

Why I'm Planning to Kill W3Schools - kixxauth
http://www.htmlandcsstutorial.com/blog/why-im-killing-w3schools-and-you-can-too
W3Schools has dominated the search results for longer that it deserves, yet we haven&#x27;t been able to do anything about it.
======
kijin
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Their examples are outdated, insecure, and don't really explain why things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.

~~~
cabalamat
> 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.

~~~
Aardwolf
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.a...](http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/met_document_getelementbyid.asp)
[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/API/document.ge...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/API/document.getElementById)

MDN just always explains more details and edge cases, and has much more
browser compatibility info (including for mobile).

~~~
state
THIS! The thing that really ought to replace W3Schools is MDN.

~~~
cpncrunch
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
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.

~~~
malyk
I've never heard of mdn before this thread somehow. But w3schools is perfect
for looking up the things I tend to look up (mostly CSS or HTML attributes)
and it's really easy to parse. Plus it's always the first google result for
me.

~~~
panzi
You never used MDN? How long are you developing web sites?

~~~
cpncrunch
I've been developing websites since 1996 myself, and MDN hasn't really been on
my radar for an html reference. I did use it extensively back in 2009 when I
was doing work with <canvas>, and back then MDN didn't really have a general
html reference. I think it's only in the last couple of years that MDN has
really developed their reference documentation.

So, if you've always used MDN you really must be a young whippersnapper :)

I think MDN has an advantage in that they've only really been around since
HTML5 has become standardized, whereas w3schools has had to deal with the
changing standards of html4/xhtml/html5.

~~~
davidbruant
"I think MDN has an advantage in that they've only really been around since
HTML5 has become standardized" => HTML5 is not a standard. Nowhere near so.
Whatever you mean by that, MDN is as old as Firefox anyway.

"...whereas w3schools has had to deal with the changing standards of
html4/xhtml/html5." => These differences are 99.99% additions, so don't impact
documentation that much. In any case, documentations is more relevant is it
documents implementations, not standards (which come after implementation most
of the time, not the other way around until recently)

------
pamelafox
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
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
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

------
lucisferre
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.

~~~
colmvp
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.

------
mcphilip
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
_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
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.

------
null_ptr
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
Exactly. Just do it, come back when you've got some content, and then ask for
help promoting it.

------
leephillips
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.

~~~
moultano
>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.

~~~
leephillips
I know that is what they (you?) claim, and I don't have any real evidence to
the contrary. The contrary hypothesis, however, explains some otherwise
puzzling behavior in Google's search results. So I would like to know if you
can offer any evidence for your claim (statements by Google employees are not
evidence).

~~~
moultano
What is this puzzling behavior?

~~~
leephillips
For example, the frequently remarked (here on HN and elsewhere), persistent
outranking of high-quality, ad-free sites by spam sites, or other lower-
quality URLs, that invariably contain Adsense units.

~~~
moultano
Do you have an example query?

~~~
leephillips
If you are paying attention to the subject of the article and most of the
comments on this page, you should have no trouble generating one yourself.
Just search for anything involving basic html or css, like, say "html title
tag", and see that the first result, and often the first three results, are to
an inferior site (w3schools) sporting Adsense ads. Then there are some more
like that. The high quality results (w3.org, mdn) start halfway down. None of
these have any advertising, and so they generate no revenue for Google.

~~~
moultano
Half of the people in this thread say that they like w3schools, or even if
they don't like it they use it all the time. That is sufficient to explain why
it ranks well. Now imagine that the average person issuing these queries is
less sophisticated than the people commenting in this thread ...

~~~
leephillips
Among people here who have commented on the comparative quality of these
sites, it is almost unanimous that w3schools is far worse than the others I
mentioned, to the extent of it actually being dangerous to use. Your reply
amounts to a claim that w3schools outranks the higher quality sites in
Google's results because it has higher pagerank. Frankly, this is the expected
reply. If that is the whole story, it confirms my earlier claim that there is
a fundamental flaw in the Pagerank algorithm that conflates popularity with
quality. The hypothesis that potential revenue is in fact a signal influencing
search rankings is still very much a contender. Not to belabor this, but the
protestations of Google employees should not be considered as evidence one way
or the other in evaluating whether this hypothesis explains the data.

~~~
moultano
There's a balance between popularity and quality that we try to be very
careful with. Ranking isn't entirely one or the other. It doesn't help to give
people a better page if they aren't going to click on it anyways.

You might be interested in this: [http://searchengineland.com/too-many-ads-
above-the-fold-now-...](http://searchengineland.com/too-many-ads-above-the-
fold-now-penalized-by-googles-page-layout-algo-108613) Google demotes pages
that have too many ads, including Google's ads.

~~~
leephillips
You seem to be saying that there is something besides "quality" that
influences the ranking of search results, which I find surprising. I thought
the idea was to return the best quality results, but there may simply be an
issue of semantics at play. When you say "popularity" here I suspect you have
in mind something different from what I had in mind when I used the word in
previous comments. Can you explain what kind of popularity you mean here (how
is it measured).

"It doesn't help to give people a better page if they aren't going to click on
it"

I think you've lost me. Don't people tend to click on the top result? And
isn't the idea to put the highest quality results at and near the top so
people go there? How could it possibly be helpful to the user to _not_ offer
them the best quality results?

I looked at the link you provided, but I'm as confused as the author. Isn't
there a limit of three Adsense units on a page anyway? As the author points
out, Google suggests to publishers that they use the maximum number of ads,
and specifically (see the heat map) that they put them above the fold. Then it
appears they've decided to penalize publishers who follow this advice. The
only way for this to be consistent is if they're only penalizing pages
displaying competing advertising products.

The author also shows a screengrab of Google's own results page, where we can
see that everything visible on the monitor is sponsored content, with no
organic search results at all.

Frankly, I'm perplexed about what point you were trying to make by suggesting
this link, but it was interesting.

~~~
moultano
Suppose you search for something like [pinched nerve ibuprofen]. The top two
results currently are [http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/pinched-
nerve/DS00879/DSECT...](http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/pinched-
nerve/DS00879/DSECTION=treatments-and-drugs) and
[http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071010035254AA...](http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071010035254AA1yj6F)

Almost anyone would agree that the mayoclinic result is higher quality. It's
written by professional physicians at a world renowned institution. However,
getting the answer to your question requires reading a lot of text. You have
to be comfortable with words like "Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs,"
which a lot of people aren't. Half of people aren't literate enough to read
their prescription drug labels:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1831578/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1831578/)

The answer on yahoo answers is provided by "auntcookie84." I have no idea who
she is, whether she's qualified to provide this information, or whether the
information is correct. However, I have no trouble whatsoever reading what she
wrote, regardless of how literate I am.

That's the balance we have to strike. You could imagine that the most accurate
and up to date information would be in the midst of a recent academic paper,
but ranking that at 1 wouldn't actually help many people. This is likely
what's going on between w3schools and MDN. MDN might be higher quality, better
information, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's more useful to everyone.

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

~~~
code_duck
They leverage that misperception to sell useless 'certifications' \- over 10k
sold so far (at $99 each), they claim.

~~~
dragonwriter
I dunno, seems to me that prospective applicants trumpeting W3Schools
certifications _is_ a valuable signal...

------
jplur
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.

~~~
kixxauth
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.

~~~
sequoia
> 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
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 ...

------
thisishugo
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
I do the exact same thing; MDN is an absolutely brilliant network and anyone
can contribute to it.

------
mtts
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.

------
mathias
[http://www.w3fools.com/](http://www.w3fools.com/)

~~~
vezzy-fnord
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
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?

------
pmelendez
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
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
Indeed that is misleading but that doesn't invalidate the content though.

~~~
stretchwithme
Its only misleading if you know what w3c is. And those who do know what it is
probably figure out the difference quickly.

------
nahreally
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
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.

------
arseniclifeform
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...](http://www.impressivewebs.com/web-development-search-results-
manipulated/)

------
moocowduckquack
'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
> 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_re...](http://www.cprenterprisesonline.com/elearning/about/about_refsnes.asp.htm)

~~~
moocowduckquack
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
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.

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

~~~
kixxauth
I wow, that's a great idea. Thanks!

------
dinkumthinkum
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.

------
raymondh
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).

------
brownbat
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...)

------
draegtun
Sitepoint produced a good W3Schools alternative -
[http://reference.sitepoint.com](http://reference.sitepoint.com)

------
zenocon
> 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.

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

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
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.

------
ulisesrmzroche
"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.

------
KingdomSprite
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/)

------
NovemberWest
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.

------
abhididdigi
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.

------
dragonwriter
> "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.

------
Scryptonite
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)

------
m90
> ...the use of Microsoft ASP...

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

------
ausjke
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.

------
getdavidhiggins
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.

------
gesman
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.

------
shiftb
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.

------
danso
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
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?

------
arbuge
_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.

------
nullgeo
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)

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

------
Wintamute
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...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist-by-
goo/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef?hl=en)

------
znowi
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.

------
tlogan
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
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.

------
nickcolley
I think one of the reasons
[http://www.webplatform.org/](http://www.webplatform.org/) was setup was for
this?

------
tingletech
"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.

------
coopdot
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.

------
welder
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...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist-by-
goo/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef)

Now MDN's JS and CSS reference shows up on top!

------
jameswyse
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...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist-by-
goo/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef)

~~~
jaredmcateer
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.

------
bingeboy
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.

------
walesmd
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.

------
paul9290
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
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)

------
phaedryx
reminds me of: [http://www.w3fools.com/](http://www.w3fools.com/)

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

------
lucaspottersky
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"

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

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

------
jimmoi1
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

------
octref
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.

~~~
davidbruant
I'm one of the "MDN maintainer", volunteering my own time. It seems like you
have quite a lot of good ideas to improve MDN :-)

"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."

Over the years, I have noticed that lots of people have good ideas about MDN,
but no one seems to care sharing them in a Mozilla channel or better,
contribute to MDN! It's a wiki! Something is wrong or inappropriate? Go fix
it! (appropriate channel: [https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-
mdc](https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-mdc) )

It's also been over a year now that Mozilla is building the wiki behing MDN.
It's an open source project called Kuma
[https://github.com/mozilla/kuma/](https://github.com/mozilla/kuma/) Check it
out and contribute. I have not read the 2 books you're refering to. If you
have, go share your ideas!

