[HN Gopher] A new learning experience on MDN
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A new learning experience on MDN
Author : Vinnl
Score : 196 points
Date : 2024-12-23 12:36 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (developer.mozilla.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (developer.mozilla.org)
| benatkin wrote:
| It doesn't look too great to be honest. It's quite verbose and
| gets steps out of order. It starts out with loading a font from
| Google Fonts. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Learn_web_developme...
|
| Where MDN used to excel and for now still does, reference
| documentation, is also showing cracks, due to the recent changes
| at Mozilla. A long time contributor gave up.
| https://github.com/mdn/content/pull/36294
| nothrabannosir wrote:
| I have zero outside context on that pr but judging it purely by
| the actual written text in the comments it seems the mdn
| maintainer was bring far more mature than the contributor who
| ended up quitting. They both mention a lot of background in the
| comments themselves; what information is missing which would
| make the contributor seem more sympathetic? As matters stand,
| this doesn't appear as a loss for mdn.
| cowsandmilk wrote:
| 100% agree. This is their contributions:
| https://github.com/mdn/content/commits?author=WebReflection+
|
| Not seeing them as a major contributor.
| neilv wrote:
| > _It starts out with loading a font from Google Fonts._
|
| Besides the steps order... My first impression is that it's
| taking someone who knows nothing, and conditioning them from
| step 1 to not even think about compromising a privacy-
| respecting, free and open Internet. Your First Third-Party
| Tracker. Your First Gratuitous Third-Party Dependency.
|
| A couple times they hit on copyright and licensing, however.
| Which I approve of, but is also a corporate-friendly thing to
| emphasize.
|
| Another one:
|
| > _To choose an image, go to [Google
| Images](https://www.google.com/imghp) and search for something
| suitable._
|
| If you have to name and link a search engine for the exercise,
| how about not endorsing a famously privacy-invading option, but
| instead have the student use a more privacy-respecting one?
| nacs wrote:
| > To choose an image, go to Google Images
|
| Or plug one of the many royalty-free photo sites like
| Unsplash or Pexels (and comes with the bonus of teaching
| people to consider copyrights when you publish a site).
| edoceo wrote:
| And also those two sites you mentioned have higher quality
| and less clutter. A significant improvement in tool choice
| to what MDN suggested.
|
| Hopefully we can fix this via contribution.
| labster wrote:
| I don't think either of those websites pay Mozilla millions
| of dollars. Maybe the more important lesson they're
| teaching is that money makes the world go round.
| juliangoldsmith wrote:
| The search engine they linked to happens to provide a
| significant portion of Mozilla's revenue.
| lolinder wrote:
| Honestly, I think the MDN team is in the right here.
|
| The author of the PR provided almost no explanation for the
| addition and left the template essentially blank. Then the team
| provided a detailed explanation of a very reasonable policy, to
| which the PR author responded with what frankly reads like a
| temper tantrum.
|
| Especially after the xz incident, maintainers should be very
| very wary of contributors who use manipulative techniques to
| try to get things merged against policy, and contributors who
| are trying to help in good faith should be patient and
| understanding when they hit those barriers.
| jwilber wrote:
| The link I'm reading (the one you sent) starts with planning,
| not font loading?
|
| The second link seems very irrelevant, but makes Mozilla look
| good. The long time contributor in that thread is giving a
| showcase on how not to behave in open-source. Props to Mozilla
| for not giving into the manipulative bully-play-victim
| contributor:
|
| Comment of his, for reference: "Once again, if this was the
| reason for rejection I would've been way happier (it's 3LOC
| extra) to react to that reasoning, but I am fully sure right
| now even if I bring "secured" (it's a race condition in the
| real-world) call and apply to the ponyfill you'll find other
| awkward and antitrust conflicting arguments to nuke my link ...
| can you confirm? If yes is the answer, once again, me and you
| have very different meaning around working to push the Web
| forward (and it's sad you work for Mozilla, I don't), if no is
| the answer, I'll publish a fix ASAP and you should re-consider
| closing both PRs around this topic.
|
| It's your call."
| SahAssar wrote:
| > A long time contributor gave up.
| https://github.com/mdn/content/pull/36294
|
| Reading through that issue MDN was almost definitely in the
| right. Also calling them a long time contributor might be a bit
| off, from what I can see they did one typofix and added one
| link:
| https://github.com/mdn/content/commits?author=WebReflection
| semiquaver wrote:
| Wow, and the added link was another polyfill they had
| written, precisely the behavior that they were (justifiably)
| being questioned for in the original linked thread.
| Tomte wrote:
| ,,Last thought", ,,really last"... proceeds to write
| seventeen more comments.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| ...and an article on Medium.
| poooooo wrote:
| In the Medium article he actually references his only
| PR-- a typo fix PR-- as a recent MDN contribution and to
| open source. Some people just have an inflated sense of
| their contributions.
| andrepd wrote:
| I just see a guy ranting for days because his contribution was
| rejected. Not sure what point that link is supposed to make.
| whatever1 wrote:
| MDN does just excel at documentation. It is the ONLY place
| where one can learn modern web development from scratch without
| a hidden agenda. Everyone else is either pushing their
| framework or their online courses platform or their own browser
| ecosystem.
| devmor wrote:
| It is really disappointing how much of the previous feeling of
| open source ethos seems to disappear every time Mozilla updates
| anything over the last few years.
|
| I am not involved enough to know what kind of changes or
| politics are responsible, but I sure hope it reverses.
| phatfish wrote:
| As far as i can tell Mozilla community contributors and
| employees have the patience of saints having to deal with the
| most toxic and entitled development community on the
| internet. Mostly driven by attention seekers trying to boost
| their NPM download stats.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| The author of that pr is acting like a spoilt child. I would
| reject his contributions on principle alone.
| 12345hn6789 wrote:
| His reaction of course, was due to Mozilla spitting in his
| face of course. Since his repository was not popular enough
| to warner attention.
| ecshafer wrote:
| His PR broke their policy of not linking to peoples own
| resources, it was a policy breaking pr. Its
| straightforward.
| raincole wrote:
| The behavior of the said "long time contributor" (I didn't
| bother checking whether they actually contributed) is very
| questionable.
| sigseg1v wrote:
| I'm amazed that adults act like this in a professional setting.
| As soon as the issue creator asked if the maintainer has made
| any of their own polyfills, it sounds like it turned into a
| personal attack. I'd say the issue poster should be banned from
| contributing starting from that point, and I'm surprised he was
| allowed to keep posting.
| mdaniel wrote:
| Very ambitious of them: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Learn_web_developme...
|
| and I think this is a soft joke:
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn_web_developme...
| _it currently just says TODO_
| edelbitter wrote:
| Is the page layout meaningfully different on some other
| device/browser?
|
| I see less than 30% of my screen space being used for actual
| content. Dropped below 50% somewhere around the time they decided
| they like LLMs.
| kussenverboten wrote:
| A lot of words and not much information density.
| rchaud wrote:
| Very confusing post. I took a look at their "Learn Web
| Development" section and I am confused as to why they link out to
| third parties when all the content that would be needed is pretty
| much already in the MDN knowledgebase on their own site.
| upghost wrote:
| > with the aim of making MDN more accessible to non-experts and
| helping to take new web developers from "beginner to
| comfortable".
|
| I love this. Maybe there's still hope... Been doing web
| development for over a decade and I'm still not "comfortable"
| with it >.<
| Macha wrote:
| It's interesting when talking about the focus on supply chain
| safety that they've decided to only recommend core-js. From my
| perspective, it feels like core-js is the top candidate for the
| next left-pad / colors.js type author induced ecosystem failure
| given the author's past attitudes and financial issues.
| benatkin wrote:
| I looked into the core js author's story and there's nothing
| off about him to me. He just played a role in the post-install
| messages being curtailed.
| https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v9/commands/npm-fund?v=true As for
| that other thing, this puts it well: "I won't get into details
| - no one knows the full story - so I let you make your own
| opinion". https://www.izoukhai.com/blog/the-sad-story-of-denis-
| pushkar... I read the story (the link in that post is old) and
| I ended up giving him the benefit of the doubt.
| https://github.com/zloirock/core-js/blob/master/docs/2023-02...
| Also in that post is that Babel didn't fork it. That's another
| thing to take into account when making your own opinion.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| The benefit of the doubt is a luxury. Yes of course the
| author deserves it but if you're operating a bank, a
| government, or a military, (granted not the core audience of
| this post) you can't afford to give the benefit of the doubt.
| Sephr wrote:
| Mozilla doesn't seem to care much about creating linkrot. They've
| previously deleted a bunch of historical docs such as their
| JavaScript engine release notes with changelog information.
| snicker7 wrote:
| The Neopets HTML Guide [1] remains the best beginner's guide to
| Web development.
|
| [1] https://www.neopets.com/help/html1.phtml
| Tomte wrote:
| I'm getting a redirect to some ,,Help Center"
| imiric wrote:
| Ah, yes. With `<font size="1" color="red">` and `<bgsound>`
| you're pretty much ready to be a webmaster!
|
| It's only missing a section on how to add a guestbook and
| visitor counter.
| herpdyderp wrote:
| Wow, Neopets is what got me into web dev. I didn't know they
| had their own guides!
| mediumsmart wrote:
| I find a course like that overwhelming. If its for someone who
| knows nothing but is serious about learning this the course
| should go one way step by step to create and publish a website
| with an OS built in text editor.
|
| Local dev is apache and a sites folder. they go and buy a shared
| hosting package for 5 to 10 dollareuros with a provider that
| gives them ssh access.
|
| And you don't even mention any of the other ways to do this -
| they will find out about them in their own good time. You leave
| javascript out in this beginner course and you show them how to
| create a static site that loads in 1 second max on mobile
| pagespeed, gets 0 errors and 0 contrast errors on wavewebaim, an
| A+ on securityheaders and a proper dmarc rating on dmarcian.com
|
| - and when they are done and see what a good looking blazing fast
| secure and accessible website they can make themselves while
| fully understanding how they did this, thats when the course can
| be called a learning experience.
| skydhash wrote:
| My first venture in programming was typing out HTML in notepad
| and refreshing Internet explorer. No CSS files, No JS (altough
| I found a book on Javascript 1.6 later). Just one single file.
| Later I found about shared hosting and cPanel and this was more
| than enough to get something out in the real world.
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(page generated 2024-12-26 23:01 UTC)