[racket-dev] Revising Racket's home page

HtDP is how I learned to program correctly *after* I got my bachelor's in
CS. I still recommend it to coworkers and other experienced programmers so
they can start to learn good coding habits.

On Tuesday, August 20, 2013, Alexander McLin wrote:

> The new design looks good on my iPhone and on desktop. It is a good
> improvement over the old site.
>
> To add to Neil's comment about dividing into two sections for experienced
> programmers and educational outreach for aspiring programmers. One issue I
> often see with others when talking about Racket is that they think it's
> just an educational platform for middle school to high school. They don't
> realize it's also a full service serious language for serious programming.
> I think the web redesign should spend some effort on emphasizing that part.
>
> However, although HTDP is intended for beginners, I still bought it anyway
> as my introduction to Racket and to rework and improve my habits. It is
> still good resource even for experienced people, so I'd hate to see it
> hidden away behind a "For Beginner" button. I'm not sure whether
> segregating completely the advanced and beginner materials is the right way
> to do it.
>
> Alex
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 7:12 PM, Sam Tobin-Hochstadt <samth at cs.indiana.edu<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'samth at cs.indiana.edu');>
> > wrote:
>
>> Ok, that makes sense.  Can you file this as an issue on the GitHub
>> repository I just mentioned?
>>
>> Sam
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 7:09 PM, Stephen Chang <stchang at ccs.neu.edu<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'stchang at ccs.neu.edu');>>
>> wrote:
>> >>> - web scraper example is cut off when clicking "?" Maybe make the
>> >>> overlay window variable width?
>> >>
>> >> I'm not sure what you mean.  Can you include a screenshot?
>> >
>> > Screenshot attached.
>> >
>> > Obviously not a huge issue but looking into it more, the example gets
>> > cut off only because my browser window width is too small (monitor is
>> > in portrait). If I increase the window width then the entire example
>> > is visible. Still, it seemed weird because there was plenty of space
>> > on either side.
>> >
>> >
>> >>
>> >>>
>> >>> on mobile (android 4.1.2, default browser):
>> >>> - topright menu has very dark background when opened, so links are not
>> >>> very visible
>> >>
>> >> I'll check this out.
>> >>
>> >> Thanks for the feedback!
>> >>
>> >> Sam
>> >>
>> >>>
>> >>> On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 5:39 PM, Sam Tobin-Hochstadt
>> >>> <samth at cs.indiana.edu <javascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
>> 'samth at cs.indiana.edu');>> wrote:
>> >>>> Recently I (with assistance from Asumu) have spent some time drafting
>> >>>> a revised home page for Racket. A revised web page will nicely
>> >>>> complement the big upcoming release, I hope.  You can see the draft
>> >>>> here, which is ready for people to try out:
>> >>>>
>> >>>>   http://homes.soic.indiana.edu/samth/new-web/
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Some things to try out out: clicking the right and left arrows,
>> >>>> clicking the "?" box, visiting the RacketCon page.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> The new page addresses a few problems that I see with our current
>> page:
>> >>>>
>> >>>> 1. It works well on small devices, which our current page doesn't.
>> >>>> Try it out on a phone or a tablet.
>> >>>> 2. It reduces the size of the top header, which will lighten the
>> >>>> burden on the documentation pages, for example, or the pkg index if
>> we
>> >>>> add the header there.
>> >>>> 3. It puts more info on the first page.  This means that people are
>> >>>> more likely to see information about how to contribute to Racket or
>> >>>> approaches to learning programming using our tools.
>> >>>> 4. The font size is larger, which I think makes it much more
>> readable.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Perhaps more controversially, I adapted some prose about Racket from
>> >>>> Matthias' "Racket is ..." post, and added a tag line at the top.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Lots of work is still needed if we want to use this as the basis for
>> >>>> Racket's web page (it's written in raw HTML, other pages would need
>> >>>> work, etc), but I hope that people like it enough to continue
>> pursuing
>> >>>> this.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Sam
>> >>>> _________________________
>> >>>>   Racket Developers list:
>> >>>>   http://lists.racket-lang.org/dev
>> >>> _________________________
>> >>>   Racket Developers list:
>> >>>   http://lists.racket-lang.org/dev
>> _________________________
>>   Racket Developers list:
>>   http://lists.racket-lang.org/dev
>>
>
>
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