Website message overhaul, pass 2

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 11/20/11 7:09 AM, Robert Clipsham wrote:
> - The code sample at the top is terrible, the equivalent C is only a
> couple of lines longer and it doesn't show off any of what makes D
> better! Admittedly you're limited in what you can do here as the code
> needs to be fairly understandable by non-D programmers, but what's there
> is... Not good at all.

I'd be curious how with only a couple of lines more you address in C 
lines of arbitrary length and proper error handling. Same goes about C++ 
(in addition to the speed issue) - code that does the right thing and is 
not very slow is quite subtle and I doubt two out of five C++ 
programmers know how to write it.

> - Rotating the example is a brilliant idea, particularly if powered by a
> continuous contest.

Yah, looking forward to that. It's going to be interesting.

> - This is less about the message, but how about an "explain this" link
> in the corner of examples with little hints for C/C++/Java programmers,
> so when clicked additional comments appear in the code or bubbles appear
> above on hover or something, they would include small bits of text like
> "auto can be used in place of a type to infer the type from what is
> being assigned"... But better worded of course.

Good idea.

> - Maybe it's just me, but I don't like the title being so long. I think
> "The D Programming Language" on its own is fine. The rest of it may
> still have a place, but it needs to be elsewhere in my opinion (even if
> it just moves to the line below).

I like that the main message is small enough to allow formatting in 
large font.

> - Your summary sentence at the start reads "It pragmatically combines
> efficiency, control, and modeling power, with safety and programmer
> productivity." You then go on to talk about convinience, power and
> efficiency... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_sentence The sentence
> needs to be changed to reflect what you go on to detail below -
> currently you're making statements without backing them up (note that
> you do back up most of it, not all of it though, and the subheadings
> don't make it obvious where you can find out more about the claims).

Agreed. I'll think of fixing that.

> - convinience -> convenience

Where?

> - I can't really fault the bullet points, they're a huge improvement.
> - I have a reasonably large screen and can't see the news section
> without scrolling. To me this means there is no news ;)

I'm considering moving the news on the right-hand side.

> I'm starting to nit-pick, it must be getting better.

Thanks for the feedback!


Andrei