Website message overhaul

[Peter Alexander]

On 15/11/11 3:40 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
> When people first look at D, they need a reason to want to look further,
> meaning that there needs to be something there that immediately
> distinguishes D from other languages - something that will pique their
> curiosity.

I think we need a short description of the language rather than those 3 
key phrases with long descriptions. All other language sites seem to 
state their goal in a couple of short, concise sentences.

Some examples:

Ruby - "Ruby is a dynamic, open source programming language with a focus 
on simplicity and productivity. It has an elegant syntax that is natural 
to read and easy to write."

Python - "Python is a programming language that lets you work more 
quickly and integrate your systems more effectively. You can learn to 
use Python and see almost immediate gains in productivity and lower 
maintenance costs."

Scala - "Scala is a general purpose programming language designed to 
express common programming patterns in a concise, elegant, and type-safe 
way. It smoothly integrates features of object-oriented and functional 
languages, enabling Java and other programmers to be more productive. 
Code sizes are typically reduced by a factor of two to three when 
compared to an equivalent Java application."

Haskell - "Haskell is an advanced purely-functional programming 
language. An open-source product of more than twenty years of 
cutting-edge research, it allows rapid development of robust, concise, 
correct software. With strong support for integration with other 
languages, built-in concurrency and parallelism, debuggers, profilers, 
rich libraries and an active community, Haskell makes it easier to 
produce flexible, maintainable, high-quality software."

---

The current site is a wall of text that takes too long to tell me *what* 
D is. There needs to be some sort of "D at a glance" that explains what 
the language is without going into details.

A quick example (could be better)

"D is a multi-paradigm, type-safe, natively compiled programming 
language with a focus on pragmatism. D programs run as fast as those 
written in C or C++ without the tedium of manual memory management, 
verbose syntax or unsafe semantics."

It would then have a "Read More..." link that leads to a more complete 
list of D's key features. There would also be a short (~10 lines) code 
example that demonstrates D's concise syntax (type deduction and 
CTFE/metaprogramming via string mixins could be demonstrated quickly).