it.
        moocowduckquack 13y ago
        Reminds me of the Einstein vs Edison story about Einstein not knowing the speed of sound when he tried the employee test that Edison had developed. I read a nice take on that here - http://www.scilogs.com/the_science_talent_project/einstein-vs-edison/ http://www.scilogs.com/the_science_talent_project/einstein-v...
        Someone 13y ago
        Another example of the same (or at least something similar) is Alexander Grothendieck. See http://www.ams.org/notices/200410/fea-grothendieck-part2.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/200410/fea-grothendieck-part2.pdf (start at the last paragraph of page 1) By the way: that text is in the past tense, not because Grothendieck has died, but because he retired from mathematics in a quite abrupt way. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Grothendieck#Retirement_into_reclusion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Grothendieck#Retireme...
    - RBerenguel 13y ago
      I just can't memorise everything I use so sparingly. If I did I'd still remember useless VBscript (or VB for Applications,) or Pascal. When I'm in X mode (be it Go, Python, Javascript or CSS) I only need to look up things in the first few hours, after a while it's in working memory for a few days. Then it slowly fades, although I usually remember pretty well the general way to do X or at least, what to look for for what I'm interested in.
- opendais 13y ago
  Anything legal and ethical that saves you time is nothing to be ashamed of. :) I forget function names or math formulas all the time too. :P
timjahn 13y ago
Exactly. I use W3Schools for reminding myself of certain CSS properties and tasks like that all the time. And I'm not ashamed.
- panzi 13y ago
  For a long time I always forgot the order of the 4 arguments of the margin/padding properties (it's top right bottom left). I always used w3schools to look it up. I use w3schools just to lookup attribute and CSS property names/values etc. It has a nice tree at the left side and concise tables of possible values. If anyone would want to prevent me from using w3schools he/she has to replicate this. It could use some updating and better information about browser support (maybe from a shared source with caniuse.com). I didn't even know that there are tutorials and such on w3schools.
Aardwolf 13y ago
I find mozilla developer network (mdn) blows away w3schools in all ways. e.g. compare these two for CSS "display": http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_display_visibility.asp http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_display_visibility.asp https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/display https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/display MDN is more detailed, more up to date, and says in which browsers it works or doesn't work. w3schools doesn't even have a list of all possible values. Or for JS "getElementByID": http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/met_document_getelementbyid.asp http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/met_document_getelementbyid.a... https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/document.getElementById https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/document.ge... MDN just always explains more details and edge cases, and has much more browser compatibility info (including for mobile).
- state 13y ago
  THIS! The thing that really ought to replace W3Schools is MDN.
  - cpncrunch 13y ago
    Really? I just did a quick comparison, and w3schools was much better than MDN. Try looking for info on the 'required' attribute of the input tag. w3schools has all the attributes in a compact table making it easy to find the attribute you're looking for at a glance, whereas MDN has a big long list. In w3schools you can then click on the 'required' attribute to get more info about it and see which browsers it works on. In MDN there is no info on browser compatibility in the 'required' description - you have to scroll down to ANOTHER table (there is not even a link to it) to see what browser it is compatible with! Come on, even back in web 1.0 we had links to stuff! The reason that w3schools is at the top of the search results is that more people find it useful that MDN. Perhaps it isn't as cool with the hipsters as MDN, but for people trying to get things done w3schools is more useful in my opinion.
    - state 13y ago
      I guess it's really just a matter of personal preference. I switched to adding 'MDN' to my search queries out of gut frustration with having to parse through the W3 pages. I think the comment about 'hipsters' is a little shallow, but it's interesting that this is so divided. I really assumed that HN would be completely in the tank for MDN.

> But W3Schools also carries some of the most easy-to-use indexes of pretty much everything related to web development. Which is why I use it. Any competitor needs to beat it in this department.

RBerenguel 13y ago

Indeed. I'm always ashamed of using it, but I have a stupid tendency to forget css selectors from time to time (I don't do web design or tweaking that often) and the same goes for how string.match or regexp.test or the likes in JS.

moocowduckquack 13y ago
Never be ashamed of looking up a reference if it saves you time, besides web standards are too much of a moving target to bother committing all of them to memory.
- kiba 13y ago
  I suggest memorizing it. Knowing it from the top of your head is much faster than googling or looking it up. That being said, a reference is helpful in the beginning stage.
  - ulisesrmzroche 13y ago
    Why does speed (what, like at most a few seconds?) matter in this case? Just a waste of memory if you ask me.
  - moocowduckquack 13y ago
    I been at this since the mid 90's and I really can't be bothered committing it all to memory every time it changes. I keep meaning to buy a copy of this - http://www.visibone.com/products/everythingbook.html http://www.visibone.com/products/everythingbook.html - although my standard memory jog for web development is still "view source", same as it ever was.
    - RBerenguel 13y ago
      For me it's not only web development, is most of the CS stuff I need when coding. Probably it is due to my training as a mathematician, but I usually just keep an index of what I know and what it's used for, but I don't remember the specific details. I.e. Implicit Function Theorem can be used for proofs involving X, Y and Z under hypotheses H, unless you are fancy and go for H2 and more work. I just know what I need and where I can look it up – Nirenberg for fancy, any basic Differential Analysis text for the others, that Russian book on my shelf for a neat simple proof, Moser's for a simple proof and application, the list goes on with 6 or more 7 items. Well, this is actually stretching it a little thin, I could prove the basic differential versions without much trouble, and some functional versions given enough hypotheses. When coding I'm more or less the same. I know there's a Javascript function that returns true or false when matching against a regexp, I just don't remember its name. Since it's kind of shelved in my mind as regexp test, I just look for this, and it's hole in one. Once I learn something I may not remember it exactly, but I have a pretty good "indexed memory" in the fact that I know that piece of knowledge exists and I've seen it, so I only need a few moments to dig it up. Of course, I'd rather remember all CSS selectors and rules, or most of the Javascript machinery and the Go standard library. But I'm not doing this every day, so I just use it, every time I do a little more sticks to memory and the rest is easily found. If it got me more than 1 minute to look something up, I'd stick a big post-it in front of me until it sank, so far I have not needed it.
      - moocowduckquack 13y ago
        Reminds me of the Einstein vs Edison story about Einstein not knowing the speed of sound when he tried the employee test that Edison had developed. I read a nice take on that here - http://www.scilogs.com/the_science_talent_project/einstein-vs-edison/ http://www.scilogs.com/the_science_talent_project/einstein-v...
        Someone 13y ago
        Another example of the same (or at least something similar) is Alexander Grothendieck. See http://www.ams.org/notices/200410/fea-grothendieck-part2.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/200410/fea-grothendieck-part2.pdf (start at the last paragraph of page 1) By the way: that text is in the past tense, not because Grothendieck has died, but because he retired from mathematics in a quite abrupt way. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Grothendieck#Retirement_into_reclusion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Grothendieck#Retireme...
  - RBerenguel 13y ago
    I just can't memorise everything I use so sparingly. If I did I'd still remember useless VBscript (or VB for Applications,) or Pascal. When I'm in X mode (be it Go, Python, Javascript or CSS) I only need to look up things in the first few hours, after a while it's in working memory for a few days. Then it slowly fades, although I usually remember pretty well the general way to do X or at least, what to look for for what I'm interested in.
opendais 13y ago
Anything legal and ethical that saves you time is nothing to be ashamed of. :) I forget function names or math formulas all the time too. :P

timjahn 13y ago

Exactly. I use W3Schools for reminding myself of certain CSS properties and tasks like that all the time. And I'm not ashamed.

panzi 13y ago
For a long time I always forgot the order of the 4 arguments of the margin/padding properties (it's top right bottom left). I always used w3schools to look it up. I use w3schools just to lookup attribute and CSS property names/values etc. It has a nice tree at the left side and concise tables of possible values. If anyone would want to prevent me from using w3schools he/she has to replicate this. It could use some updating and better information about browser support (maybe from a shared source with caniuse.com). I didn't even know that there are tutorials and such on w3schools.

Aardwolf 13y ago

I find mozilla developer network (mdn) blows away w3schools in all ways. e.g. compare these two for CSS "display": http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_display_visibility.asp http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_display_visibility.asp https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/display https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/display MDN is more detailed, more up to date, and says in which browsers it works or doesn't work. w3schools doesn't even have a list of all possible values. Or for JS "getElementByID": http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/met_document_getelementbyid.asp http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/met_document_getelementbyid.a... https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/document.getElementById https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/document.ge... MDN just always explains more details and edge cases, and has much more browser compatibility info (including for mobile).

state 13y ago
THIS! The thing that really ought to replace W3Schools is MDN.
- cpncrunch 13y ago
  Really? I just did a quick comparison, and w3schools was much better than MDN. Try looking for info on the 'required' attribute of the input tag. w3schools has all the attributes in a compact table making it easy to find the attribute you're looking for at a glance, whereas MDN has a big long list. In w3schools you can then click on the 'required' attribute to get more info about it and see which browsers it works on. In MDN there is no info on browser compatibility in the 'required' description - you have to scroll down to ANOTHER table (there is not even a link to it) to see what browser it is compatible with! Come on, even back in web 1.0 we had links to stuff! The reason that w3schools is at the top of the search results is that more people find it useful that MDN. Perhaps it isn't as cool with the hipsters as MDN, but for people trying to get things done w3schools is more useful in my opinion.
  - state 13y ago
    I guess it's really just a matter of personal preference. I switched to adding 'MDN' to my search queries out of gut frustration with having to parse through the W3 pages. I think the comment about 'hipsters' is a little shallow, but it's interesting that this is so divided. I really assumed that HN would be completely in the tank for MDN.