[forgotpwtomain]

This is the kind of attitude that leads to low quality, scrappy code, akin to copy and pasting Stackoverflow; I don't believe that a developer should need a great memory but they should have a good understanding which examples do not provide. I really like that the MDN docs are well specified and hope it stays that way.

[Klathmon]

That's an unnecessarily broad statement.

Nobody is arguing that we should be taking snippets and examples verbatim and use them 100% of the time without understanding them, just that there is value in having those snippets and examples available.

I know damn well how arrays work in javascript, from how they are implemented and what structures they use in memory at smaller sizes all the way up to the difference between a missing element in a sparse array to a dense array with an undefined value in it.

But sometimes I just want the snippet from MDN that "densifies" a sparse array. I know how it works, I can re-write it myself if needed, but I know that the one on MDN works and I won't hit any unexpected edge case because I forgot about some arcane bullshit thing.

Not to mention that when I'm first learning a new language or syntax I personally do MUCH better seeing examples of the code and being able to step through them to get the basics down (where I can then dive deeper into the system to understand the edge cases, hopefully with examples themselves to make sure I get the point).

[jholman]

> but I know that the one on MDN works and I won't hit any unexpected edge case

MDN is a wiki. People who want to contribute documentation or examples do so. Sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes they're suffering from Dunning-Kruger. It is unreasonable to assume that the example will work and will not have unexpected edge cases.

It's the best resource I know on the web, which is I recommend it, and why I've contributed to it, but it's a wiki. Caveat emptor. (Caveat lector?)

[lacampbell]

An example functions as both a working piece of code, and also an illustration. I mean you might as well say ball-and-stick models are bad for chemists, because they should understand from the text alone.

There's a lot of technology to understand and absorb, and I'll take any tool I can get to help me.

[syrrim]

APIs should be intuitive; they should be usable only from knowing their signature, and from having familiarity with similar functions. For the most part, DOM/WOM functions are like this, and so the doc will only be repeating things you could have derived intuitively. There are, of course, many situations where the use is non-obvious. In these cases it is even more important to have a good example demonstrating the idiosyncratic usage; a sidenote hidden away in the middle of the doc will easily be missed.

[xiaq]

Examples are a great way to learn. Problems arise when they are the only way one learns.