Reviews
This weeks reviews take a look at two web-related resources that teach people about how to learn web development from the basics right up to the advanced level of web mastery. It reviews the reliability of information, accuracy and presentation of information.
Mozilla Developer Network : MDN
The Mozilla Developer Network or MDN as it's more commonly known as is an open-source documentation site for all things web-related. The docs are of incredibly high standards with included images, demos and interactivity to making web development easy to learn and undersatnd more of. This is shown by their rather to the point motto - "Resources for developers by developers".
As a self-taught web developer myself I cannot say how helpful and convienient the MDN docs are as a developer. There have been numerous occasions where I've needed to look up uncommon attributes or css properties and I am able to open the docs and search them and get a whole page full of useful information just like that.
MDN docs offer HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SVG and several other technology based documentation and covers these topics rather extensively and not only that the documentation is a highly reliable source unlike our other web-learning resource - W3Schools.
W3Schools
W3Schools is an educational web resource created in 1998 by Refsnes Data, from Norway. The site gets its name from the World Wide Web Consirtium (W3C) however the two are not affiliated in anyway, shape or form. The site includes tutorials and relevant resources for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JSON, PHP, Python, Angular, SQL, Bootstrap, Node.js, jQuery, XQuery, AJAX and XML. It is quite an extensive list of technologies however, don't let that fool you into thinking it is good.
The website does lead you to believe it's a reputable source, mostly due to its high ranking in Google search results - mostly a result of its name. However, the site has been known to provide false or incorrect code references or information. Many students studying web development also find themselves loosing points in coursework or exams for referencing the material too and in some extreme cases have to resit their entire module on the subject. So, it is certainly not the place to be in.
In conclusion, while you can use W3Schools providing you understand whether or not something you're being shown is wrong but in almost all cases working with MDN or perhaps even other sources like Google's Web Fundamentals or Learncode.academy are far superior in both relability and knowledge than the older source that is W3Schools.