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Add to SafariWhen comparing CS50x - HarvardX (edX) vs W3Schools, the Slant community recommends CS50x - HarvardX (edX) for most people. In the question“What are the best resources for a beginner to learn C?” CS50x - HarvardX (edX) is ranked 4th while W3Schools is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose CS50x - HarvardX (edX) is:
The instructors are very enthusiastic and extremely knowledgeable. The main professor uses a variety of fun examples to demonstrate points, often making for exciting and funny lectures.
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Amazing instructors
The instructors are very enthusiastic and extremely knowledgeable.
The main professor uses a variety of fun examples to demonstrate points, often making for exciting and funny lectures.
Pro High quality instruction
CS50x is the actual Harvard course turned into a MOOC, with the lectures filmed from the actual Harvard course. The problem sets are all the same as well.
This has resulted in the quality of the course being extremely high.
Pro Really in-depth
The reason the time demand for the course is so great is because of how in-depth it is.
CS50 has you programming in C right from the start. Computer Science concepts, such as runtime analysis and data structures, are also taught very early on and applied in projects.
Along with C, this course will also introduce you to web development (JavaScript and PHP).
Pro Easy to learn
All the tutorials are written in a straightforward and easy to understand way.
Pro Built in editor
Almost every example has a "try it yourself" button which opens up an editor in a new tab. It allows you to play with the example code and see how it works.
Pro Well organized tutorials
All of the lessons are separated into their own pages, which makes it easy to learn about specific concepts.
Pro Great source from Google search's perspective
Cons
Con Large demand on time
The course is very fast-paced. Weekly suggested readings are usually a couple of chapters from two different text books, there are hours of videos each week, plus problem sets that often take a beginner many hours to complete.
In order to keep up with the course, you have to be prepared to put in a lot of hours.
Con Outdated practices / problem solutions
The practices that are shown to solve the problems at hand are rarely, if at all, updated. Usually, their tutorials and learning material is updated only after they see their profits drop.
Con Doesn't care about teaching right
There are multiple errors in the data they show. Although the solutions they show work, they will lead to unmaintainable code. That happens even when the maintainable code alternatives are as easy or accessible to new programmers as the alternatives.
Con Certifications not recognized
Many professionals in IT agree that w3s certifications are not recognized by them and are deemed useless. Good luck finding any respectable professional that accepts a w3s certification.
Con It is for profit
What defines what goes is and what gets fixed on w3schools is what gives them profit and what doesn't (through their ads system).
Con Written tutorials only
While many learning resources offer a mixture of media in their courses (such as videos, challenges etc.), w3schools offers only written tutorials and code editors. This makes w3schools more beneficial as a quick reference rather than a primary learning resource.
