[HN Gopher] Celebrating 20 Years of MDN
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Celebrating 20 Years of MDN
Author : soheilpro
Score : 359 points
Date : 2025-07-25 01:40 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (developer.mozilla.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (developer.mozilla.org)
| dwoldrich wrote:
| Great resource. I probably do a `!mdn Array` on DuckDuckGo at
| least once a month for the past 15 years.
| snorlaxmorlax wrote:
| A community member made the mdn.io/array redirect, could be
| useful for you! ;)
| vimwizard wrote:
| the best
| miiiiiike wrote:
| It's hard to learn about features you're unfamiliar with on MDN.
| There are times that I read MDN docs and think "who is this for?"
| You can read two paragraphs and not even get an idea of what the
| feature is supposed to do or what problem it solves. If you're
| not intimately familiar with the topic you're not going to get
| anything out of reading it.
|
| Sometimes it's better just to read the spec because there's more
| background information.
|
| I'm glad that MDN exists, but I also wish it explained topics as
| well as CSS: The Definitive Guide. I failed to learn CSS the MDN
| docs for years before reading CSS: The Definitive Guide. I was up
| to speed in about three months. Everything made perfect sense.
|
| I'd love to get a wiki that has the explanations of CSS: The
| Definitive Guide, kept up to date with the reference material of
| MDN.
|
| I'd pay for this.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I have in the past, about 4-5 years ago found some aspects of
| documentation on MDN in the examples that did not work in
| browsers because not implemented at the time, as well as some
| lack of clarity in documenting differences between fit-content
| function and fit-content keyword therefore I raised an issue
| https://github.com/mdn/sprints/issues and got the documentation
| amended. However of course that no longer works for the reasons
| already mentioned, not sure if there is some other place or
| process whereby you can raise issues and get documentation
| changed.
|
| on edit: the issue, 5 years ago
| https://github.com/mdn/sprints/issues/3723
| snorlaxmorlax wrote:
| Thanks so much for sharing this -- and for taking the time to
| raise those issues back then! <3
|
| You're absolutely right that the old `mdn/sprints` repo is no
| longer the active channel for suggesting or discussing
| content changes. These days, we encourage folks to file
| issues directly in the mdn/content1 GitHub repository. That's
| where all our documentation now lives, and it's actively
| maintained by MDN staff and contributors.
|
| If you spot inaccuracies, outdated examples, or unclear
| distinctions on any page, we now have a way to report
| straight from the page, you can find this at the bottom of
| every page - "Report a problem with this content." Please
| feel free to open an issue2 or even suggest edits directly
| via pull request. We also try to prioritize fixes based on
| how widely used or confusing a topic might be, so calling
| attention to edge cases or under-documented differences is
| genuinely helpful.
|
| Let me know if you'd like help filing an issue or want to
| connect with the folks maintaining a specific area of the
| docs. We'd love to have you involved again!
|
| 1 https://github.com/mdn/content 2
| https://github.com/mdn/content/issues/new/choose
| bsmth wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. The best place to raise issues now is the
| content repo: https://github.com/mdn/content
| snorlaxmorlax wrote:
| Hi, I'm part of the MDN team. Thank you so much for your
| feedback, I'll be sure to share this with the team, and we'll
| explore how we can build on it further.
|
| Re: "Who is this for?" Most of our reference pages are grounded
| in real-world browser implementations. Rather than documenting
| specs in isolation, we focus on features that have been
| implemented across browsers. We aim to present this information
| in a clear, neutral way, accessible to developers at any stage
| of their journey.
|
| That said, we have expanded our efforts to create more
| learning-focused content, free resources designed to support
| new developers through a structured curriculum. Additionally,
| we've started publishing more in-depth guides on niche topics
| on our blog, which complements our core documentation but
| serves a slightly different purpose from what you mentioned.
| Doohickey-d wrote:
| It's great that it's still around and still seems to be updated.
| Since it seems that they laid off the entire team in 2020:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24132494
|
| Or did they re-hire?
| onli wrote:
| Yeah, it is baffling. Why would a Mozilla domain celebrate
| mdn's birthday if Mozilla tried to kill it and laid off the
| complete team that ran it?
| quesera wrote:
| I'm always happy to see organizations that are able to learn
| from their mistakes.
|
| But yeah, your reaction was also my first.
|
| I really dislike how much I worry about Mozilla. I'm not an
| anxious person, but Mozilla is so important and so frequently
| seemingly unaware of the reasons.
| homebrewer wrote:
| The code is open, it's easy to check who's contributing what:
|
| https://github.com/mdn/content/pulse/monthly
|
| tl;dr: a slight majority of the recent top contributors do not
| appear to be Mozilla employees: I'm seeing Yale, several
| freelancers (paid by Mozilla?), and a bunch of random
| companies.
| snorlaxmorlax wrote:
| Hi, I'm part of the MDN team, and you're absolutely right!
| We're fortunate to have a wide network of contributors,
| contractors, and partners who help us keep MDN accurate and
| up to date. As an open-source project, we deeply value and
| appreciate the incredible support we receive in building and
| maintaining extensive MDN content.
| thesdev wrote:
| A big part of it is OpenWebDocs, which is a mix of volunteers
| and tech companies.
|
| https://openwebdocs.org
| snorlaxmorlax wrote:
| OpenWebDocs is a great partner of MDN! We celebrated this big
| milestone with them. <3
|
| If you'd like to take a look at our partners page -
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/about#our_partners
| snorlaxmorlax wrote:
| Hi, I'm from of the MDN team. While the team was briefly scaled
| down to just two members and a few contractors, we've since
| grown significantly.
|
| Today, MDN is supported by a thriving team of 15, comprising
| core staff, contractors, and a broad network of partners and
| contributors who generously share their expertise to keep MDN
| strong and up to date.
|
| Our team - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/about#our_team
| jve wrote:
| Good to know. The last bit of news that was stuck in my mind
| that MDN is no more maintained :)
| vntok wrote:
| To be honest, the page you linked is a bit difficult to
| parse; there are people who work "with" MDN, "in" MDN, "on"
| MDN, who "joined" MDN, etc.
|
| Can you share how many people are actually full time
| employees vs freelancers?
| snorlaxmorlax wrote:
| Happy to share, sure. We have 12 full-time employees
| working on MDN and 3 freelancers.
| v5v3 wrote:
| How has traffic to MDM changed over the years?
|
| For example when Tailwind came out, all my searches for Css stuff
| moved to tailwind related searches.
|
| And of course the LLM hit.
| KTibow wrote:
| My traffic has definitely gone down, I've been using DevDocs
| instead of MDN direct.
| idoubtit wrote:
| MDN is obviously an important reference. They've done a great
| job, because documenting the complex mess of modern web
| technologies is hard.
|
| I have 2 small complaints:
|
| - I sometimes read some dubious content on MDN. For instance
| [JavaScript frameworks and libraries]^1. I don't think these
| tutorials for 5 frameworks provide any value over the respective
| official tutorials. Even more so with outdated tutorials: the
| Svelte one is 5 years old, and there have been major changes
| since then. ^1: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Learn_web_developme...
|
| - The quality of the webextension doc is low. A clear problem is
| that it's mostly for manifest v2, with a few incomplete pages
| mentioning a transition to v3 or the compatibility with Chrome.
| In practise, I started developing an webextension with this doc,
| then had to switch to Chrome's, though Firefox was my primary
| target.
| snorlaxmorlax wrote:
| Hey, I'm from the MDN team. Thank you for the compliment and
| the feedback, I really appreciate it! <3
|
| I hear you on the complaints, I'll take this to the team. You
| might like this, in case you'd still like to learn building
| Firefox extensions - https://extensionworkshop.com/
| xeonmc wrote:
| Wish list: make MDN a downloadable archive without needing to
| be served?
| minroot wrote:
| You can use devdocs
| wonger_ wrote:
| I was just using devdocs a minute ago and couldn't find
| anything on event listeners :(
| bevr1337 wrote:
| > I sometimes read some dubious content on MDN.
|
| I couldn't agree more. MDN should expect to outlive userland
| libraries and frameworks.
|
| I'm curious if Vercel will find a way to funnel MDN users right
| into their frameworks.
| alexbezhan wrote:
| MDN is the best. I use only standard web features and it's a
| blessing to have MDN. Thank you for your hard work.
| snorlaxmorlax wrote:
| Thank you so much, we appreciate you too! <3
| alabhyajindal wrote:
| I love MDN. Congratulations and thank you to all the
| contributors!
| vorgol wrote:
| I remember when I discovered MDN. It was like sneaking into a
| wizard's sanctum and reading all the secret scrolls. Stellar work
| Mozilla!
| donatj wrote:
| Is there a way to donate to MDN directly without donating to the
| larger Mozilla organization? I find MDN absolutely indispensable
| and would love to contribute in an earmarked way where it
| wouldn't be diverted elsewhere.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Same here with Firefox, I rely on it daily.
|
| But I've grown increasingly frustrated with Mozilla as an
| organization. They've been actively draining resources away
| from Firefox, and honestly, I have no interest in supporting
| them further until they get their priorities straight.
| kookamamie wrote:
| I think the MDN is the best thing come out of Mozilla - yes, even
| considering Rust.
| conartist6 wrote:
| I wrote some of it! No idea what though, attribution from that
| era was all lost : (
|
| If Mozilla could trivially put AST-explorer-esque metadata and
| interactivity into every <code> block would they want to?
|
| If anyone wants to reach out I can show you what I mean and how
| it's done
| snorlaxmorlax wrote:
| Hey, we try to maintain attribution from our wiki setup, still.
| Our contributors are of the utmost importance to us, and if you
| can tell me about the page you contributed to, I can share
| more.
|
| Here's a wikihistory for the lexical grammar page -
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...
| nonhaver wrote:
| not sure why people feel the need to complain in the comments of
| this anniversary post for a free service. been using the MDN docs
| for 5+ years and its been an invaluable resource that also
| promotes exploration - ive stumbled upon so many incredible APIs
| and capabilities i never wouldve have sought out otherwise.
| congrats on 20 years!
| legobmw99 wrote:
| This feels a bit like Stroustrops comment "There are only two
| kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones
| nobody uses". If MDN was not such an invaluable service, not
| nearly as many people would end up forming opinions!
|
| As someone who only dabbles in the web platform I've always
| found the MDN pages to be very refreshing compared to a lot of
| documentation out there
| hofrogs wrote:
| Life would be so much worse without MDN. Thank you for keeping it
| on.
| susam wrote:
| I could fulfil my childhood dream of creating a space-invaders-
| like game [1], much later as an adult [2], thanks to MDN!
|
| The excellent documentation for the Canvas API [3] and
| OscillatorNode [4] on MDN made it quite easy to get started with
| developing the game.
|
| [1] https://susam.net/invaders.html
|
| [2] https://github.com/susam/invaders#why
|
| [3] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Canvas_API
|
| [4] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/API/OscillatorN...
| snorlaxmorlax wrote:
| So happy we could make your childhood dreams come true! I will
| share your feedback with the team, for sure. <3
| wadadadad wrote:
| I want to say that the game play was really well done, I really
| enjoyed the progression (speed of enemies, number of enemies,
| how quickly they descended) and mechanics (being able to shoot
| their bullets!)! I don't recall exactly how the original
| invaders worked, so I'm not sure how much was copied vs
| changed, but I very much enjoyed this as a brief break. Thank
| you!
| susam wrote:
| Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the game. The original Space
| Invaders was quite different. My version wasn't meant to
| replicate it, but it was certainly inspired by it.
|
| For instance, the original didn't have health levels, whereas
| mine does. The invaders in the original were packed more
| densely across the screen, and the player had defensive
| bunkers that were gradually destroyed. My version doesn't
| include those. So while the two games are quite different,
| the original was definitely the inspiration that motivated me
| to create my own invaders-like game.
| pluto_modadic wrote:
| Is this the same MDN that ruined their docs by having AI
| hallucinate answers instead of linking to working examples?
| Mozilla really forcing the AI angle on their poor teams :(
| socalgal2 wrote:
| do you have an example?
|
| Though to be honest, if each answer was validated I have no
| issue with AI generated answers. When I ask ChatGPT or Gemini
| an API question, it often provides doc level details (it also
| often provides invalid and wrong info, hence my saying "if each
| answer was validated".
| minroot wrote:
| The only thing that gave me hope
| the_other wrote:
| I've used MDN as my go-to web documentation for the majority of
| those 20 years. It's an essential resource: typically easier to
| read than the specs; practical info, cross-referenced, with
| examples (and some playgrounds).
|
| Thanks for keeping it relevant all this time.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Now if only search engines would prioritize MDN over W3.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| MDN is great! I use them all the time.
|
| Since the team is apparently reading this, I ran into SVG docs
| being less than great (to me). I was trying to use SVG and I
| think the way the docs are presented for SVG elements could maybe
| use some TLC. For example the 'g' element
|
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/SVG/Reference/E...
|
| What attributes can be used? All it says is "This element only
| includes global attributes.". Yea, ok, why isn't that a link to
| what are the global attributes are? There's nothing on the page
| that gets you to the attributes. Ideally they'd just be on this
| page so the user doesn't have to go digging.
|
| Clicking "attributes" on the left brings up a list of attributes.
| Which ones are "global attributes". Why is it organized like
| this? If it was docs of structures for an API I would not expect
| each property to have its own page and not be described in that
| struct's page directly. struct Person {
| name: // links to /docs/name age: // lines to
| /docs/age } struct Country { name:
| // links to /docs/name population: // links to
| /docs/population } struct Vehicle {
| name: // links to docs/name price: // links to
| docs/price }
|
| You'd expect (well, I'd expect), that docs for properties are
| include in the page.
|
| But that's how the SVG element docs are organized.
|
| Compare to HTMLCanvasElement
|
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLCanvasE...
|
| Which at least has that element's unique properties listed. Even
| their though I have to go digging through the hierarchy to find
| what other properties. It would be way more useful to, at a
| glance, at least list all the attributes and methods including
| inherited ones, even if they are just links.
|
| Much of this seems semi automatable from IDL?
| imcritic wrote:
| MDN was great. Mozilla was great. It is incredibly sad it all
| went to shit.
| prinny_ wrote:
| MDN is an essential site and I am so glad it's maintained,
| updated and introducing new functionality.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I use MDN as much as I can, and will pick a page from it even if
| it is lower in search results. I don't know how page ranks can
| put something over an MDN page.
|
| Long ago when I first started seeing MDN references, I had
| assumed the M = Microsoft. That meant I avoided it like the
| plague not wanting to see IE specific or .NET type cruft. Boy did
| I feel dumb when I finally learned that's not what the M stood
| for and realized I could have been using it even earlier. Yet
| another example proving you know what happens when you assume
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