Why are homepage examples too complicated?

Chris via Digitalmars-d digitalmars-d at puremagic.com
Wed Oct 19 02:23:34 PDT 2016


On Tuesday, 18 October 2016 at 12:49:55 UTC, Benjiro wrote:
> When people have a choice between a multitude of website, 
> programming languages, ... people make choices fast.
[snip]

There are three things here. First, you initially made your 
decision not to use D based not only on the homepage (one example 
at that), but on the discussion about D1/D2 and GC. So it was 
clearly not only the homepage that turned you off D. Afik, the 
D1/D2 discussion is no longer an issue. GC is an ongoing issues, 
but there are ways around it.

Second, what users expect of a homepage has changed over the 
years and is still changing. I know, because I've designed web 
sites, both on behalf of a company (I wasn't the developer) and 
I've also programmed some of them myself. Every two or three 
years there's a new latest fashion that "Oh my God, no-one can 
live without!". After all, the PR industry and web designers want 
to keep themselves in a job. I don't think it's necessary for the 
D community to follow every latest trend in web design and 
needlessly bind resources. Instead, the D site should focus on 
the fast and easy accessibility of information (Tutorial, Docs, 
Specs, the "D.learn" forum). It doesn't matter, if we use the 
latest fancy gradients or slides. I bet you that the day will 
come when PR/web design companies will say "Slides are too 
confusing, the user needs to focus on one thing at a time! We'll 
revamp your web site for only €60,000! Deal?" Web site design 
will keep changing. No need to join the herd at every "bahhh" you 
hear.

NB: As to other languages, I don't find their web pages 
particularly attractive. Their design takes up the whole screen 
without saying anything substantial. I have to click my way 
through them to find useful information. What turns me off other 
languages, I often only discover in the "small print" of the 
specs, not on the start page ;)

Third, you came back to D after the negative first impression you 
had of it. Great. That's interesting and it goes to show that a 
fancy homepage with "cool" examples and nice PR talk is not all 
that counts. Using the language is what counts, nothing else. 
Only in this way can you find out, if it works for you or not.

I agree that at times the D community could be a bit more 
professional about promoting D, but things have improved a lot. 
We have a lot of people who dedicated their time to improving the 
homepage and the image of D in general. Now there is the D 
Foundation to bundle all efforts, be it development or promoting 
of D.

So bear with us! It can only get better.

PS You will see a lot of discussions - and sometimes negativity - 
on the forum. But that's only because in D it happens publicly. 
Other languages are just better at hiding it.

PPS The website can be found at https://github.com/dlang/dlang.org
Feel free to make pull requests!


More information about the Digitalmars-d mailing list