There's a lesson for entrepreneurs here: w3schools makes people happy, despite containing inaccuracies and being far from perfect. It's good enough and was the best available for a long time.
It's possible that you have worked on more projects than are listed on Linkedin, but that's what you've offered as evidence of your "good portfolio" and growth as a developer (the reason, I assume, that you keep distancing yourself from those hapless beginners), so that's what I'll reply to.
You have three web projects and a personal website all listed on your profile.
1. "Metasyllabus Initiative": This is a generic Wordpress site using a contributed theme. I assume this is your first attempt at a personal blog. There doesn't appear to be anything technically special about it, and it hasn't been updated in 8 months. If you stick with web development, get used to that. I haven't updated my blog in a year and a half. Wordpress is great, though, because anyone can set it up and use it. Anyone.
2. "Decision Tree Generator": About as simple as it can get. An independent multi-page Javascript-dependent (Did you learn that on W3Schools?) post form that's easily broken and seems to offer very little utility to the user. The most complicated styling used in this project is probably the absolute-positioned results.
3. "OmicronAlpha.org": This site is down.
4. "www.sagegerard.com": I don't know any serious web developers who would use Concrete5, and the comments I've received even from novices about it (it seems to appeal primarily to novices) have all ended with disappointment.
My point is that you're still a beginner. As a beginner, you don't know as much as the people you're arguing with, and you're making yourself look a bit foolish. W3Schools is a fine resource for anyone who knows that it's often unsafe, inaccurate, and wrong. However, the people who know that don't use W3Schools. My biggest problems with W3Schools (other than the inaccurate information) are that 1) they don't explain that they are not associated in any way with the W3C and 2) they sell overpriced certifications that require a user learns inaccurate information.
I read an article a few years ago (that I'm not possibly going to look for now) about best practices when creating examples and guides. The most important lesson in the article was that you should almost never show wrong examples or antipatterns. I.e., don't show an example of what NOT to do. The reason was that the novice ends up remembering the wrong examples as often (or possibly more often) as the good examples. At that point, the example/guide has failed. That's what W3Schools does. They can add as many disclaimers to their site as they want, but that doesn't change the result. They aren't just not doing as much to help people as they could. They're doing harm to the internet.
And by the way, the second sentence of your blog post is both ambiguous and wrong. Was W3Fools created in 2008 (It wasn't.)? Or did W3Fools teleport back in time to only criticize a 2008 version of W3Schools (They didn't.)?
> "Wordpress is great, though, because anyone can set it up and use it. Anyone."
Nothing is wrong with choosing an easy to use tool for the kinds of requirements clearly described in the about page.
> "Decision Tree Generator"
My client for this project insisted on many design decisions that I disagreed with. I also adopted broken code I was not allowed to fix, which includes the markup and CSS for the theme.
Not all of the code there reflects my knowledge, and anything that does might not be there because I wanted it to be. Not even all the bugs are mine. In fact, most of what you SEE there is not mine. Focus on the generator app only.
Also, I am writing a new version of that as we speak. It actually took a lot of convincing to abandon the horrible pop-up stateful form. Point is, I got repeat business because the code I wrote was well-tested and appreciated.
In short: The design of the site is not my own, but the generator itself is. Even so, I could not decide how it looked so I just pulled the levers. Whether you like the code or not, I am always in a process of learning and improving my craft regardless.
> "OmicronAlpha.org: This site is down."
I was the webmaster for one year and passed the title over as per the rules of the organization. I am no longer responsible for the site, so the listing shows only that I made it. Should it ever come back, it could be all blinking text for all I know.
I do appreciate you pointing out an outdated LinkedIn entry though. This has been fixed.
> "I don't know any serious web developers who would use Concrete5"
This is not an argument. I looked over my requirements, I wanted to use something new for my personal web site, and I picked something I'm happy with.
> "My point is that you're still a beginner. As a beginner, you don't know as much as the people you're arguing with."
I am certain I am still extremely ignorant, but that comes with the territory. I won't make an attempt to rank you, because I am sure you have your own experience to bring to the table. I respect you, and I have every right to ask that you respect me.
I don't aim to be the cock of the walk, but I will not allow you to push me to the level of a beginner in a public forum. While I am by no means a guru, I am competent, and am willing to have opinions you don't like even if I risk looking silly to those who misinterpret my claims.
I've been working for six years, and I have been doing more than what is listed on my profile. I am happy, my friends are happy and my clients are happy. I'm not rich, but I make enough money to support a good, healthy lifestyle and invest in my own retirement at an early age. I have used plenty of languages and tools, although I do not always take the time to share content because I tend to keep my services local. What you see online is only parts of me, and I am sure we would get along great if we met.
Now, my article goes beyond W3Schools and challenges what it means to effectively teach coding. I don't think you need good code to be a good teacher because there is a human element of making something understandable that goes outside professional standards of code quality. We can debate that until the sun goes down.
Being supportive of an inaccurate source for unconventional reasons does not invalidate my actual, relevant experience.
> it's reliable
That's the whole point of w3fools: w3s is not reliable.