On Wed, 2006-08-02 at 20:22 +0800, Ed Greshko wrote: > I don't do web design. I've no idea if http://www.w3schools.com/ is > good or not. What I do know, or maybe it is what I feel, is that > advice either for or against a resource should be complete with an > example as to why someone feels it is either good or bad. Web "design" is an emotive issue, and much of it is "opinion". However, before arty design comes the construction, namely how to use HTML (whether hand typed, or using an authoring problem). If the information you're told about what HTML does, how it's used, etc., is erroneous, then the resource is no good. That's where the fault lay with W3Schools. The *very* basics of HTML that they lecture you with had numerous errors last time I checked through, and still has plenty during a quick perusal, right now. And I'm not the only one that's assessed them. Once you accept that they a broken resource in the fundamentals, there's little point in continuing to pay attention to anything else that they teach. Certainly not as any authoritative resource, and definitely something to be highly sceptical about. Anything that purports to be a "school" had better bloody well teach something correctly, as far as I'm concerned. If they can't, then they've no business naming themselves as such. How can anyone properly teach something that they don't understand? I can go back and pick through several examples if you really want to, and when I've got the time. But you'd also have to understand HTML properly, to see what they've preached is wrong. Are you familiar with it, properly? Can I point out what's wrong, and you'd know? Or would you just be trying to guess which of us is right without really being able to tell? (*Some* samples below.) Therein lay the rub with trying to debunk something. You've got to understand the material very well, and so does the person you're debunking it to. The catch-22 being that they wouldn't need to have you explain what's wrong, they'd already know. If you want to know what HTML is and how to use it, go to the real source - the W3C which ratifies what becomes the specification. Or, you can read the ISO HTML Specification, the only truly "standard" HTML (if you go by what the word "standards" really means). If you want more human-sensible information about using HTML, I'd recommend the WDG HTML help website. It's less formal, but still manages to stay correct, and discusses common problems and solutions. But, annoyingly, I couldn't refer someone to the W3C for being taught how to make websites. They've taken an attitude rather typical of some teachers, that you should do what they say, rather than what they do. Though "teaching" about HTML isn't really what the W3C site is about. There are problems with their site that just shouldn't be, when they're the body forging how HTML is supposed to be done. I tend to view them as the dictionary, it defines the terms, but someone else is better at the explaining. However, their tutorial documentation aside, the HTML specifications available on the W3C site are factual. Some samples of wrong advice from W3Schools: ------------------------------------------- <http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_hn.asp> HTML <h1> to <h6> tags ________________________________________________________________________ Definition and Usage The <h1> to <h6> tags define headers. <h1> defines the largest header. <h6> defines the smallest header. ------------------------------------------- Incorrect on a few counts: H1 marks the *first* heading, H6 the *last*, a hierarchy. They do *not* define font "size". Size changes are a common characteristic with heading rendering, but that is not what the Hx tags are for. And let's see you put "larger" headings on Lynx! :-\ The Hx tags mark-up "headings" (you know, like when you have a heading on a page "How to teach HTML", etc.). Headings are not "headers", which is even more confusing when people try to understand what a HTML head element is. And they certainly don't "define" them. You've got to use the right explanations, and terminology. Pedantry is important, even mandatory, with computing. You have to teach what things really mean, not teach them as meaning something else because that's what someone perceives them to be, or because it's simpler. You end up simplifying things to the point that they're incorrect. -------------------------------------------- <http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_blockquote.asp> HTML <blockquote> tag ________________________________________________________________________ Definition and Usage The <blockquote> tag defines the start of a long quotation. ... Note: The blockquote element creates white space on both sides of the text. --------------------------------------------- No, the blockquote tags (opening and closing) mark-up a quotation. They don't "define" anything, and they don't simply indicate the "start" of a quotation, they mark-up the whole thing. The blockquote element does NOT create white space on both sides of the text. While it's common that many browsers do indent, on both margins, quoted text. That's just a common behaviour, and purely a styling issue. It's not required, and most definitely does not occur in all browsers. I've used browsers which merely italicise such text. Blockquote means this is a block of quoted material, nothing else. What may or may not be done with it isn't what it "means". --------------------------------------------- <http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_html.asp> HTML <html> tag ________________________________________________________________________ Definition and Usage This element tells a browser that this is an HTML document. --------------------------------------------- No, it does not. I could go on, there's further examples, but I really don't have the patience for it. They're teaching the fundamentals wrong, that's a very bad thing to do. After years of working in schools, suffering from some bad teaching beforehand, and having to unteach bad teaching from people post-school, I take a VERY dim view of incompetent teaching. -- (Currently running FC4, occasionally trying FC5.) Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
