dlang website design

Ecstatic Coder via Digitalmars-d digitalmars-d at puremagic.com
Tue Jun 27 02:25:56 PDT 2017


On Tuesday, 27 June 2017 at 01:53:20 UTC, dlangPupil wrote:
> On Thursday, 22 June 2017 at 19:19:20 UTC, Ecstatic Coder wrote:
>> class TOTO
>>
>>...I think that trying to
>> make the website very appealing to inexperienced programmers 
>> as well could significantly broaden its user base.
>
> Although I am admittedly an LOB kind of person who cares little 
> for games or gamification, I do see the benefit of using "fun" 
> use-case examples, like a tic-tac-toe game, or a soda machine 
> simulation.  Such recognizable zero-overhead/zero-noise 
> metaphors simplify the tasks of understanding a program and 
> learning its language.
>
> By contrast, being asked to decipher a mysterious and 
> unintuitive program like the fatuous tutu example would leave 
> me resenting the distraction and cognitive overhead.  Dammit 
> Jim, I'm a programmer, not a damned word puzzle competitor!
>
> But that's just me!
>
> So... instead of showcasing just one or another program type on 
> the website's landing page, why not provide a tabbed dialog or 
> menu that lets users select the kind of program that most 
> interests them, e.g., LOB, web, games, STEM, etc.  This would 
> avoid alienating those readers who believe that effective 
> technical and instructional communication require the 
> maximization of signal-to-noise ratio ABOVE ALL ELSE.
>
> Some other ideas for introductory illustrative examples for the 
> website would be to include for each program:
>
> 1) A description of the program's function so readers know what 
> to look for.
> 2) The expected output.
> 3) A walk-through, when needed.
> 4) The same program in other languages, with call-outs to 
> identify the unique features and benefits of Dlang.

I agree with you.

Let me first say that the tutu code was there just to illustrate 
to show which features should be shown in examples. Simple D 
features, not complicated ones.

D code is easy to make and read.

That is what people should know about the D language.

I'm in favor of bein able to select an example among a list on 
the left side of the screen, and on the right side the example 
appears with an explanation below.

The default example is the classic hello word, then we show how 
to declare and use integers, strings, arrays, maps, then how to 
declare classes, then we have interesting "use-case" examples : 
process a text file line by line, using regular expressions, 
guess-a-number game, sort lines in alphabetical order, etc.

Kotlin uses a quite similar approach if I remember well.


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