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!
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