Website message overhaul

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Monday, November 14, 2011 11:45:58 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 11/14/11 1:10 AM, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:
> > On Mon, 14 Nov 2011 03:50:04 +0200, Andrei Alexandrescu
> > 
> > <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote:
> >> Walter and I have been working on the website for a while. We want to
> >> crystallize a clear message of what the D programming language is.
> > 
> > It's way too cheesy in my opinion. Reads like a desperate sales pitch.
> > Also, too much text - right now it looks like an unappealing wall of
> > text. Also, ads? Really? Are we so cheap that we can't even afford web
> > hosting without annoying the user with often embarrassingly-irrelevant
> > advertisements?
> > 
> > Compare with other programming language websites:
> > 
> > http://golang.org/
> > http://www.scala-lang.org/
> > http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/
> > http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/cambridge/projects/fsharp/
> 
> There was more text on the page before, including a code example that
> wasn't very illustrative.
> 
> While working on the homepage I kept an eye on those websites and others
> (Perl, Java) and my perception is that the proposed website compares
> well with others.
> 
> Regarding ads, this is my "I told you" moment. I am completely opposed
> to ads anywhere on d-p-l.org, and I believe their presence hurts us in
> ways that the cost savings doesn't even begin to cover. I see it as a
> textbook case of "penny wise". That being said, Walter agreed with
> removing ads from the homepage but not the other parts of the site. I
> didn't get to that yet.

d-programming-language.org has ads?! LOL. I have so much stuff blocked in my 
hosts file that I didn't have a clue that that was the case. Yeah. I can 
understand wanting to recoup server costs and whatnot, but having ads on the 
home page of programming language definitely strikes me as bad. Even if it's 
just to recoup costs, it makes it look like we're trying to make money out of 
the deal, which is _not_ a good impression to make.

- Jonathan M Davis