To be fair, they offered a complete JS reference when none existed (at least that I knew of), in format which was easy to understand. I don't really know where the hate against w3s comes from... I still find them easier to use than MDN for quick lookups.

It's just a real weird site.

It doesn't really teach you anything in depth, opting instead to just spit out a bunch of examples.

As someone who used it initially years back starting out, I would have appreciated if it actually gave me context about how things worked and why rather than just copying and pasting code.

The only real reason it seems to get attention is due to the feedback loop of its ranking. Users see it as a top result and assume it must be some sort of authority on web development.

It has nothing to do with the W3C despite the name. Not to imply that beginners might know about W3C in the first place but still!

I wonder if it's still the same team of 3 developers running the place? Here's a writeup about it http://w3schools.sinsixx.com/about/about_refsnes.asp.htm

> It doesn't really teach you anything in depth, opting instead to just spit out a bunch of examples.

You spelt the very reason it is (was?) popular. The documentation/tutorial that gets traffic isn't the one with the most in-depth technical treatment, but, one which gives accessible examples to get started.

Examples are super useful; for the cases I've used w3schools, their example either worked almost directly or at least showed me how to do something quickly. Keep in mind that I'm not a real web dev, so my usecases are trivial stuff.

Soooo... They were the original StackOverflow ;)

The hate comes from little inaccuracies that have caused hours of stress and confusion. It is probably not as bad now but I recall getting pretty frustrated after spending hours debugging only to find out the docs were wrong.