Errors found in w3schools contents

[turtle]

I suggest you to take a look at http://w3fools.com/And try to make your material better.I used the w3schools a lot when I was learning html and css 4 years ago.I wish you luck.

[justsomeguy]

I can agree with much of that, but they left out my biggest peeve on the PHP section:

At W3Schools you will find complete references of all PHP functions:

In no way, shape, or form has the PHP section at this site been complete, and it's misleading to claim that it is. The home page of the PHP tutorial doesn't even link people to php.net. They link to php.net on the intro page as the place to download PHP.Anyway, things like this are the reasons why I choose to answer questions on this forum as opposed to others. These learners need help!

[boen_robot]

W3Schools.com is not affiliated with the W3C in any way. Members of the W3C have asked W3Schools to explicitly disavow any connection in the past, and they have refused to do so.

I wonder what sources they have for that... AFAIK, W3Schools have not "refused" to aknowledge this... quite the opposite, there are aknowledgments all over this forum. I remember there were once quite a few disclaimers around the site too, though I seem to be unable to find them right now.I keep wondering why do people need clarification on that though... first of all, true newbies don't even know W3C... only people that have learned web development from other sources know it... and even then, what could make one think that "Copyright 1999-2011 by Refsnes Data" implies W3C?... you know... considering how some people equate muslims with terrorists, this might not be that surprising.A lot of the errors seem to be HTML5 related... yep... no surprise there... they publish something, and boom, the next day a new browser version or HTML5 iteration comes and makes things false (by "they", I actually refer to both W3Schools and W3Fools really; yeah, the spec is in THAT much flux)... and yet people keep asking that W3Schools make tutorials on [insert fancy draft spec here]... I'm going to use this site as an example of why they shouldn't do that next time someone suggests that.Oh, and some commentary in case the W3Schools' staff or W3Fools' author(s?) reads the site and this topic:

www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_hn.asp.

<h1> defines the largest heading and <h6> defines the smallest heading.

This is not true. The heading elements' number defines their rank for their importance on the page.

To be fair, that's not exactly true either... those elements define the rank of the heading in the document hierarchy with higher numbers defining headings further down the hierarchy (i.e. more specific; a heading for a smaller scope if you will).

www.w3schools.com/css3/css3_pr_target.asp.The CSS target property has zero browser support?

What's the problem here? The target property is indeed part of the spec, and assuming that they don't know of any browser that supports this property, the information on W3Schools' page is accurate, is it not?

www.w3schools.com/js/js_objects.asp.Unnecessary use of new Object() instead of object literal {} on "creating your own objects". Bad naming used for object constructors, they call it "template of an object". They don't explain that calling the constructor using new will return a new object

I think that both object literals and the "new" operator were omitted intentionally. The word "template" implies the fact that what you're seeing is not the real thing, and you're somehow creating copies or something (yes, I know the term is "instance"; think about the newbies!). It is expected from the reader to guess that "new" is the way you create these. I guess they could've explain at least "new", but that would involve explaining a ton of terminology, which is not good in a beginner tutorial.

www.w3schools.com/js/js_obj_boolean.asp.new Boolean() is completely useless. Use straight up true and false. Save bytes, improve performance, and prevent all sorts of WTF when you start typeof or =='ing things.

How else do you illustrate that even a boolean value is a (special, but still) kind of object?

www.w3schools.com/js/js_obj_intro.asp.

JavaScript is an Object Oriented Programming (OOP) language. An OOP language allows you to define your own objects and make your own variable types.

This is just terribly wrong in each part.

Agree but... does anyone have ideas on how to explain the ideas of objects and how JavaScript fits with it? And in a simple way too."www.w3schools.com/js/js_popup.asp.alert() and confirm() dialogs with no explanation that they should generally be avoided. Also no discussion of console.log() for debugging purposes."It was only relatively recently (IE8 I think) that IE started requiring a confirmation and page refresh for any dialogs like prompt() and confirm(), and it's only IE that does this, so unless that's the reason "they should generally be avoided", I'm not sure I see the problem. As for console.log()... debugging overall is not discussed in any of the tutorials. Granted that's a bad omission indeed, if such pages are created, I'm sure they'd include console.log() in the picture.

www.w3schools.com/js/js_intro.asp.

JavaScript's official name is ECMAScript.

Technically… JavaScript is a trademark originally registered by Sun Microsystems and licensed to Netscape when the language was new. Sun was acquired by Oracle, which now owns the trademark, and Netscape passed the license for the trademark on to Mozilla. The language was eventually standardized under the creative name ECMAScript by the ECMA international standards organization to avoid legal conflicts with the trademark owner. Similarly, Microsoft named its clone of JavaScript, JScript. Meanwhile, JavaScriptCore, the implementation of ECMAScript in Apple's Safari, appears to be willing to take the chance, and Google's v8 is off doing its own thing being awesome and breaking the mold, man.To put it… plainly, JavaScript is a subset (or superset, depending upon which version of JS you are describing) of ECMAScript.

Gee... much simpler explanation, thanks... not. Not even the "plainly" part would be simple to understand. While the history described on W3Schools may not be 100% complete (it misses the whole name lisence parts), there's no way to further simplify the title while keeping it accurate. I'd hate to see explanations like "JavaScript is just the name of the earliest ECMAScript language implementation", which while sort of accurate is almost as confusing as the above explanation."www.w3schools.com/js/js_image_maps.aspWhat in the world does this have to do with JavaScript? "It's called "a practical example"... yep... contrast THAT remark with the people that suggest W3Schools put more real, fully explained examples that show how it all fits together."www.w3schools.com/No links to the specs, ever. "If they ever do that, it is sure to come along with a "W3Schools is not related to W3C" disclaimer next to every link... I don't want to see that. Besides, specs are not really meant to be read by developers... that's what references are for.(P.S. Sorry for some of the quotes... it seems the forum has a limit to the number of quotations that I wasn't aware of until now)

[jeffman]

So much effort put into so much anger, and probably to very little result. (E.g., I don't see newbies changing their Google habits.) I could kind of see a point if W3Fools had already sent the list of concerns to Refsnes Data and been rebuffed, but there is no indication of that. At least the link appears in the correct forum to initiate constructive action. Assuming the arrogant tone doesn't put off the audience. Right or wrong (mostly right) the tone certainly puts me off.

[thescientist]

what good does this kind of site do, when I can find an example where they are mis-representing the example they're criticizing? For example

www.w3schools.com/js/js_loop_for.asp.

for (var=startvalue;var<=endvalue;var=var+increment)

Not only do they forget about using the var keyword to prevent the variable from leaking to the global scope, but you can't even use var as a variable name—it is a reserved word, and this code will generate a SyntaxError.

http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_loop_for.aspthese guy's need to layoff the caffeine and pizza. This sites make it seem like this all being done out of malice on W3Schools' end. I for one can't find any examples of W3Schools claiming to be associated with the W3C on their site, but then again, I'm not trying to spend all my free time trying to find errors in their references. Mistakes happen, and programmers often have different stylistic and syntactical preferences, which can be debated endlessly. Any programmer/developer/newbie, like anyone looking for information, should consider more than source for their information Edited January 14, 2011 by thescientist

[boen_robot]

Errr... turtle... are YOU the author of this, or was it just a link you found out somehow?I noticed the site just changed some of its comments, and some are conviniently ones I just made remarks about above.Who's the author anyway?BTW, I wish they mentioned something about the forum... I'm sure everyone you ask will say it's a whole different story (that's assuming they know of the forum's existance)... and if there's critisism to that too, we can in most cases tackle it (no, we won't stop manually approving members any time soon; still too much spammers).

[justsomeguy]

I used the w3schools a lot when I was learning html and css 4 years ago.

Just out of curiosity, did you find it helpful? Was it a good start for continuing education?

[thescientist]

Errr... turtle... are YOU the author of this, or was it just a link you found out somehow?I noticed the site just changed some of its comments, and some are conviniently ones I just made remarks about above.Who's the author anyway?BTW, I wish they mentioned something about the forum... I'm sure everyone you ask will say it's a whole different story... and if there's critisism to that too, we can in most cases tackle it (no, we won't stop manually approving members any time soon; still too much spammers).

all the authors with links to their Twitter accounts are listed below the intro paragraph at the top of the page

[thescientist]

Like any other authoritative educational resource, W3Schools should both hold itself to, and be held to, the highest standards.

do you have a source for that?

[boen_robot]

do you have a source for that?

Yeah, good point... W3Schools is not "authoritive"... it's just "popular" (proven by their top spots on Google about [something] tutorial).

[turtle]

Errr... turtle... are YOU the author of this, or was it just a link you found out somehow?I noticed the site just changed some of its comments, and some are conviniently ones I just made remarks about above.Who's the author anyway?BTW, I wish they mentioned something about the forum... I'm sure everyone you ask will say it's a whole different story... and if there's critisism to that too, we can in most cases tackle it (no, we won't stop manually approving members any time soon; still too much spammers).

No, I'm not one of the authors of the w3fools.comI just saw it on twitter and came here to let people know.

[turtle]

Just out of curiosity, did you find it helpful? Was it a good start for continuing education?

Yup, it helped me a lot.And I like the style and the simplicity of the www.w3schools.comThat's why I got concerned when I saw the site w3fools.com and came here to let people know.

[turtle]

To be honest... this is not my account...I was in a hurry to post a comment here and didn't have an account so I found this account on bugmenot.com and made the post.Have just created an account here as PutzKipa so I will not use this account anymore.

[boen_robot]

I wish they could... I don't know... wikify their page or let people post comments... oh, the irony.

[justsomeguy]

I was in a hurry to post a comment here and didn't have an account so I found this account on bugmenot.com and made the post.

Hmm, that may explain why that account was associated with porn in the past. I'm going to disable the turtle account and make sure your other one is activated.

[turtle]

I wish they could... I don't know... wikify their page or let people post comments... oh, the irony.

Really a problem.There is an official twitter: http://twitter.com/w3foolsPS: Using this account a little more cause I cant post with my new account yet. =/

[turtle]

Hmm, that may explain why that account was associated with porn in the past. I'm going to disable the turtle account and make sure your other one is activated.

Thanks.I will log out and wait.

[justsomeguy]

Yup, it helped me a lot.And I like the style and the simplicity of the www.w3schools.com

That's a point I was trying to make. I think some people rely too much on the site to be the end-all-be-all of online learning. The topics covered are tremendously broad, and they don't cover all of them (and granted, some of what they do is not presented the best way). It's a good resource to help people trying to learn, but once you've grasped the basics that the site covers on whatever topic you're trying to learn there are usually better resources that cover it at a deeper level.Anyway, your account is validated.

[putzkipa]

Thanks.My account is working now.I tried to tweet about this forum post so that maybe there could be some way to settle things.Also complained about the lack of communication mechanisms on their side.

[putzkipa]

That's a point I was trying to make. I think some people rely too much on the site to be the end-all-be-all of online learning. The topics covered are tremendously broad, and they don't cover all of them (and granted, some of what they do is not presented the best way). It's a good resource to help people trying to learn, but once you've grasped the basics that the site covers on whatever topic you're trying to learn there are usually better resources that cover it at a deeper level.Anyway, your account is validated.

I agree.And I really like w3schools for this. It's a great place for beginners.But how can we solve the w3fools critics problem and more important... what to do about the immense spreading in twitter?

[justsomeguy]

The lack of communication has been an ongoing thing, the people who run the site don't post in the forum and generally don't communicate with the forum mods or admins. I even got a PM once from one of the managers of the IE team about some changes they wanted for the site and eventually had to go through Facebook to look up and contact one of the owners. I didn't even hear back that time. It's a little frustrating, but that's the way it is.

[justsomeguy]

But how can we solve the w3fools critics problem and more important... what to do about the immense spreading in twitter?

We don't do anything, because there's nothing we can do except continue to help people here. If site management wants to take it up, they can.

[putzkipa]

Ok.My post has been seen: http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2011/01/w...n-w3schools.phpIt's a start.

[Ingolme]

W3Schools is a good place to get started, though there are a couple of bad practises in the examples. People who get further into web development end up finding out the rest on their own. W3Schools is popular because they make their tutorials simple and easy to understand.If it's not on the W3Schools site, the forums are probably the best place to learn.

[trinistorm]

Maybe they should produce a tutorial on SEO. I think at this point no one can criticize them there.