I know at one point w3schools.com was a bit out of date but they seemed to update it.<p>As someone who has changed careers and moved into web development I found w3schools.com did a nice job of complementing MDN as if I was unfamiliar with the concept (or just forgot entirely) w3 was a good "layman's terms" stop just to start. And if I needed a more technical / granular detail, MDN.<p>I really wouldn't want to use one without the other.<p>Many years ago I took some C programming classes in college. It was in the early days of the internet and it was very much a "here's the book, a bit of lecture, now sit alone at your computer and do it". MDN can feel that way at times where it's example is ultra specific and while nothing is technically wrong.... it's like learning a language with a dictionary. w3schools.com fills that gap nicely.<p>At the same time if I need the dictionary to figure out more precisely how something works and all my options, it's MDN all the way.
Lots of people are commenting to say that W3Schools is now fine. I disagree. On the rare occasion that I end up interacting with them in some way, I find errors.<p>My Stack Overflow post history contains three mentions of W3Schools, all of which involve W3Schools making an error:<p>* <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/q/20610930/1709587" rel="nofollow">https://stackoverflow.com/q/20610930/1709587</a>, about W3Schools stating falsely that it's necessary to explicitly add `type="submit"` to submit buttons in HTML to ensure cross-browser compatibility.<p>* <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/52355253/1709587" rel="nofollow">https://stackoverflow.com/a/52355253/1709587</a>, in which W3Schools makes false claims about the `colspan` attribute - both about what the specs say about it, and about how browsers implement it.<p>* <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/46866568/1709587" rel="nofollow">https://stackoverflow.com/a/46866568/1709587</a>, where W3Schools suggests a JavaScript function to shuffle an array which both technically invokes undefined behaviour under the ECMAScript standard and which does not fairly shuffle arrays in practice in real browsers.<p>None of these things are fixed. The fact that they tidied up the specific errors that the W3Fools team listed, in response to the biggest ever hostile PR campaign that W3Schools ever faced, does not mean that they are now a decent, error-free source. Far from it.
Many years ago, when w3schools was truly terrible, a bunch of prominent developers created <a href="https://www.w3fools.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.w3fools.com</a> to promote MDN. Nowadays, that site reads<p><i>Today, W3Schools has largely resolved these issues and addressed the majority of the undersigned developers' concerns. For many beginners, W3Schools has structured tutorials and playgrounds that offer a decent learning experience. Do keep in mind: a more complete education will certainly include MDN and other reputable resources.</i>
I wish google would automatically put MDN at the top of search results. As it is I have to scroll through 4 or so other links before getting the MDN result.
Unpopular opinion time, but MDN != W3schools.<p>W3schools may have questionable content. It may have content that is not trendy or latest/greatest. The security concerns are important, but if we're really being honest with ourselves most of the vitriol is pedantic superiority complex attitude that permeates tech conversation.<p>W3schools is a gateway to learn web technologies. If you go to the homepage, above the fold is tutorials, learn HTML, learn Javascript in plain sight. MDN is a search bar.<p>I learned PHP in high school from w3schools. I don't use it now; I use the PHP docs. I learned how to host an HTML site from w3schools; now I reference Apache docs because I know what even a webserver is. I once got a CD from McDonalds that kickstarted me being a lifelong fan of one of my favorite artists. I'm sure all of the "hardcore" fans would look down on me for that too.<p>Anyone serious about web dev pulls for multiple sources all of the time; probably from w3schools and mdn at the same time. People grow. Sites like this are important, although imperfect.
Does any of these redirections matter? Does anyone ever just spontaniously visit somedomain.dev anyway? You google w3school and go to the top result, right?
In my experience, w3schools provides mediocre documentation and bad code snippets. The things they suggest are not good practices, in many cases, and serve only the folks looking for some easy copypasta without needing to really understand what their code is doing. Rather than suggest using a framework (half of their snippets could be replaced with a single line of jQuery) they put bad or half-baked advice out into the world with no good explanation of what the code they're giving you is actually doing.
I tried improving mdn with examples of window.alert, which is laughable right now, but my PR was not approved because MDN was structured differently than the browser API.<p><a href="https://github.com/mdn/interactive-examples/pull/1266" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/mdn/interactive-examples/pull/1266</a><p>Like the page literally, have a screenshot of a old school OS alert box?<p><a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/alert" rel="nofollow">https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/aler...</a>
Is there some ulterior motive behind W3Schools besides to teach people web stuff (and to maintain its own existence, which is no different than MDN)? I use MDN because Mozilla literally implements a browser, and I'm not the biggest fan of W3Schools, but this mostly just feels petty. Tons of people get valuable answers from both sites.
What I don't understand is how w3fools got onto their first ranking position for <i>every single web dev topic</i> there is on both ddg and G.<p>1) meaning w3schools not the w3fools parody site
People might want to be careful with all these domain names; they might loose them to the proper owner of the trademark or name (in this case w3schools.com).
I prefer w3schools. Their site is easier to search than MDN and I get the information I need more quickly. MDN is more valuable if I need to check browser support or figure out an edge case.<p>People who have a hate hardon for w3schools are the kind of people who will judge you for the kind of dish soap you use.<p>I'm certain w3schools will claim the domain in short order.
W3schools helped me land my first job. I learned pretty much everything by reading through it, HTML, Javascript, CSS, PHP, MySQL....don't get why people are bashing them, it was a great resource to have a around.