Issue with rendering dlang.org/library

[Vladimir Panteleev via Digitalmars-d]

On Saturday, 14 February 2015 at 10:08:16 UTC, Rikki Cattermole 
wrote:
> Anyone with DOM + javascript experience could. But it would be 
> more of a set of unit tests then anything else.

No, you have missed my point. without an AI, it is impossible to 
write a general test to check that the webpage "looks broken". 
Unless your plan is to check whether each image is aligned as it 
is expected to, in which case you need to add a test for each 
element of the DOM, and update the tests for each minor case. And 
what has been gained through that?

There is nothing syntactically or semantically wrong with the 
DDox page. It is as valid as before the dlang.org overhaul. The 
problem is that it is using an old HTML layout with a new CSS 
file.

> Design related stuff, its probably easier to just add the 
> images to the PR so that humans can review it manually.

Have you been following the dlang.org github repository? 
Screenshots HAVE accompanied most PRs which change the website 
visually. The problem is that nobody considered DDox. And why 
should they? It would be unfair to force every contributor to 
also familiarize themselves with Ddox, Diet templates, and other 
components necessary. Especially with the build process being as 
broken as it is now (see my other post). If I plan to make the 
forum and wiki use the same templates, would it be fair that I 
demand that everyone changing the website layout to also 
integrate and test their changes for the forum and wiki?

> Worse case scenario is nobody can say, it was pulled and its 
> broken! Its PR'er's fault! No, it was whoever reviewed + pulled 
> it as well for not checking those images.

So now every reviewer and contributor has to know not just CSS, 
JS and HTML, but also Diet.d and Phantom unit testing. Way to 
raise the contribution bar!

> In PhantomJS you have full access to execute javascript and 
> hence modify the DOM from within the host V8 engine.
> http://phantomjs.org/headless-testing.html

I am well familiar with PhantomJS, I just don't see how it 
applies.

The answer here is to make DDox as transparent as possible - make 
it stop using its own templating language and use the one we 
already use for everything else - HTML, PDF, Mobi, CHM - DDoc. If 
it can be divorced from Dub, as fragile as it is now, even better 
- the build process is complicated enough already. And there 
needs to be someone around to maintain it, you can't just create 
something and drop the maintenance burden on everyone else.