Worrying attitudes to the branding of the D language

[Jared via Digitalmars-d]

> However i find it extremely alarming that there is a casual 
> disregard for any sort of consistency of the D brand.

> Yes logo changes do occur but they can be incredibly hurtful 
> for companies and products if they don't get it exactly right. 
> All logo changes of established entities should be managed with 
> utmost care and respect. Simply by changing the icon for which 
> you are recognised internationally, you pay an immediate cost 
> of non recognition but it's the perception of users that create 
> the biggest fallout.

I understand and sympathize where you're coming from, but I think 
it's less important than one might think. Golang's logo is a 
stupid-looking gopher that looks like it was drawn by a 
4-year-old. Python also has IMO an ugly, amateurish logo (but 
better than the truly hideous one it had until 2005). Julia has a 
non-logo (three colored dots over the word "Julia"). R's logo is 
just horrid. AFAIK, C++ doesn't even have a logo or any branding 
whatsoever.

Developers are a very different customer than the mass market -- 
they just want to know, "what can it do for me? In particular, 
how can this programming language make my life easier and land me 
a six-figure job offer?"

D's community & recognition is still very small, comparatively. 
If anything,  now or near-future is the perfect time to rebrand & 
relaunch.

> * D is a brand, whether you like it or not

Yes, but frankly not yet widely recognized.

> * The logo is the essence of that brand

Disagree. The essence of a brand is the customers' history and 
experience of interactions with the entity behind it -- the value 
they find in it (or not). In other words, the brand value of D is 
precisely how pleasant it makes software development for 
professional programmers, such that they can convince their PHBs 
of its corresponding value to the business. Yes, a sketchy 
website will scare off a lot of people from trying the language, 
but basically in this domain there's a *very low bar* for 
marketing -- you just have to be *not* sketchy-looking.

> * D has a history of poorly managed change

Hmmm... perhaps, but it can afford to "break stuff" still since 
there likely aren't more than a couple dozen companies with 
large, critical D projects in production.

> * D's community has been destroyed once before (Tango)

For substantive reasons, not branding.

> * D has the preception of unreliability
> * D is not seen as a professional offering
> * D is perceved as half finished

Then those underlying problems (usability, reliability, general 
quality) insofar as they are real issues need to be to be fixed, 
and current D users need to evangelize -- otherwise any branding 
efforts will be ineffective. Again, languages have a pretty low 
bar from a marketing perspective -- the big hurdles are 
elsewhere. I agree that some basic aura of professionalism and 
stability are necessary.

> We need to design a robust, user focused site that nurtures the 
> brand but also focused on giving people information quickly. A 
> site that is immediately recognisable to users, that exudes 
> professionalism and stabiliy.

Again, this point is mainly about usability (search, navigation, 
quality of content). Branding really has a minimal role -- it 
just has to stay in the background and *not* scare people off.

Ideally a "Design & Web Czar" would just make behind-the-scenes 
executive decisions about all this stuff, no NG discussion needed.