[racket-dev] Revising Racket's home page

On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 2:51 AM, Neil Van Dyke <neil at neilvandyke.org> wrote:
> Sam and Asumu, this looks like significant improvement in several ways,
> thank you.
>
> Two comments:
>
> * There's a lot of stuff for a home page.  I don't know whether this is good
> or bad, but it's noticeable.

This is intentional. I think people are more likely to see something
there's interested in when there's more there, and expecting more
clicks just reduces audience size.

> * Under "Documentation" heading, the subheadings are confusing, IMHO.  5 of
> the manuals are for experienced programmers.  The other 1 is for children,
> and makes Racket look like an educational toy, especially when it's listed
> first.

Are you referring to the "Quick" tutorial?  I don't think that's aimed
at children, per se -- just people who have no experience w/ Racket.

>  How about trimming a bunch of stuff from the main home page, and
> having 2 big buttons to go to audience-specific home pages:
>
> (1) beginners and small children who want to see the pictures demo and/or
> HtDP, and for whom the home page does not need code examples or links to
> manuals, and to whom HtDP and RoR should be pushed strongly;
> (2) and experienced programmers, who want to see most everything, and to
> whom HtDP and RoR should should not be pushed near as much.
>
> The audience-specific home pages can have navigation cues so someone landing
> on them can know which audience the page is for and that there is a page for
> a different audience, too.

Again, I don't think that adding extra clicks in everyone's work flow
is a good idea.  I also don't think we need to give up and assume that
we can't create a page that works for everyone.  Right now, almost the
whole page aims at hackers rather than students, while integrating our
key educational material.

> * I don't see "PLaneT" anywhere.  Is PLaneT going to be unpersoned entirely?

No, not at all.  There will certainly be links to Planet, although not
as prominent as to the new package system.

Sam