undefined | Better HN

0 pointsmostertoaster4y ago0 comments

That seems crazy. I feel like MDN documentation is done so well. It balances well between giving good examples, and yet still remaining exhaustive in what it describes. Most extensive documentation ends up being less than useful and I have to fall back to just search results.

0 comments

hbn4y ago

I'm legitimately curious what that person expects out of documentation. MDN has basically everything you could want.

Simple explanation, examples in an an editor that can be played with and executed, argument names and explanations, browser compatibility, etc etc etc

Compared to the amount of languages where their documentation is a table auto-generated from code, it's everything I could dream of!

Shared4044y ago

> I'm legitimately curious what that person expects out of documentation. MDN has basically everything you could want.

w3schools style "Let me walk you through every step of the process" probably.

It has it's place, I know I've found it useful in the past, but definitely not a place you want to stay in very long.

hbn4y ago

Maybe, but I think MDN would be even more helpful for beginners. Compare the documentation for JavaScript's Math.pow() on each:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...

https://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_pow.asp

W3 doesn't have much in terms of English explanation, has less examples, and their playground forwards you to another page as opposed to MDN where it's embedded.

anitil4y ago

MDN documentation and Sqlite documentation stand out to me as some of the best around. The Cloudflare how-tos would be up there, if you stretch the definition of documentation

hbn4y ago

Tailwind CSS also has super nice documentation. Really quick omnisearch, and covers basically everything in-depth with good examples, and what CSS is generated from each class.

amatecha4y ago

For real? MDN's documentation is some of the best I've ever seen... Complete, frequently-updated documentation of all Web APIs including comprehensive examples of typical usages with clearly-worded explanations! It also links directly to the actual ECMAScript specs that define what the documentation is describing. I mean, how could it get any better?

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0 comments

hbn4y ago

I'm legitimately curious what that person expects out of documentation. MDN has basically everything you could want.

Simple explanation, examples in an an editor that can be played with and executed, argument names and explanations, browser compatibility, etc etc etc

Compared to the amount of languages where their documentation is a table auto-generated from code, it's everything I could dream of!

Shared4044y ago

> I'm legitimately curious what that person expects out of documentation. MDN has basically everything you could want.

w3schools style "Let me walk you through every step of the process" probably.

It has it's place, I know I've found it useful in the past, but definitely not a place you want to stay in very long.

hbn4y ago

Maybe, but I think MDN would be even more helpful for beginners. Compare the documentation for JavaScript's Math.pow() on each:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...

https://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_pow.asp

W3 doesn't have much in terms of English explanation, has less examples, and their playground forwards you to another page as opposed to MDN where it's embedded.

anitil4y ago

MDN documentation and Sqlite documentation stand out to me as some of the best around. The Cloudflare how-tos would be up there, if you stretch the definition of documentation

hbn4y ago

Tailwind CSS also has super nice documentation. Really quick omnisearch, and covers basically everything in-depth with good examples, and what CSS is generated from each class.

amatecha4y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse