Your thoughts on W3Schools

[Milesqqw2]

Ok, recently I have seen that some people don’t seem to like W3Schools. That leaves me with a few questions. So, why do some people dislike W3Schools, should I use a different website, and if so what? Thanks in advance.

 

[Dannomac7]

I used it to learn many programming languages. It's fine. I find it as a good getting started point to get used to a language but once I've gone through its tutorials once I move on to other resources and start making stuff with the language. I think its a useful resource overall but not one to fully rely on.

[Needfuldoer]

I used it many, many years ago when I was cobbling together phpbb, SimpleMachinesForum, and WordPress templates. 

 

It still seems fine, I guess?

[manikyath]

i've seen my share of it back when i got HTML in college.. i suppose my thought on it is that it serves as a good "educational" tool, not so much an aid to doing actual work.

[duncannah]

I remember how demonized it was more than 10 years ago  See the infamous W3Fools website.

Supposedly it has got better over the years, but MDN is just a much better resource to use if you're doing web stuff. I see that W3Schools has spread onto other languages, but there are still more well-suited resources out there.

[wasab]

it is too basics, too beginner. search for anything complex like examples of react higher order components or how to do server-side rendering and hydration, you will find nothing. 

 

mdn has much better information for everything web related. e.g. if you wish to learn js promises

Promise - JavaScript | MDN (mozilla.org)

 

compare that with this

JavaScript Promises (w3schools.com)

 

you see? big difference

[undergroundbeef]

I like it for the exact reason everyone else her seems to hate it. I haven't used it as a track for learning, but often use it as a reference. Often examples elsewhere on the web are needlessly complex and obscure what is really required for the feature among a bunch of other nonsense. W3Schools strips away all the BS to show the core function in a way that is much faster and easier to get than something like MDN. I'll go to MDN when/if I need more detail than W3Schools offers.

 

Random StackOverflow posts and blogs often seem to try to prove how smart they are by making something complicated, which distracts from why I'm there... I want to get the core bit, so I understand what is fundamental, and then I can build on that to create what I need.

 

I won't say it's the only thing you should use, but for what it is, I find value in it and I'm glad is still exists.

 

As far as learning goes, I think W3Schools probably does a good job of getting someone's feet wet, to give them some confidence and something that works, without overwhelming them with details and edge cases... all that can come later if the person is still interested. 

[TheLANguy]

It is a solid reference for people just getting into (or back into) basic web programming. The HTML Tutorial is simple to follow.

I have recommended it to people as a resource, not something they need to subscribe and pay for.