New Python.org website ?
Bugs
python.org in time for the new year? Is that still true and of so,
anyone know what is it's status?
Thanks!
Peter Hansen
Which year? If 2007, it might still be true...
Aahz
Dunno about "in time for the new year", but there is a new design that is
supposedly in final stages of getting implemented. What's your hurry?
--
Aahz (aa...@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/
"Given that C++ has pointers and typecasts, it's really hard to have a
serious conversation about type safety with a C++ programmer and keep a
straight face. It's kind of like having a guy who juggles chainsaws
wearing body armor arguing with a guy who juggles rubber chickens wearing
a T-shirt about who's in more danger." --Roy Smith
Bugs
> Dunno about "in time for the new year", but there is a new design that is
> supposedly in final stages of getting implemented. What's your hurry?
No hurry:
http://tinyurl.com/8d9ar
Steve Holden
Happy New Year. We could do with some help completing the conversion if
people have some free time. It would be nice if it could be completed
for PyCon. Start at
regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com
PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/
Steve Holden
Fuzzyman
I'm not very good with HTML - but can write content... I might see if
there is something I can do.
All the best,
Fuzzyman
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/index.shtml
(and yes I do get referrals from these links...)
Roy Smith
All I can say is, "Wow!". If nothing else, it will forever eliminate the
idea that the web site doesn't look professional. It's almost *too* slick.
Steve Holden
becuase relatively few people *are* "good with HTML". Consequently Tim
Parkin, the principal designer of the new architecture, has gone to
great lengths to design a scheme that allows most of the authoring to be
done in REstructured Text.
It's quite an legenat design, and if all you want to do is edit content
rather than change layout it's *very* easy to use. Climb aboard!
Fuzzyman
Stefan Rank
>
> http://beta.python.org
>
Very nice!
Just wanted to note that the content area and the menu area overlap
(leaving some content unreadable)
in Opera 8.51 / WinXP
str
Rocco Moretti
I agree with the "too slick" impression. The "learn why" pictures
particularly unnerve me. It looks like a marketing team with a focus
group got ahold of the website.
Great for reaching the PHB crowd. I'm not sure what J. Random Hacker
will think though.
Mike Meyer
Ditto for Opera 8.51 / OSX, and for Safari.
It's a problem with not handling users who need large fonts. I
recreated it in Mozilla by changing the minimum font size setting from
"None" to "20" (just a value I chose at random). I use Opera and
Safari on a day-to-day basis, and probably configured them
appropriately for my aging eyes.
Of course, this is typical on the web: "Works in IE" really means
"works in IE in the configurations we tested it for", and usually
means "works in our favorite configuration".
In particular, creating a good-looking design that remains readable in
all possible browser configurations is impossible. Getting one that is
readable in all reasonable browser configurations is hard, unless you
make your definition of "reasonable" very narrow.
<mike
--
Mike Meyer <m...@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.
Fuzzyman
Steve Holden wrote:
> Fuzzyman wrote:
> > Now that is a very cool site.
> >
> > I'm not very good with HTML - but can write content... I might see if
> > there is something I can do.
> >
> > All the best,
> >
> > Fuzzyman
> > http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/index.shtml
> > (and yes I do get referrals from these links...)
> >
> Please note that one major rationale behind the new design is precisely
> becuase relatively few people *are* "good with HTML". Consequently Tim
> Parkin, the principal designer of the new architecture, has gone to
> great lengths to design a scheme that allows most of the authoring to be
> done in REstructured Text.
>
> It's quite an legenat design, and if all you want to do is edit content
> rather than change layout it's *very* easy to use. Climb aboard!
>
Seriously though... I've downloaded the whole shooting match. It's not
*obvious* from trac what needs doing or who's working on what (although
I have yet to trawl through the SVN checkout).
I'd hate to start working on something, only to discover someone else
was already doing it...
All the best,
Fuzzyman
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/index.shtml
> regards
rzed
news:mailman.318.11369766...@python.org:
> Bugs wrote:
>> Aahz wrote:
>>
>>>Dunno about "in time for the new year", but there is a new
>>>design that is supposedly in final stages of getting
>>>implemented. What's your hurry?
>>
> [...]
> http://beta.python.org
So what's the character encoding? I haven't found (WinXP Firefox)
that displays that city in Sweden without a paragraph symbol or
worse.
--
rzed
Delaney, Timothy (Tim)
> http://beta.python.org
>
> Happy New Year. We could do with some help completing the conversion
> if people have some free time. It would be nice if it could be
> completed for PyCon. Start at
Nice - except for those damned pictures taking up useful space on the
home page. Makes it look like some useless corporate website or (even
worse) PowerPoint presentation IMO. And I've seen way too many of those,
working in Australia for an American multinational company ...
Tim Delaney
Tim Parkin
> Stefan Rank <stefa...@ofai.at> writes:
>>Very nice!
>>Just wanted to note that the content area and the menu area overlap
>>(leaving some content unreadable)
>>in Opera 8.51 / WinXP
>
>
> Ditto for Opera 8.51 / OSX, and for Safari.
>
> It's a problem with not handling users who need large fonts. I
> recreated it in Mozilla by changing the minimum font size setting from
> "None" to "20" (just a value I chose at random). I use Opera and
> Safari on a day-to-day basis, and probably configured them
> appropriately for my aging eyes.
use relative font sizing for both fonts and layout.. The problem I'm
hitting is that layout widths/heights are based on the basefont size. So
if my basefont size 89% and I've size my fonts at 84%, the fonts get
affected by the applied minimum font before the layout, causing the menu
items to expand before the actual menu container. There is a fix for
this problem already as it also exhibits itself on the gecko platform
(hopefully that will be up on beta. in the next few days)
>
> Of course, this is typical on the web: "Works in IE" really means
> "works in IE in the configurations we tested it for", and usually
> means "works in our favorite configuration".
>
Actually the site has been tested on every browser listed on
http://www.browsercam.com/Features.aspx and a few extras...
Whilst it doesn't work on ie4 (although it is readable) it does work on
netscape 4.x (albeit with a much simpler css layout dedicated for just
this browser) and it has also been optimised to work in lynx/links and
has been partially tested in some speech readers.. However, since this
testing there has been some changes made and instead of continually
testing across all configurations, we're planning on running another
browser check soon.
> In particular, creating a good-looking design that remains readable in
> all possible browser configurations is impossible. Getting one that is
> readable in all reasonable browser configurations is hard, unless you
> make your definition of "reasonable" very narrow.
>
Not quite impossible but I agree it's pretty hard, especially using css
for layout and trying to follow w3c guidelines (e.g. the relative font
sizing thing)... However our aim is to make the site readable in all
browsers in the majority of normal configurations.
Thanks for the feedback..
Tim Parkin
Tim Parkin
> So what's the character encoding? I haven't found (WinXP Firefox)
> that displays that city in Sweden without a paragraph symbol or
> worse.
from existing content which I'd wrongly assumed was already iso8859-1
Tim
Tim Parkin
> Steve Holden wrote:
>
>>Fuzzyman wrote:
>>
>>>Now that is a very cool site.
>>>
>>>I'm not very good with HTML - but can write content... I might see if
>>>there is something I can do.
>>>
>>>All the best,
>>>
>>>Fuzzyman
>>>http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/index.shtml
>>>(and yes I do get referrals from these links...)
>>>
>>
>>Please note that one major rationale behind the new design is precisely
>>becuase relatively few people *are* "good with HTML". Consequently Tim
>>Parkin, the principal designer of the new architecture, has gone to
>>great lengths to design a scheme that allows most of the authoring to be
>>done in REstructured Text.
>>
>>It's quite an legenat design, and if all you want to do is edit content
>>rather than change layout it's *very* easy to use. Climb aboard!
>>
>
> Seriously though... I've downloaded the whole shooting match. It's not
> *obvious* from trac what needs doing or who's working on what (although
> I have yet to trawl through the SVN checkout).
>
> I'd hate to start working on something, only to discover someone else
> was already doing it...
>
> All the best,
>
> Fuzzyman
Thanks for the feedback and volunteering to contribue... The list of
already built sections is not really up to date but I have added a few
tickets to the trac on some sections of content that need working on. If
you want to add a comment to one of these or assign yourself to a ticket
please help yourself. I'm on hand most of the time to help with teething
problems etc. Also, beta.python.org has been configured to rebuild
itself once content has been checked in. If you haven't got an svn
account and want to contribute, you can send it to me and I'll add it
for your.
Cheers
Tim Parkin
Mike Meyer
> Mike Meyer wrote:
>> Of course, this is typical on the web: "Works in IE" really means
>> "works in IE in the configurations we tested it for", and usually
>> means "works in our favorite configuration".
> Actually the site has been tested on every browser listed on
> http://www.browsercam.com/Features.aspx and a few extras...
Sorry. I didn't mean to imply that this was the attitude taken for the
new python site. I was grousing about the state of the web in
general. The new python site is still in testing, and I know such
misbehaviors may be because of that rather than your attitude. A
depressing percentage of web sites go into production with such
problems intact, though. Nice to see that Python.org isn't going to be
one of them.
> Whilst it doesn't work on ie4 (although it is readable) it does work on
> netscape 4.x (albeit with a much simpler css layout dedicated for just
> this browser) and it has also been optimised to work in lynx/links and
> has been partially tested in some speech readers.. However, since this
> testing there has been some changes made and instead of continually
> testing across all configurations, we're planning on running another
> browser check soon.
Which answered my next question - which was about testing with things
like JavaScript disabled, major CSS hackery, ignoring author
fonts/colors, and in text-only browsers. I'm still dissapointed that
the FreeBSD site loses Beastie if your browser is set to ignore
authors colors (or should, anyway).
>> In particular, creating a good-looking design that remains readable in
>> all possible browser configurations is impossible. Getting one that is
>> readable in all reasonable browser configurations is hard, unless you
>> make your definition of "reasonable" very narrow.
> Not quite impossible but I agree it's pretty hard, especially using css
> for layout and trying to follow w3c guidelines (e.g. the relative font
> sizing thing)... However our aim is to make the site readable in all
> browsers in the majority of normal configurations.
Well, "all possible browser configurations" include things like
browser windows that are only 10s of pixels wide along with fonts
sizes measured in the hundreds. I think you're justified in ignoring
those, though.
Thanks,
Fuzzyman
Tim Parkin wrote:
[snip..]
> Hi Fuzzyman,
>
> Thanks for the feedback and volunteering to contribue... The list of
> already built sections is not really up to date but I have added a few
> tickets to the trac on some sections of content that need working on. If
Great - can you provide a URL please ?
I had a browse through the tickets, and dumb old me couldn';t find
them.
I'd be well pleased to be able to help.
Thanks
projecktzero
Looks great! Looking forward to the day when it goes live.
Note: The pics don't bother me.
Tim Chase
In both Mozilla-suite (1.7) and FireFox (1.5), the links on the
left (the grey-backgrounded all-caps with the ">>" at the right)
all intrude into the body text. They're all the same length:
ABOUT>> covers the "T" in "The Official Python..."
NEWS/DOCUMENTATION/DOWNLOAD all intrude into the pyNASA image
COMMUNITY and PYTHON-DEV cover a little more than half of the "W"
in "What is Python?"
PYTHON-DEV and LINKS cover a bit of the text in the "What is
Python" section (a the moment, the "P" in the initial "Python"
and the "R" in Rossum)
The problem persists into other pages as well (such as the
documentatin page, etc).
Functionality-wise, it works like a charm and other than the
intrusion of those nav-bar bits, it looks good too.
-tim
Sybren Stuvel
> In both Mozilla-suite (1.7) and FireFox (1.5), the links on the left
> (the grey-backgrounded all-caps with the ">>" at the right) all
> intrude into the body text.
Looks fine here on Firefox 1.5 and Konqueror 3.4.3.
The site looks really nice! I think this is going to make a difference
in the amount of people taking Python seriously.
Does anybody know what kind of license covers the website?
Sybren
--
The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a
capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the
safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?
Frank Zappa
Tim Chase
>>(the grey-backgrounded all-caps with the ">>" at the right) all
>>intrude into the body text.
>
>
> Looks fine here on Firefox 1.5 and Konqueror 3.4.3.
Just in case anybody is interested, I've posted screenshots of
how it comes out here (minus the ugly colors when 24-bit images
are reduced to 256-color GIF files) in both MozSuite and FF:
http://tim.thechases.com/pythonbeta/pythonbeta.html
I did try it both with and without JavaScript enabled (which
occasionally alters the behaviors of sites when the webdev
assumes that everybody runs with JS), but had no variance.
-tim
JW
> http://tim.thechases.com/pythonbeta/pythonbeta.html
>
Very strange. With FF 1.0.7, I can just get the buttons to violate the
next column if I "View>Page Style>Large Text", but I wouldn't have noticed
it unless Tim had pointed it out. Tim's gifs are much worse than what
I see. WIth ""View>Page Style>Basic Page Style", it looks really good.
Jim Wilson
Gainesvlle, FL
sjde...@yahoo.com
> > Looks fine here on Firefox 1.5 and Konqueror 3.4.3.
>
> Just in case anybody is interested, I've posted screenshots of
> how it comes out here (minus the ugly colors when 24-bit images
> are reduced to 256-color GIF files) in both MozSuite and FF:
FWIW, I'm seeing the same overlap as Tim, in Firefox 1.5 and Konquerer
3.2.2.
sjde...@yahoo.com
Mine looks like Tim's gifs, with "Basic Page Style".
Brendan
I didn't realize Python.org was being revamped. The site looks
awesome!
One thing I noticed: The mac download site still references Jack
Jansen's site, which hasn't been updated since 2004 afaik. These days
I get most of my mac python downloads from
http://pythonmac.org/packages/
Brendan
Tim Parkin
Have a look at the tockets on http://psf.pollenation.net there are a
couple of content tickets.. if you put your name down (or just add a
comment that you are working on them) then there won't be a problem.
There are only a couple of people working on the content at the moment
so the more the merrier.. email me when you fancy doing something and
I'll try to make myself available on IRC or something similar.
Tim
Martin Maney
> In particular, creating a good-looking design that remains readable in
> all possible browser configurations is impossible. Getting one that is
> readable in all reasonable browser configurations is hard, unless you
> make your definition of "reasonable" very narrow.
Nah, it's very simple, if you can let go of the wrong-headed notion
that the web is just like print media. Of course that means you're
unlikely to win any design awards, or even get a lot of commecnts about
how spiffy your web site looks, because all the design geeks will judge
you by the inapproriate standards of print media. You may, however,
get pats on the back from people who actually use the site, and
appreciate a readable, logical layout far more than design school gloss
(and fonts too small to be easily read by many; no, Aahz, IMO your
solution throws out far too much along with the bath water, though I
have to agree that the font size problem vanishes if one uses a
text-mode browser <grin>).
From a quick look, the beta appears to commit the same error as every
design (as opposed to usability) driven web site in the world: it makes
the running text smaller than the user's default. It's as if they care
more about how it looks than whether I can read it (as far as I can
tell, that's exactly the case, though it may just be that few are
willing to admit that the designs that they've learned to make, and
that do work well in high-resolution print, just suck on the web where
a high resolution screen is coarser than a bad fax. bad artists, the
lot of them, who persist in ignoring the characteristics of the medium
they're working in).
It's otherwise nice, and I didn't see any problems with overlapping
texts (in Firefox, etc.) at any halfway reasonable window size, but
perhaps that was corrected already. The name of the city in Sweden is
mangled in every encoding I've tried - the headline is proper UTF-8,
but the mention in the paragraph is weird.
--
In high-resolution print typography, designers enjoy considerable freedom
and control over the articulation of this [font size] range. In
low-resolution screen typography, designers don't. -- Todd Fahrner
Mike Meyer
> Mike Meyer <m...@mired.org> wrote:
>> >> http://beta.python.org
>> In particular, creating a good-looking design that remains readable in
>> all possible browser configurations is impossible. Getting one that is
>> readable in all reasonable browser configurations is hard, unless you
>> make your definition of "reasonable" very narrow.
> Nah, it's very simple, if you can let go of the wrong-headed notion
> that the web is just like print media.
Never had it. Gave up trying to drive it out of peoples heads over a
decade ago.
> Of course that means you're unlikely to win any design awards, or
> even get a lot of commecnts about how spiffy your web site looks,
> because all the design geeks will judge you by the inapproriate
> standards of print media.
Well, if you lower the defintion of "good-looking design" far enough,
it's simple. Those design awards don't go to sites that I consider
good-looking, though. Their standards seem to be driven by advertising
concerns, and not readability or usability.
If you ignore the designed-for-advertising goals, there's a lot of
good information about design to be had from the print media. While
some of it is totally inappropriate on the WWW (like ratios of page
dimensions), a lot of it is still applicable (like choosing coherent
font sets). If you look, you'll even find advice on how to pick fonts
for low-resolution output devices.
Fernando Perez
>
> In both Mozilla-suite (1.7) and FireFox (1.5), the links on the
> left (the grey-backgrounded all-caps with the ">>" at the right)
> all intrude into the body text. They're all the same length:
Just as an FYI, I see the same problem under Linux, using Firefox 1.0.7 and
Konqueror 3.5. Galeon 2.0.0 renders it correctly.
I am using a 1920x1200 screen, so if there is any hard pixel-based design in
a website, I'm likely to see it garbled into a mess (though the regular
'old' python.org renders just fine on all the browsers I have installed).
Kudos to those doing the work, I just hope these problems are ironed out
before going live.
Cheers,
f
Tim Parkin
>Nah, it's very simple, if you can let go of the wrong-headed notion
>that the web is just like print media. Of course that means you're
>unlikely to win any design awards, or even get a lot of commecnts about
>how spiffy your web site looks, because all the design geeks will judge
>you by the inapproriate standards of print media. You may, however,
>get pats on the back from people who actually use the site, and
>appreciate a readable, logical layout far more than design school gloss
>(and fonts too small to be easily read by many; no, Aahz, IMO your
>solution throws out far too much along with the bath water, though I
>have to agree that the font size problem vanishes if one uses a
>text-mode browser <grin>).
>
>
Fortunately, what you are asking for is to be provided just the plain
text information with sufficient semantic markup to indicate logical
groupings of text such as headers, lists, etc. You've got that with the
new website, just disable your styles sheet.
>>From a quick look, the beta appears to commit the same error as every
>design (as opposed to usability) driven web site in the world: it makes
>the running text smaller than the user's default. It's as if they care
>more about how it looks than whether I can read it (as far as I can
>tell, that's exactly the case, though it may just be that few are
>willing to admit that the designs that they've learned to make, and
>that do work well in high-resolution print, just suck on the web where
>a high resolution screen is coarser than a bad fax. bad artists, the
>lot of them, who persist in ignoring the characteristics of the medium
>they're working in).
>
>
Absolute nonsense, would you prefer we take our cue from. Just for your
information, I've never worked in print design in my life. People tend
to have a 'preferred' font size for working in. This is normally smaller
than the standard font that is delivered on the standard system running
a standard browser. For this vast majority, it aids usability for them
to have a smaller than normal body font. Possibly in an ideal world, all
websites would not set a body copy font size and it would make sense for
each user to pick the one that most suited them. Unfortunatley, if we do
that, the majority of sites break so whatever we do is a *compromise*.
I'd like to live in the world where we don't have to do this.
As a matter of interest are you a professional design, web architect,
empassioned ameuter web designer or just an observer making casual
comments? (it's just that if you're a professional or empassioned
amateur, I'd like to know how you managed to deal with the same balance
and which group of users you would choose to cater for more)
>It's otherwise nice, and I didn't see any problems with overlapping
>texts (in Firefox, etc.) at any halfway reasonable window size, but
>perhaps that was corrected already. The name of the city in Sweden is
>mangled in every encoding I've tried - the headline is proper UTF-8,
>but the mention in the paragraph is weird.
>
>
>
Yep.. it's just a double encoding problem.. the source was iso8859-1 and
it got reprocessed as utf8.
And thanks for the feedback.. it all gets listened to. (btw, we're also
adding supplementary style sheets for different purposes - one for a
larger text size for instance - a beta of the large text style on is
available on the beta site at the moment, it still needs a couple of
tweaks with the menu)
Tim
Tim Parkin
Hi,
I've got an old copy of the html and tried to fix the general problem.
It's currently on another website
http://pyyaml.org/downloads/masterhtml/
Feedback appreciated (it's just the left hand nav width I'm concerned
about, all the other html and some styles are probably old). I've tried
this with 'min font size' adjustments and it doesn't seem to break. If I
don't get any bad feedback I'll roll the changes out.
Many thanks
Tim
JW
> http://pyyaml.org/downloads/masterhtml/
>
> Feedback appreciated ... Many thanks
Again, with FF 1.0.7 (on FC4 Linux BTW), the left column no longer
violates the right. However, "View>Page Style>large text" makes the
button annotation smaller than "View>Page Style>Basic Page Style".
Please understand, web programming is not my main axe. I'm in no way
asserting my observations are meaningful ;).
Jim Wilson
Gainesville, FL
Tim Parkin
Yep... I haven't tweaked that one yet :-) good to know it's not breaking
though, many thanks for the feedback.
Tim
Tim Chase
> site.. ;-) can you check again and tell me if it looks ok (and
> if not get me another screenie?)
Sorry it took so long to get back to you. It looked fine from
home, but the originals were snapped back at work (where my
configuration is diff.)
With the regular style, they don't overlap, but they look cramped:
http://tim.thechases.com/pythonbeta/pythonbeta3moz.gif
With the "large text" page style, the original problem returns:
http://tim.thechases.com/pythonbeta/pythonbeta3mozLP.gif
Both shots are from Mozilla Suite 1.7, but they look about the
same in FF.
It seems to be a font-size issue. When I crank the font rather
small (using ctrl+plus and ctrl+minus), the overlap becomes
pretty bad. When I crank the font-size up larger, it seems to
make the problem go away (except for the fact I end up with fonts
that can be read across the room ;) This symptom is worse in FF
than in MozSuite, though I might not have fonts set the same way
(one may have a minimum-allowed font size, while the other may
not, or something like that).
Using the dev tools in Mozilla suite, it looks like you've got a
<DIV> section (id="body-main") with a fixed margin-left property
of 15em (coming from the styles/styles.css file). Thus,
depending on your font-size, the body-main element will be
further left or right.
Hope this helps you figure out what's goin' on.
-tim
Tim Parkin
>> The nav styles have crept back in sync with the rest of the
>> site.. ;-) can you check again and tell me if it looks ok (and
>> if not get me another screenie?)
>
>
> Sorry it took so long to get back to you. It looked fine from home, but
> the originals were snapped back at work (where my configuration is diff.)
>
> With the regular style, they don't overlap, but they look cramped:
>
> http://tim.thechases.com/pythonbeta/pythonbeta3moz.gif
>
> With the "large text" page style, the original problem returns:
>
> http://tim.thechases.com/pythonbeta/pythonbeta3mozLP.gif
>
> Both shots are from Mozilla Suite 1.7, but they look about the
> same in FF.
>
winner (I'd not changed the large styles one... one step at a time at
the moment).
> It seems to be a font-size issue. When I crank the font rather
> small (using ctrl+plus and ctrl+minus), the overlap becomes
> pretty bad. When I crank the font-size up larger, it seems to
> make the problem go away (except for the fact I end up with fonts
> that can be read across the room ;) This symptom is worse in FF
> than in MozSuite, though I might not have fonts set the same way
> (one may have a minimum-allowed font size, while the other may
> not, or something like that).
Yeah, the min font size is causing the problems.. the basefont size of
the body is larger than the basefont size of the menu. Hence the min
font size affects the menu first (which means they don't match).
I'll post again when I've updated the main site.
Cheers!!
Tim
sjde...@yahoo.com
> sjde...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > JW wrote:
> >>Very strange. With FF 1.0.7, I can just get the buttons to violate the
> >>next column if I "View>Page Style>Large Text", but I wouldn't have noticed
> >>it unless Tim had pointed it out. Tim's gifs are much worse than what
> >>I see. WIth ""View>Page Style>Basic Page Style", it looks really good.
> >
> >
> > Mine looks like Tim's gifs, with "Basic Page Style".
> It's currently on another website
>
> http://pyyaml.org/downloads/masterhtml/
Works for me, and Large Text style is larger than Basic Page Style for
me as well. FF1.5. Also looks fine in my decrepit old version of
konquerer.
Tim Chase
>>It's currently on another website
>>
>>http://pyyaml.org/downloads/masterhtml/
This seems to no longer have the problem and scales nicely no
matter which font-size I use. Good work!
-tim
Obaid R.
> I thought I read here that a new website design was in the works for
> python.org in time for the new year? Is that still true and of so,
> anyone know what is it's status?
> Thanks!
I googled around and found no background on how the new Python logo
came to be selected. Does any one know why or how the logo shown in the
upper left corner of the beta.python.org site was choosen? Which other
logos were rejected? Is there a particular reason why it is shaped like
a cross?
Thanks
Shalabh Chaturvedi
> http://beta.python.org
Hm. Am I the only one not particularly impressed? Sure the front page is
'slick' but a few clicks reveal a fairly shallow facade of marketing
material, with no real content. In general gives the impression of
'phony' company trying to make a big impression. Most good non-tech
managers are very wary of such organizations/companies.
My gripes with the whole thing:
1. Learn why.., Learn why.., Learn more..? Unless each one takes you
directly to a great success story, these should be removed.
2. There is no (published) Python success story for Google. So link to
google.com looks phony. What does 'Google written in Python' mean
anyway? The google.com server is Python? One backend script is in
Python? Without more information, this just seems likes a shameless
attempt to create credibility. (Sure I know Google uses Python
extensively, but I'm not the one who needs to be sold on Python).
3. What is PyXP? Windows XP? Extreme Programming? Again, there is
nothing underneath. Where is the NASA success story?
4. I have a lot of respect for GvR, but there ought to be more
advertising of the fact that the language is not supported by just one
person. There is an great dev team behind it and a stable PSF
organization. Anyone reading 'developed by one person' is not left with
the fuzzy feeling of a mature, well-supported product that is here to stay.
5. A 'more..' link under Written in Python is sorely missing. It appears
only 5-6 apps are written in Python. Where is a link to the cheese shop?
Managers are looking for maturity, stability, support and unique
strengths, not coolness or flashy sites (though presentation definitely
helps).
Hopefully most of these will get fixed as people 'convert' the site and
fill in content. I would urge people to do some 'user' testing - get
persons not very familiar with Python and get their honest opinion on
the site.
The only think I liked was the 'Using Python For' section on the home page.
That's all for now.
Cheers,
Shalabh
Steve Holden
proposals were made and discussed at around the same time, to the extent
that it became clear no one choice could win universal approval.
You are the first person to my knowledge to point out that it is shaped
like a cross. There is no significance in this shape.
Is there, I ask with some trepidation, a specific point to this question?
regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com
PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/
Steve Holden
information, including references to articles that can be found in
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pydotorg-redesign/
Tim N. van der Leeuw
You've managed very well to express the same things I feel about the
new Python website.
What I especially dislike about the new website are the flashy pictures
on the front-page with no content and no purpose -- purely boasting but
nothing to back up your claims.
(I wouldn't mind some sleek pictures there if they weren't desperatly
trying to advertise success-stories but instead would link to real
content!)
I do like to overall look-and-feel of the beta site but I hope the bad
bits get fixed before launch!
cheers,
--Tim
Neil Hodgson
> The history of this choice is lost in the mists of time. Many other
> proposals were made and discussed at around the same time, to the extent
> that it became clear no one choice could win universal approval.
The two snakes have just been arguing (over decorator syntax, the
GIL, and the pressing need to merge the dictionary and list types), are
feeling very +cross+, and have turned their backs on each other.
Neil
Tim Golden
| Hm. Am I the only one not particularly impressed? Sure the
| front page is
| 'slick' but a few clicks reveal a fairly shallow facade of marketing
| material, with no real content. In general gives the impression of
| 'phony' company trying to make a big impression. Most good non-tech
| managers are very wary of such organizations/companies.
[... snip similar stuff highlighting the relative
lightweightness of the content ...]
Ummm. I might have missed the point, and certainly what I'm about
to say is based on no more than my reading between the lines of
Steve's original announcement, but... I see the current beta
site as a layout/display/look-and-feel beta, *not* a content
beta, at least no more than is absolutely necessary to support
the look-and-feel.
Now I might be wrong, in which case your comments are pretty
much justified. But it looks to me as though most of the
content was banged in a year or so ago (or more, maybe) to
give a this-kind-of-blurb feel, some or all of which would
be replaced with current and agreed blurb before the thing
went live.
You might argue that the beta shouldn't have been unveiled
without suitable text etc. But I would say: well done to
the people who've made the effort and put the beta
together. It's been mentioned that the whole thing is
downloadable and open to contributions, so maybe that's
the way forward for you: make or implement your suggestions
and send them back to the maintainers.
TJG
Steve Holden
help with the process of content conversion and its onward maintenance.
The current beta site content is *far* from complete, and nobody is
married to the particular images on the front-page mock-up (which is
what that is).
The intention of the new system is to allow a much larger group of
people to assist in generating and maintaining the content. If we (the
PSF) don't succeed in recruiting content maintainers then the only
return on the time and money that's been spent will be a new look.
Remarks about the current content of the beta site are inappropriate. If
you want Python success stories to publicize there are plenty of them at
http://www.pythonology.org/success
The content needs responsible people to maintain it, not a slagging
before it's complete!
Fredrik Lundh
> Hm. Am I the only one not particularly impressed?
no.
the design is alright (if a bit too "bland business"), but the little I've seen of the
information architecture and the backend infrastructure feels like 1998 (which,
I suppose, was when the project started...)
on the other hand, I haven't tracked the discussions that resulted in the current
architecture, so I'm probably missing something...
</F>
Steve Holden
[...]
> You might argue that the beta shouldn't have been unveiled
> without suitable text etc. But I would say: well done to
> the people who've made the effort and put the beta
> together. It's been mentioned that the whole thing is
> downloadable and open to contributions, so maybe that's
> the way forward for you: make or implement your suggestions
> and send them back to the maintainers.
>
have the joy of working on a subversion-maintained master - this is
remarkably easy in Windows using Tortoise as well as through the
hair-shirt commands line preferred by Linux types :-)
Checkins to subversion cause an automated update in the site content.
Tim N. van der Leeuw
Good :) What's the subversion URL where I can fetch the site? ;)
regards,
--Tim
Tim N. van der Leeuw
My apologies if this apppeared to be 'slagging'. I was trying to give
some feedback but I do realize that I don't have anything better to
offer yet to replace the pictures I dislike.
Perhaps I should have withheld my criticisms until I could offer an
alternative. (Still thinking about what could be there instead of those
3 pictures. But I'd like there to be some actual real Python content,
or links to events from the Python Events Calender; or perhaps links to
large python projects like Zope -- something that links to the major
parts of Python. Perhaps 1 picture that links to Python Web Development
including things like Zope, Django, etc; another picture that links to
a page giving overview of major IDEs for Python; and 3d picture that
links to page with Python Event calender... Something along those
lines. But I don't have any graphics for you.)
regards,
--Tim
Steve Holden
>
>
> Good :) What's the subversion URL where I can fetch the site? ;)
>
https://svn.python.org/www/trunk/beta.python.org
but I don't know whether anonymous access is enabled. Maybe you can let
me know ...
You'll also need the notes from
http://psf.pollenation.net/cgi-bin/trac.cgi
Tim Golden
| https://svn.python.org/www/trunk/beta.python.org
| but I don't know whether anonymous access is enabled. Maybe you can
let
|me know ...
Doesn't look like it. Asking me for authentication.
TJG
Steve Holden
>
> My apologies if this apppeared to be 'slagging'. I was trying to give
> some feedback but I do realize that I don't have anything better to
> offer yet to replace the pictures I dislike.
>
an open process. I just didn't want creativity wasted in criticizing
content that was only there as a placeholder.
You also gave me a chance to recruit further content editors, which is
something we really need to do.
> Perhaps I should have withheld my criticisms until I could offer an
> alternative. (Still thinking about what could be there instead of those
> 3 pictures. But I'd like there to be some actual real Python content,
> or links to events from the Python Events Calender; or perhaps links to
> large python projects like Zope -- something that links to the major
> parts of Python. Perhaps 1 picture that links to Python Web Development
> including things like Zope, Django, etc; another picture that links to
> a page giving overview of major IDEs for Python; and 3d picture that
> links to page with Python Event calender... Something along those
> lines. But I don't have any graphics for you.)
>
Keep thinking!
Steve Holden
anonymous access to both the content and the site generation software,
so that people can experiment with local content generation.
Then once someone knows how to use the system they can get a login for
the SVN system and start editing site content.
I'll get back to the list with instructions ASAP. It may take a while
due to inter-continental time differences and general overwork.
Tim N. van der Leeuw
repository in my webbrowser; I tried username/pwd 'anonymous' but that
don't work.
cheers,
--Tim
Roel Schroeven
> Shalabh,
>
> You've managed very well to express the same things I feel about the
> new Python website.
FWIW, I don't like the new site at all. It tries to look slick (but
fails to do so in my opinion), and buries the useful information in all
kinds of misplaced eye candy.
In fact I like the old one better: short, clear and to the point.
--
If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood
on the shoulders of giants. -- Isaac Newton
Roel Schroeven
Tim Parkin
> Hm. Am I the only one not particularly impressed? Sure the front page is
> 'slick' but a few clicks reveal a fairly shallow facade of marketing
> material, with no real content. In general gives the impression of
> 'phony' company trying to make a big impression. Most good non-tech
> managers are very wary of such organizations/companies.
specific to different types of usersm the whole site is the same as it
was before. Do you have a problem with marketing python or with the
content of the python site? Could you expand on why you think the beta
site looks 'phony'?
>
> My gripes with the whole thing:
>
> 1. Learn why.., Learn why.., Learn more..? Unless each one takes you
> directly to a great success story, these should be removed.
These will link directly to success stories.
> 2. There is no (published) Python success story for Google. So link to
> google.com looks phony. What does 'Google written in Python' mean
> anyway? The google.com server is Python? One backend script is in
> Python? Without more information, this just seems likes a shameless
> attempt to create credibility. (Sure I know Google uses Python
> extensively, but I'm not the one who needs to be sold on Python).
""Python has been an important part of Google since the beginning, and
remains so as the system grows and evolves. Today dozens of Google
engineers use Python, and we're looking for more people with skills in
this language." said Peter Norvig, director of search quality at Google,
Inc. "
thats what it says on the old site right at the top of the page...
> 3. What is PyXP? Windows XP? Extreme Programming? Again, there is
> nothing underneath. Where is the NASA success story?
That particular graphic will probably be updated. The Nasa success story
is at
http://www.python.org/Quotes.html
> 4. I have a lot of respect for GvR, but there ought to be more
> advertising of the fact that the language is not supported by just one
> person. There is an great dev team behind it and a stable PSF
> organization. Anyone reading 'developed by one person' is not left with
> the fuzzy feeling of a mature, well-supported product that is here to stay.
So you think we should add some copy that creates a more positive
impression of python? Thanks for your suggestion to rewrite the copy
regarding the team behind python. Could you come up with some
alternative for this?
> 5. A 'more..' link under Written in Python is sorely missing. It appears
> only 5-6 apps are written in Python. Where is a link to the cheese shop?
Yep... at the moment content is being migrated across. If you want to
add your assistance it would be of great benefit.
> Managers are looking for maturity, stability, support and unique
> strengths, not coolness or flashy sites (though presentation definitely
> helps).
Could you tell me what about the site makes you think it looks 'cool' or
'flashy'?
> Hopefully most of these will get fixed as people 'convert' the site and
> fill in content. I would urge people to do some 'user' testing - get
> persons not very familiar with Python and get their honest opinion on
> the site.
We have done... The feedback was that some pictures would help engage
people who view the website for the first time. This was especially true
of non-programmers who may be assessing python as part of a business
decition (who will probably not get further than the home page).
Most developers tended to want to jump straight into bookmarked parts of
the site or just check the updated news. People wanting to learn about
python would try to find a 'for beginners' link (hence the prominence of
this).
Currently, it is more important to get existing copy across than create
the few new pages that are needed to support the home page. If we had
more volunteers then we could write this new content sooner.
A summary of questions whose answers may help us:
Do you have a problem with the way we are trying to 'market' python?
Which content in particular do you have an objection to?
Could you expand on why you think the beta site looks 'phony'?
Could you tell me what about the site makes you think it looks 'cool' or
'flashy'?
Could you come up with some alternative for the intro copy about python?
Tim Parkin
Tim Parkin
> Shalabh Chaturvedi wrote:
>
>
>>Hm. Am I the only one not particularly impressed?
>
>
>
> the design is alright (if a bit too "bland business"), but the little I've seen of the
> information architecture and the backend infrastructure feels like 1998 (which,
> I suppose, was when the project started...)
Could you expand on why the backend infrastructure and information
architecture feel like 1998? (it's a bit of an abstract comment and
doesn't offer anything constructive).
An example of a site info architecture that feels like 2005 would be
good. Also an example of a backend architecture that isn't like 1998
would be good too.
Tim Parkin
Tim Parkin
> Shalabh,
>
> You've managed very well to express the same things I feel about the
> new Python website.
>
> What I especially dislike about the new website are the flashy pictures
> on the front-page with no content and no purpose -- purely boasting but
> nothing to back up your claims.
on getting the existing copy over first.
>
> (I wouldn't mind some sleek pictures there if they weren't desperatly
> trying to advertise success-stories but instead would link to real
> content!)
>
> I do like to overall look-and-feel of the beta site but I hope the bad
> bits get fixed before launch!
Can you give me a list of bad bits to fix (or you could add them to the
trac site at psf.pollenation.net)
Tim
Tim Parkin
That sounds fine.. I think having a link to a high profile user of
python would be very useful though. I agree the XP link is a bit shite.
Hopefully we'd get the photos and links to success
stories/events/software changing every now and again..
how about
1) High profile user of Python
2) Link to upcoming python event
3) Link to web development uses of python
the only problem is
1) people will argue over which user of python to put up
2) This will probably just be pycon and europython.. which is no bad
thing.. until we get more than two conferences at similar times.. which
one should we show?
3) python isn't just about web development..
Suffice it to say we'll have some content and the example images will
change every now and again.
btw do you have a problem with using nasa or astrazeneca as example high
profile users?
Tim
Tim Parkin
> Tim N. van der Leeuw schreef:
>
>>Shalabh,
>>
>>You've managed very well to express the same things I feel about the
>>new Python website.
>
>
> FWIW, I don't like the new site at all. It tries to look slick (but
> fails to do so in my opinion), and buries the useful information in all
> kinds of misplaced eye candy.
>
> In fact I like the old one better: short, clear and to the point.
Can you make some specific comments about which 'eye candy' that you
find objectionable and which parts of the navigation structure you find
confusing?
Tim
Leeuw van der, Tim
-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Parkin [mailto:t...@pollenation.net]
Sent: woensdag 18 januari 2006 13:45
>
> That sounds fine.. I think having a link to a high profile user of
> python would be very useful though. I agree the XP link is a bit
shite.
> Hopefully we'd get the photos and links to success
> stories/events/software changing every now and again..
I think that in general, I don't like the fact that links to
high-profile users are featured so prominently. That row of pictures
there looks good to me 'as such' but linking there to 'success stories'
feels, dunno, perhaps a bit cheesy to me. (That might be just my dutch
upbringing)
I would certainly want to see such links somewhere on the front page,
just not so prominently.
>
> how about
>
> 1) High profile user of Python
> 2) Link to upcoming python event
> 3) Link to web development uses of python
>
> the only problem is
>
> 1) people will argue over which user of python to put up
> 2) This will probably just be pycon and europython.. which is no bad
> thing.. until we get more than two conferences at similar times..
which
> one should we show?
> 3) python isn't just about web development..
>
> Suffice it to say we'll have some content and the example images will
> change every now and again.
>
> btw do you have a problem with using nasa or astrazeneca as example
high
> profile users?
As I said, I don't like them. We're not a commercial company trying to
promote itself to potential buyers. But that's too a large degree a
matter of taste.
I do actually think, though, that if the Python website *is* going to
feature such big names with such prominence, some sort of approval from
these organizations should be requested? That they don't mind being used
a a Python reference story?
About what could be there... Link to the even calender, or
recent/upcoming event.. That is one to stay, I think.
I think it would be good to have a link there too development
environments that can be used for Python: editors, debuggers, IDEs / IDE
extenstions, etc
A third item could perhaps be a link to the Python Package Index --
another thing that Python developers are likely to need.
These things are, of course, rather developer-centered (well,
Python-user centered...)
Being a software developer that uses Python, I wouldn't really know what
else to put there ;-)
But many people might have other things they wish to put in the centre
of attention on the front page.
>
> Tim
Regards,
--Tim
Tim Parkin
>I think that in general, I don't like the fact that links to
>high-profile users are featured so prominently. That row of pictures
>there looks good to me 'as such' but linking there to 'success stories'
>feels, dunno, perhaps a bit cheesy to me. (That might be just my dutch
>upbringing)
>I would certainly want to see such links somewhere on the front page,
>just not so prominently.
>
>
Possibly so... however in my experience, selling python to people is
made a lot easier by being able to say 'look these guys are using it'.
This may not help sell it to programmers, but as a businessman trying to
sell my programming services, it's exceptionally important.
>>
>>btw do you have a problem with using nasa or astrazeneca as example
>>
>>
>high
>
>
>>profile users?
>>
>>
>
>As I said, I don't like them. We're not a commercial company trying to
>promote itself to potential buyers. But that's too a large degree a
>matter of taste.
>
>
Well I'd have to disagree with yout on one point.. 'We' may not
be a commercial company (when you talk about python as a singular unit)
but as python developers, we should be in the process of trying to
'sell' python wherever we can. Because we aren't a commercial company,
our only 'sales' channels are the website and the developers/consultants
that use python. (I'm talking about selling in the terms of 'promoting'
or trying to persuade someone that using python is a good thing).
>I do actually think, though, that if the Python website *is* going to
>feature such big names with such prominence, some sort of approval from
>these organizations should be requested? That they don't mind being used
>a a Python reference story?
>
>
The approval is already there (see pythonology success stories).
>About what could be there... Link to the even calender, or
>recent/upcoming event.. That is one to stay, I think.
>I think it would be good to have a link there too development
>environments that can be used for Python: editors, debuggers, IDEs / IDE
>extenstions, etc
>
>
>
It's difficult to summarise this in a single image. The XP image was
intended as a 'catch all' for the development environment. A different
image and title would probably achieve better results but coming up with
one or two words to sumarise that list is quite difficult.
>A third item could perhaps be a link to the Python Package Index --
>another thing that Python developers are likely to need.
>
>
>
The home page isn't intended to target existing python users.. and the
home page photos are mostly targetted at the sort of people that respond
well to photos. It's a dilemma that the home page has to serve two
masters, however if we have a 'developer home page' which can be
dedicated to development issues, news, planetpython links, package
libraries etc, we would have a single page that developers could bookmark.
The only alternative was to create a separate 'marketing python' website
but it would just get ignored, especially by the people we really need
to see the 'marketing' content.
>These things are, of course, rather developer-centered (well,
>Python-user centered...)
>Being a software developer that uses Python, I wouldn't really know what
>else to put there ;-)
>But many people might have other things they wish to put in the centre
>of atte
>
Yep,
Thats probably why a dedicated page for developers would make more sense.
Tim
p.s. thanks for the comments btw..
Tim Parkin
>[Shalabh Chaturvedi]
>
>| Hm. Am I the only one not particularly impressed? Sure the
>| front page is
>| 'slick' but a few clicks reveal a fairly shallow facade of marketing
>| material, with no real content. In general gives the impression of
>| 'phony' company trying to make a big impression. Most good non-tech
>| managers are very wary of such organizations/companies.
>
>[... snip similar stuff highlighting the relative
>lightweightness of the content ...]
>
>Ummm. I might have missed the point, and certainly what I'm about
>to say is based on no more than my reading between the lines of
>Steve's original announcement, but... I see the current beta
>site as a layout/display/look-and-feel beta, *not* a content
>beta, at least no more than is absolutely necessary to support
>the look-and-feel.
>
>
Hi Tim,
Yep, the most effort has gone into deciding what level of change is
really necessary . Which is not a lot. The navigation has been
rearranged very slightly so that there is a consistent left hand
navigation throughout the site. The layout of the site has been changed
from table based to css based. The templates should be valid xhtml. etc.
As I've mentioned, new content needs writing and some content needs
updating but the biggest job is migrating the old content over. We'd
also like to get content from the wiki into the website (so it can be
mirrored).
>Now I might be wrong, in which case your comments are pretty
>much justified. But it looks to me as though most of the
>content was banged in a year or so ago (or more, maybe) to
>give a this-kind-of-blurb feel, some or all of which would
>be replaced with current and agreed blurb before the thing
>went live.
>
>
>
Most of the content that is currently on beta.python.org was added in
the last three months. Most of the top level content is about 9 months old.
>You might argue that the beta shouldn't have been unveiled
>without suitable text etc. But I would say: well done to
>the people who've made the effort and put the beta
>together. It's been mentioned that the whole thing is
>downloadable and open to contributions, so maybe that's
>the way forward for you: make or implement your suggestions
>and send them back to the maintainers.
>
>
>
If we never put it up as a beta, I would have had to finish the whole
job on my own (which is a bit tough whilst trying to run my own company,
although the psf have helped out in this).
I'm looking forward to getting the current content over and then helping
contribute to the content more...
Thanks for the comments..
Tim
Markus Wankus
The old site is definitely "utilitarian" and is quite functional, but
not "sexy". And I think the whole point is to (hopefully) have a good
first impression of the language and community by "impressing" (if you
will) new users with a cool website.
So, while I agree that the beta site does have a definite "nineties
corporate" feel to it, I think it is better than the old site and would
like to throw some kudos to whoever spent the time on it. I'm sure it
wasn't a small job.
At any rate, opinions will always differ. You are always going to get
the people who want a cool flash-based animated site with 3D stereo
surround sound, and the other end of the spectrum where you will be
flamed if you do anything more than hand-code the html, on Unix machines
only, using Vim or Emacs, ensuring it has a gray or neutral beige
background, *and* uses the default font giving that classic 1981
"university professor who refuses to use anything except Netscape
Navigator" feel.
I use Eclipse a lot in my day-job and there are debates like this all
the time whenever a change is made in the UI, but usually sanity (and
quite nice-looking software, BTW) are the result. FWIW - they have just
re-done the L&F of their website as well. I must admit I like it
(eclipse.org), but others do not - I'm sure we'll hear from them shortly
- ;-). To each his own.
I think it would definitely be cool to use a Python-based web app for
the site. Plone is alright, but has a definite Plone approach that can
be hard to shoe-horn your stuff into (although I think these guys have
done an *awesome* job on their site: http://www.schooltool.org/). Zope
is flexible but a beast to learn. And, well...there are just so many
others. ;o) I'm still looking, myself...
Markus.
Tim Chase
> the people who want a cool flash-based animated site with 3D stereo
> surround sound, and the other end of the spectrum where you will be
> flamed if you do anything more than hand-code the html, on Unix machines
> only, using Vim or Emacs, ensuring it has a gray or neutral beige
> background, *and* uses the default font giving that classic 1981
> "university professor who refuses to use anything except Netscape
> Navigator" feel.
Hmmm...I fall into that second camp, mostly because I often do
python coding via ssh, and it's handy to use
lynx/links/links2/elinks/w3m (whatever happens to be available on
the machine in question) to browse the site.
The beta.python.org site is easily navigated in Lynx, has the
"search" function right up at the top (okay, link #6, when
numbered-links are turned on, but that beats #50 down in the
downloads section). I can give it a whirl accessibility-wise,
using VoiceOver and Safari when I get back to my Mac.
JW
> What I especially dislike about the new website are the flashy pictures
> on the front-page with no content and no purpose -- purely boasting but
> nothing to back up your claims.
>
> (I wouldn't mind some sleek pictures there if they weren't desperatly
> trying to advertise success-stories but instead would link to real
> content!)
Tim the Taller (I presume he's taller; he's Dutch) and the other critics
fail to realize is that no one reads "content".
I'm assured that in print ads the only "content" anyone reads is in
picture captions, and you damn well better make sure your message is
conveyed there. Any other "content" only wastes space. I see no reason to
think that a web page should be designed using any other assumption.
If anything, Tim the Shorter (I presume he's shorter; he's not Dutch) has
too much "content" and too few images. The beta page is a great
improvement over the current "content-intensive" page.
I recommend David Ogilvy's "Ogilvy on Advertising" for a enthusiastic but
somewhat cynical view of the subject. It is a very old book, but nothing
about human nature has changed since it was written.
Jim Wilson
Gainesville, FL
Tim Parkin
>Tim the Taller (I presume he's taller; he's Dutch) and the other critics
>fail to realize is that no one reads "content".
>
>I'm assured that in print ads the only "content" anyone reads is in
>picture captions, and you damn well better make sure your message is
>conveyed there. Any other "content" only wastes space. I see no reason to
>think that a web page should be designed using any other assumption.
>
>If anything, Tim the Shorter (I presume he's shorter; he's not Dutch) has
>too much "content" and too few images. The beta page is a great
>improvement over the current "content-intensive" page.
>
>
Yep, unfortunately the majority of people consider 'looks' important
(even when they say they think they don't) and judge a page before
they've read a single word. A recent article concluded that it can
sometimes take less than a tenth of a second for form a lasting opinion.
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/01/17/canada.websites.reut/index.html
But obviously the site has also got to contain relevant content and be
attractive to the majority of developers also.
>I recommend David Ogilvy's "Ogilvy on Advertising" for a enthusiastic but
>somewhat cynical view of the subject. It is a very old book, but nothing
>about human nature has changed since it was written.
>
>
It's a very good book and still as relevant today as ever (I wish I had
my original copy.. altough it's still in print in multiple versions.)
Tim
Paul McGuire
news:1137553529.2...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Bugs wrote:
> > I thought I read here that a new website design was in the works for
> > python.org in time for the new year? Is that still true and of so,
> > anyone know what is it's status?
> > Thanks!
>
>
> I googled around and found no background on how the new Python logo
> came to be selected. Does any one know why or how the logo shown in the
> upper left corner of the beta.python.org site was choosen? Which other
> logos were rejected? Is there a particular reason why it is shaped like
> a cross?
>
> Thanks
>
Looks like a plus sign to me, evoking the idea of "incremental improvement".
A cross (as in Christian symbol) really has an elongated leg to the bottom.
But it most closely resembles two snakes (see the little eyes
at the top and bottom?), presumably pythons.
Personally, I like the stylized snakes, and the symmetry of the logo, a big
improvement over the cartooney cutesy snakes we've seen in the past.
-- Paul
Tim Golden
| Hm. Am I the only one not particularly impressed? Sure the
| front page is
| 'slick' but a few clicks reveal a fairly shallow facade of marketing
| material, with no real content. In general gives the impression of
| 'phony' company trying to make a big impression. Most good non-tech
| managers are very wary of such organizations/companies.
[... snip similar stuff highlighting the relative
lightweightness of the content ...]
Ummm. I might have missed the point, and certainly what I'm about
to say is based on no more than my reading between the lines of
Steve's original announcement, but... I see the current beta
site as a layout/display/look-and-feel beta, *not* a content
beta, at least no more than is absolutely necessary to support
the look-and-feel.
Now I might be wrong, in which case your comments are pretty
much justified. But it looks to me as though most of the
content was banged in a year or so ago (or more, maybe) to
give a this-kind-of-blurb feel, some or all of which would
be replaced with current and agreed blurb before the thing
went live.
You might argue that the beta shouldn't have been unveiled
without suitable text etc. But I would say: well done to
the people who've made the effort and put the beta
together. It's been mentioned that the whole thing is
downloadable and open to contributions, so maybe that's
the way forward for you: make or implement your suggestions
and send them back to the maintainers.
TJG
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Steve Holden
snake-like and resemble "Py" at the same time.
No reply yet on why Obaid wanted to know about the cross motif (though
one has one's suspicions).
Roel Schroeven
It's not easy because my perception of a website is formed by a general
impression; trying to explain or even find the origins of that
impression is actually some sort of rationalization after the fact.
Anyway, I'll try.
- As many people have mentioned, the images. An image can be perfectly
OK, but I don't like how they are used on the beta site. I kinda like
the one on http://www.joelonsoftware.com/ for example, though I can't
say exactly why I like that one and I don't like the images on
http://beta.python.org/.
- The site feels 'empty'. I think I found out why: it's the navigation.
To me, it feels like the navigation is strongly de-emphasized, almost as
if it's not meant to be used by the casual passer-by. It doesn't really
invite to explore the other pages of the site. The old site does a
better job of that, even though the navigation looks a bit chaotic.
- I'm not too fond of the sitemap link. On many sites a sitemap is
useful because sometimes it's the only way to navigate the site in a
sensible way, or to find all pages. In other words, a sitemap is only
needed if the normal navigation doesn't do a good enough job, and if
it's present it always makes me feel as if the website designer is
admitting that that indeed is the case.
- The boxes on the right don't feel right. Maybe it would be better with
other content in it, more directly relevant to the main text.
- The header is too empty. Maybe "The Official Python Programming
Language Website" should be there instead of under it. (I also think
that title should be shorter, maybe something simply like "The Python
Programming Language"
Roel Schroeven
> On Wed, 18 Jan 2006 00:33:06 -0800, Tim N. van der Leeuw wrote:
>
>> What I especially dislike about the new website are the flashy pictures
>> on the front-page with no content and no purpose -- purely boasting but
>> nothing to back up your claims.
>>
>> (I wouldn't mind some sleek pictures there if they weren't desperatly
>> trying to advertise success-stories but instead would link to real
>> content!)
>
> Tim the Taller (I presume he's taller; he's Dutch) and the other critics
> fail to realize is that no one reads "content".
>
> I'm assured that in print ads the only "content" anyone reads is in
> picture captions, and you damn well better make sure your message is
> conveyed there. Any other "content" only wastes space. I see no reason to
> think that a web page should be designed using any other assumption.
I don't agree. I read websites in search for information (content), not
to find advertisements. If a site I want to visit looks too much like an
advertisement, I handle it the same as I handle any other advertisement:
throw it away.
I agree that the information shouldn't be presented in an overly dense
way, but it should be there prominently and easily accessible. The site
should invite users to read the content, the contrary of many corporate
websites that seem to try to hide it, almost like the fineprint on a
contract.
Roel Schroeven
> Shalabh Chaturvedi wrote:
>> Hm. Am I the only one not particularly impressed? Sure the front page is
>> 'slick' but a few clicks reveal a fairly shallow facade of marketing
>> material, with no real content. In general gives the impression of
>> 'phony' company trying to make a big impression. Most good non-tech
>> managers are very wary of such organizations/companies.
> Well apart from the front page and a couple of pages providing content
> specific to different types of usersm the whole site is the same as it
> was before. Do you have a problem with marketing python or with the
> content of the python site? Could you expand on why you think the beta
> site looks 'phony'?
I feel more or less the same, but I can't explain why. Maybe I can give
some examples of website that I think look good and bad.
Good:
. http://www.flickr.com if you're logged in to the site (except for the
ad-like blocks in the left column)
. http://www.mozilla.org
. wikipedia
. http://www.vmware.com/
. http://www.google.com
. gmail
'Phony':
. http://www.flickr.com if you're not logged in
. http://www.mysql.com
. http://www.webdiv.be/ (site where insurance companies etc. can order
license plates for their customers; it's a strange mix between
commercial and governmental)
. http://www.yahoo.com/
. hotmail
. http://www.portofantwerp.be/asp/start_pagina.asp
. http://www.conocophillips.com/index.htm and many other large companies
In short, I think I don't judge a site solely on it's looks, but more
based on how much it makes me feel that it's going to deliver me the
content that I'm looking for. From experience (I guess) I associate the
large-company-look with hard-to-find-information.
JW
> I, Jim Wilson, schreef:
>>
>> I'm assured that in print ads the only "content" anyone reads is in
>> picture captions, and you damn well better make sure your message is
>> conveyed there. Any other "content" only wastes space. I see no reason
>> to think that a web page should be designed using any other assumption.
>
> I don't agree. I read websites in search for information (content), not to
> find advertisements.
Yes, and I read Playboy for the interviews ;)
> I agree that the information shouldn't be presented in an overly dense
> way,
Agreed. The main page should be like a slick book cover. It should grab
you and leave you wanting more. I think the beta page does that pretty
well.
> but it should be there prominently and easily accessible.
All you should have to do is open the book. Or click a link.
> The site
> should invite users to read the content, the contrary of many corporate
> websites that seem to try to hide it, almost like the fineprint on a
> contract.
In another post, you mention http://www.joelonsoftware.com/ which appears
to be some sort of blog (the current bane of the internet). I immediately
noticed something when visiting Joel using Firefox. **Scrollbars**. The
page wouldn't even fit on the screen! I started to read it, but my face
went numb before I needed to use the scrollbar.
OK for blogging -- not so cool for a book cover.
Of course, I'm a minimalist. I understand techy types want the details,
but I don't doubt the details will be no more than two clicks away.
Jim
André
to this discussion...
I can't wait to see the new website go on "live". No offense to
anyone, but I think that the current website is extremely "amateurish"
and could serve as a deterrent to the promotion of Python [ok, this is
a slight exaggeration ;-)]. As for the proposed new website:
New (good looking) Python logo on the top left: great - conforms to
"standards" in terms of location
Search bar on the top right: same.
(same comments for help and sitemap)
Left navigation: (good location)
- Different links for different target audiences: great
- Various links including news, docs and downloads: great
... (minor nitpick: I wouldn't include a separate link to Python-dev;
it should be reached via
community; simplest is best)
main display:
- idea of having "nice pictures": great
- Short description of what is Python: good... I would expand it a bit
(given the other comments below)
- News on front page: BAD! (possible exceptions - see below)
- Announcement on front page: BAD! (as above)
- Using Python for: good
- Written in Python: good ... although I would put it above "Using
Python for". I believe that "written in Python" is of a more general
nature than "Using Python for", and as such should appear first and be
seen more immediately by the less determined individual browsing the
site.
Regarding news and announcements... there's nothing that sends an
impression that nothing interesting is happening (Move along! Nothing
to see here...) than "news" that are a few weeks (months?) old. When
*important* News/Announcements would occur, I would include them
*above* the short description of what Python is good for (just below
the pictures) and only for a week or so - at which point they would be
removed from the front page and accessible by the link on the left. [I
have rarely seen a site when interesting news posted are changed on a
frequent basis...]
Of course, programmers won't care what the front page looks like (as
long as they easily can find a link to the download section). Pointed
haired bosses and journalists will... and they are probably the target
audience ;-)
André
Walter S. Leipold
> From a quick look, the beta appears to commit the same error as every
> design (as opposed to usability) driven web site in the
> world: it makes the running text smaller than the user's default.
> It's as if they care more about how it looks than whether I can read
> it...
The biggest flaw I've noticed is that the site's stylesheet displays
'visited' links the same color as 'unvisited' links, presumably to make the
page look more professional to the PHBs. Unfortunately, this makes the site
much less usable; see Jakob Nielsen's column at
<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20040503.html> for an explanation.
-- Walt
Roel Schroeven
> On Wed, 18 Jan 2006 20:51:03 +0000, Roel Schroeven wrote:
>
>> I, Jim Wilson, schreef:
>>> I'm assured that in print ads the only "content" anyone reads is in
>>> picture captions, and you damn well better make sure your message is
>>> conveyed there. Any other "content" only wastes space. I see no reason
>>> to think that a web page should be designed using any other assumption.
>> I don't agree. I read websites in search for information (content), not to
>> find advertisements.
>
> Yes, and I read Playboy for the interviews ;)
I don't read Playboy, but if I would I think it would not be for the
interviews. The pictures are what Playboy is about. Python is not about
pictures. It's not about interviews either. Both can have a place on the
site though, but it shouldn't be the first thing that draws the attention.
>
>> I agree that the information shouldn't be presented in an overly dense
>> way,
>
> Agreed. The main page should be like a slick book cover. It should grab
> you and leave you wanting more. I think the beta page does that pretty
> well.
>
>> but it should be there prominently and easily accessible.
>
> All you should have to do is open the book. Or click a link.
True, but I think the old site does a much better job of making clear
what links are available and what's available on those links than the
new one does.
>> The site
>> should invite users to read the content, the contrary of many corporate
>> websites that seem to try to hide it, almost like the fineprint on a
>> contract.
>
> In another post, you mention http://www.joelonsoftware.com/ which appears
> to be some sort of blog (the current bane of the internet). I immediately
> noticed something when visiting Joel using Firefox. **Scrollbars**. The
> page wouldn't even fit on the screen! I started to read it, but my face
> went numb before I needed to use the scrollbar.
Bad example -- my fault I guess. In case of Joel On Software, I was only
talking about the picture as an eye catcher.
>
> OK for blogging -- not so cool for a book cover.
I guess you're right that scroll bars are to be avoided on the main page
of a website, though I don't think it's such a big deal.
> Of course, I'm a minimalist. I understand techy types want the details,
> but I don't doubt the details will be no more than two clicks away.
Probably, and I don't think they should be in plain sight all the time.
But it should be clear, from the very first moment, where they are. I
feel the new design doesn't do that. I know the links are there, but
somehow they look somewhat intimidating to me -- on first thought the
navigation menu looked like some administration menu, only to be used by
site administrators or perhaps advanced users. I guess it's the color
scheme or something, I don't know.
Also, while the details shouldn't necessarily be there, what should be
there is a short clear description of what the site and/or the subject
of the site is about. The new design has got it right in that aspect
with the What is Python section in more or less the most prominent place
on the page; I just mention it because many sites got it wrong IMO. Many
corporate sites, but also many open source project sites: many of them
show the News on their front page and have About as a link (and some
don't even have an About link). I can understand that regulars are more
interested in News than in About since they already know that, but in my
view the frontpage should be aimed for first-time users; others can
always bookmark the News page if that's what they're interested in.
Roel Schroeven
> JW schreef:
>> I
>> immediately
>> noticed something when visiting Joel using Firefox. **Scrollbars**. The
>> page wouldn't even fit on the screen! I started to read it, but my face
>> went numb before I needed to use the scrollbar.
>
>>
>> OK for blogging -- not so cool for a book cover.
>
> I guess you're right that scroll bars are to be avoided on the main page
> of a website, though I don't think it's such a big deal.
To correct myself: I don't think there bad at all, if only the main
information is visible at first sight without scrolling. Take for
example http://www.rubyonrails.org/. I like that design, with a few caveats:
- the 'What's in the package' should be somewhat higher, in a more
prominent place on the page.
- the style of the text should be somewhat more humble.
Other than that, I like it. There's a short summary of what Ruby on
Rails is, the What's in the package section gives a more complete but
still concise explanation. Than some references, followed by an overview
of where the framework fits in the technical picture. Especially that
last section is something I sorely miss on many project pages, while it
is very important: I need to know if it fits in my existing
infrastructure, or if it's feasible to make it fit. In fact I would like
to see this section in front of the references section, but I guess this
order is better for less technical people.
It's also very clear where to get the software, tutorials and other
docs, and where I can find mailing lists, IRC channels etc.
In short, more or less everything I need to know right there on the
front page (admittedly with a bit of scrolling, but to me that's
absolutely not a big deal, even though my laptop doesn't have a scroll
wheel) or clearly linked from there.
(I'm not saying that Python should copy this design, just trying the
explain what I like and don't like in website front pages)
Shalabh Chaturvedi
> Well apart from the front page and a couple of pages providing content
> specific to different types of usersm the whole site is the same as it
> was before. Do you have a problem with marketing python or with the
> content of the python site? Could you expand on why you think the beta
> site looks 'phony'?
The pictures are too big, too many and in your face (boastful, as
someone else mentioned). Even in most commercial product sites I see a
single company name/logo or a single quote in a corner somewhere. For
example www.ironport.com, www.informatica.com, www.basecamphq.com... One
great open source site is www.postgresql.org. Everything including
documentation has the same look and feel.
I'm looking at it as someone who is skeptical or knows only little about
Python. "What? Google, NASA!" (click, click.. nothing.. or a single
quote) "Bah! this is bogus". People want to know how something will help
them and why should they use it. It would be awesome if we can pull all
the pythonology success stories into python.org and link exactly one on
the main page (again see www.postgresql.org). Anything less than a case
study does not warrant a picture with a 'learn why..' on it.
>> My gripes with the whole thing:
>>
>> 1. Learn why.., Learn why.., Learn more..? Unless each one takes you
>> directly to a great success story, these should be removed.
> These will link directly to success stories.
Good, but I think there should be only one with a smaller link to case
studies and/or quotes.
> ""Python has been an important part of Google since the beginning, and
> remains so as the system grows and evolves. Today dozens of Google
> engineers use Python, and we're looking for more people with skills in
> this language." said Peter Norvig, director of search quality at Google,
> Inc. "
>
> thats what it says on the old site right at the top of the page...
So the google link on the home page should perhaps go to this quote
instead of google.com.
>> 4. I have a lot of respect for GvR, but there ought to be more
>> advertising of the fact that the language is not supported by just one
>> person. There is an great dev team behind it and a stable PSF
>> organization. Anyone reading 'developed by one person' is not left with
>> the fuzzy feeling of a mature, well-supported product that is here to stay.
> So you think we should add some copy that creates a more positive
> impression of python? Thanks for your suggestion to rewrite the copy
> regarding the team behind python. Could you come up with some
> alternative for this?
Sure, I will work on this.
>> Hopefully most of these will get fixed as people 'convert' the site and
>> fill in content. I would urge people to do some 'user' testing - get
>> persons not very familiar with Python and get their honest opinion on
>> the site.
> We have done... The feedback was that some pictures would help engage
> people who view the website for the first time. This was especially true
> of non-programmers who may be assessing python as part of a business
> decition (who will probably not get further than the home page).
I think logos might be more effective. Again with links to success
stories with pull quotes highlighting Python's strengths. Pretty
pictures by themselves don't do much. People want to know how it is
different from other things, why it is better and *where* it is better.
> Most developers tended to want to jump straight into bookmarked parts of
> the site or just check the updated news. People wanting to learn about
> python would try to find a 'for beginners' link (hence the prominence of
> this).
These links are very important. A couple of nitpicks about presentation:
1. Why are there two 'documentation' sections on the left?
2. Why does the 'about' section show 3 sub-headings on the main page,
but grows to 6 when clicked?
> A summary of questions whose answers may help us:
>
> Do you have a problem with the way we are trying to 'market' python?
I like that you are trying to market Python. I think the way it is being
done may be ineffective, or worse, may backfire.
> Which content in particular do you have an objection to?
The 3 edited (or stock?) pictures occupying majority of the real estate.
Missing success stories or case studies.
> Could you expand on why you think the beta site looks 'phony'?
See top of email.
> Could you tell me what about the site makes you think it looks 'cool' or
> 'flashy'?
The big pictures are too flashy. The colors and fonts etc. give make it
somewhat cool. Cool is a good thing. But not without content.
> Could you come up with some alternative for the intro copy about python?
Sure. In fact I think the front page intro should be very minimal with 2 or
3 specifically targeted intros in the about section.
Is the current www.python.org written in HTML? If not where can I get
the source?
Cheers,
Shalabh
Shalabh Chaturvedi
> Tim N. van der Leeuw wrote:
>> alternative. (Still thinking about what could be there instead of those
>> 3 pictures. But I'd like there to be some actual real Python content,
>> or links to events from the Python Events Calender; or perhaps links to
>> large python projects like Zope -- something that links to the major
>> parts of Python. Perhaps 1 picture that links to Python Web Development
>> including things like Zope, Django, etc; another picture that links to
>> a page giving overview of major IDEs for Python; and 3d picture that
>> links to page with Python Event calender... Something along those
>> lines. But I don't have any graphics for you.)
>>
>
> python would be very useful though. I agree the XP link is a bit shite.
> Hopefully we'd get the photos and links to success
> stories/events/software changing every now and again..
>
>
> 1) High profile user of Python
> 2) Link to upcoming python event
> 3) Link to web development uses of python
>
> the only problem is
>
> 1) people will argue over which user of python to put up
> 2) This will probably just be pycon and europython.. which is no bad
> thing.. until we get more than two conferences at similar times.. which
> one should we show?
If a text section is used instead, the little PIG meetings all over the
place could be a part of this?
> btw do you have a problem with using nasa or astrazeneca as example high
> profile users?
I think Astrazeneca would be great since they have a success story, but
NASA only has a couple of lines and I don't think is good enough.
Shalabh
Obaid R.
> The history of this choice is lost in the mists of time. Many other
> proposals were made and discussed at around the same time, to the extent
> that it became clear no one choice could win universal approval.
>
>You are the first person to my knowledge to point out that it is shaped
>like a cross. There is no significance in this shape.
>
>Is there, I ask with some trepidation, a specific point to this question?
Thanks for the clarification.
I hope it is not counted against me that I am the first one to point
out that the logo is shaped like a cross. There might be many
explanations for this; but sooner or later a person with a different
background than the ones you knew would have likely noted the same.
With that said, however, none of this affects the point that the logo
is indeed shaped like I note. (Even the red cross of the International
Committee of the Red Cross is shaped like a plus sign:
http://www.icrc.org/).
And why ask with any trepidation, Steve? People of different
backgrounds have dissimilar sensitivities. I hope you agree that it
would be unfair to blame people for such deeply personal affairs. If
trepidation on the part of even the Red Cross was enough to cancel such
sensitivities, we would not have had a Red Crescent or a cooperation
between them. If not proving one's subscription to some set of beliefs,
such symbols at least disprove the same for others.
I do realize that I have no say in the decisions affecting Python's
current and future plans. But it makes sense to think that like any
other marketed product, Python must take into consideration the nature
of its target audience. And if it is to appeal to international users,
then points of deep contention are better avoided. Don't you agree? I
am glad the shape has no significance and I thank you for patience.
Regards
Shalabh Chaturvedi
> Tim the Taller (I presume he's taller; he's Dutch) and the other critics
> fail to realize is that no one reads "content".
I disagree completely. I wouldn't touch a new language or technology
without first reading content. Neither would my boss, or any other
manager for that matter. This is not a watch, a garment, a toothpaste or
a burger. It is a software product, which needs a lot of content. Of
course it is hard to get the right amount of content that neither
overwhelms nor conveys the message.
> I'm assured that in print ads the only "content" anyone reads is in
> picture captions, and you damn well better make sure your message is
> conveyed there. Any other "content" only wastes space. I see no reason to
> think that a web page should be designed using any other assumption.
The few words in captions should indeed be conveying the message. Which
brings up a good question - what message does python.org want to convey?
Is beta.python.org doing that?
Cheers,
Shalabh
Fredrik Lundh
> > Tim the Taller (I presume he's taller; he's Dutch) and the other critics
> > fail to realize is that no one reads "content".
>
> I disagree completely. I wouldn't touch a new language or technology
> without first reading content. Neither would my boss, or any other
> manager for that matter. This is not a watch, a garment, a toothpaste or
> a burger. It is a software product, which needs a lot of content.
> The few words in captions should indeed be conveying the message. Which
> brings up a good question - what message does python.org want to convey?
> Is beta.python.org doing that?
What puzzles me (and scares me) is that some people seem to think that
anyone would go to python.org and expect a corporate fluff site.
It's like when I asked a "suit" friend with long industry experience to check
the python marketing list; his spontaneous reaction after reading some of
the "we must do this because non-programmers think like this" discussion
was one big WTF-are-these-guys-talking-about-why-do-they-hate-python ?
The current site needs an incremental style overhaul, a less cluttered front
page, and some signs that python.org's actually using modern Python tools
for the site. And it needs to be more alive, both style-wise and content-
wise.
It does not need to treat its target audience (be it developers nor managers)
as simpletons. Companies in the Python space don't do that, so why should
python.org ?
</F>
Fredrik Lundh
> > I don't agree. I read websites in search for information (content), not to
> > find advertisements.
>
> Yes, and I read Playboy for the interviews ;)
if you want the glossy stuff, go to python.com.
> In another post, you mention http://www.joelonsoftware.com/ which appears
> to be some sort of blog (the current bane of the internet). I immediately
> noticed something when visiting Joel using Firefox. **Scrollbars**. The
> page wouldn't even fit on the screen! I started to read it, but my face
> went numb before I needed to use the scrollbar.
>
> OK for blogging -- not so cool for a book cover.
>
> Of course, I'm a minimalist.
minimalist? you sound like some guy who read a book about web design in
the late nineties, and who've missed virtually everything that has happened
since then. that's not minimalist, that's ignorant.
</F>
Steve Holden
(majority of) the content. We also have a well-defined mirror process in
place.
This critique is all very well, but it tends to rely rather heavily on
the words "I think". You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, but
please don't think that this new design was created on a whim. There are
many contrary opinions, and like all good designs this one is a compromise.
Now roll your sleeves up and start converting content!
Fredrik Lundh
> > the design is alright (if a bit too "bland business"), but the little I've seen of the
> > information architecture and the backend infrastructure feels like 1998 (which,
> > I suppose, was when the project started...)
>
> Could you expand on why the backend infrastructure and information
> architecture feel like 1998? (it's a bit of an abstract comment and
> doesn't offer anything constructive).
it's the kind of tools that people built around then: a bunch of text files,
and a make-style build templating system. to use the tools, you log in
to the web server via a back channel.
> An example of a site info architecture that feels like 2005 would be
> good. Also an example of a backend architecture that isn't like 1998
> would be good too.
anything that supports edit-though-the-web and does the final composition
by composing HTML information sets would be more 2006.
the easiest way to get there would be to use a MoinMoin instance to main-
tain the content, and a separate renderer to generate static pages for the
main site (possibly using Cheetah or Kid as template languages).
</F>
Brian van den Broek
> http://beta.python.org
A few minor points about the design:
The "Using Python for . . ." for section on the right is expectation
violating in several ways:
1) Each two lines have 3 separate links, but all go to the same place.
Much better, I think, to make the entire two lines one link.
2) Alternating lines in slightly different colours briefly made me
wonder if a visited/not visited distinction was being marked. The
difference is also a bit too subtle; I wasn't entirely sure it was
there at first.
3) The second line of every pair seems badly spaced, e.g. "ServersPeer
to Peer". (This is with Firefox 1.07 running on Linux.)
4) Even if the first and second lines are kept as separate parallel
links, that there are two links in the second line, and that they
break on subject seems wrong as the whitespace makes the "link chunks"
and "text chunks" fail to coincide.
None of that is critical, but all of it is a bit puzzling.
A suggestion:
I think it would be a good thing if the wiki were prominently linked
somewhere. Perhaps not on the main page, but surely in somewhere such
as the community or documentation navigation submenus.
Best to all,
Brian vdB
Steve Holden
> Steve Holden:
>
>
>>The history of this choice is lost in the mists of time. Many other
>>proposals were made and discussed at around the same time, to the extent
>>that it became clear no one choice could win universal approval.
>>
>>You are the first person to my knowledge to point out that it is shaped
>>like a cross. There is no significance in this shape.
>>
>>Is there, I ask with some trepidation, a specific point to this question?
>
>
>
> Thanks for the clarification.
>
> I hope it is not counted against me that I am the first one to point
> out that the logo is shaped like a cross. There might be many
> explanations for this; but sooner or later a person with a different
> background than the ones you knew would have likely noted the same.
> With that said, however, none of this affects the point that the logo
> is indeed shaped like I note. (Even the red cross of the International
> Committee of the Red Cross is shaped like a plus sign:
> http://www.icrc.org/).
>
I suppose someone had to point it out, so the fact that you are the
first certainly won't be held against you in *this* reader's mind
anyway. And I cannot deny that the outline of the logo is that of a
cross - there would be little point denying a simple truth.
> And why ask with any trepidation, Steve? People of different
> backgrounds have dissimilar sensitivities. I hope you agree that it
> would be unfair to blame people for such deeply personal affairs. If
> trepidation on the part of even the Red Cross was enough to cancel such
> sensitivities, we would not have had a Red Crescent or a cooperation
> between them. If not proving one's subscription to some set of beliefs,
> such symbols at least disprove the same for others.
>
The trepidation was accounted for solely by a concern that Python would
become involved in any kind of religious controversy, or that someone of
extreme views might claim that Python was associated with, or against, a
particular religious belief. Quite apart from the fact that language
choice should not be a religious issue (:-), you are correct in saying
that we must be mindful of sensitivities; as I mentioned, the outline of
the logo hasn't been raised in the year since it was first mooted. I
hope this doesn't mean we need *two* Python logos!
> I do realize that I have no say in the decisions affecting Python's
> current and future plans. But it makes sense to think that like any
> other marketed product, Python must take into consideration the nature
> of its target audience. And if it is to appeal to international users,
> then points of deep contention are better avoided. Don't you agree? I
> am glad the shape has no significance and I thank you for patience.
>
Absolutely happy to help. You have as much say in Python's affairs as
any other user, and are just as entitled to comment. I certainly
wouldn't want to limit its popularity in any part of the world simply
because of a poor choice of graphic. Perhaps when a further redesign is
mooted we can ensure that corners are even more rounded ;-)
Fredrik Lundh
> This critique is all very well, but it tends to rely rather heavily on
> the words "I think". You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, but
> please don't think that this new design was created on a whim.
you keep saying that, but whenever the analysis that led up to the
suggested approach (which is broken in multiple ways) was made, it
wasn't very recently.
what makes you so sure that what was perceived as correct among
a small group of self-selected python marketers in 2002-2003 is still
the best way to handle Python's most valuable web asset ?
</F>
Tim Parkin
> What puzzles me (and scares me) is that some people seem to think that
> anyone would go to python.org and expect a corporate fluff site.
>
> It's like when I asked a "suit" friend with long industry experience to check
> the python marketing list; his spontaneous reaction after reading some of
> the "we must do this because non-programmers think like this" discussion
> was one big WTF-are-these-guys-talking-about-why-do-they-hate-python ?
non-programmers and a few company decision makers what there
expectations were.. You may have seen a few ill informed comments on the
python list (but tell me what list you can go on that doesn't).
> The current site needs an incremental style overhaul, a less cluttered front
> page, and some signs that python.org's actually using modern Python tools
> for the site. And it needs to be more alive, both style-wise and content-
> wise.
Thats what we've done.
> It does not need to treat its target audience (be it developers nor managers)
> as simpletons. Companies in the Python space don't do that, so why should
> python.org ?
I haven't got a clue what you are on about with the simpleton thing.. Is
this related to another conversation
> it's the kind of tools that people built around then: a bunch of text
> files, and a make-style build templating system. to use the tools,
> you log in to the web server via a back channel.
In most circles it is considered a 'good thing' that data is stored in a
format that can be edited by hand. Of course we could have stuffed it
all in a database or stored it as xml.. would this have been more 2006.
> anything that supports edit-though-the-web and does the final
> composition by composing HTML information sets would be more 2006.
> the easiest way to get there would be to use a MoinMoin instance to
> maintain the content, and a separate renderer to generate static pages
> for the main site (possibly using Cheetah or Kid as
> templateanguages).
It would be apparent to you if you'd read around (even within this list)
that the website is ultimately intended to have 'through the web'
editing tools. You'd also know that one of the biggest acheivements so
far is the separation of template from data from content so that
'information sets' actually exist in the first place. This also means
that when someone designs a better template (as they may well do) it can
be easily changed in the future.
We also don't really want to have a proliferation of text formats and as
a lot of the website is already written using restructured text, this is
the format thats been recommended. A wiki is not a website and to try to
shoehorn a wiki into a content management system is not a good final
goal. We are adding facilities to use the wiki to manage some pages in
near future as part of migration.
However, the priority was to do certain things first.
1) Separate content from data from presentation is as complete a way as
possible (for which nevow templates, which contain no programmatic
componenets are suitable).
2) Ensure that the system is usable using basic text editing tools
3) Build the website using the latest techniques ensuring accessibility
and usability. The site is XHTML and uses CSS for layout. It also offers
legacy style sheets for netscape and has been tested in speech readers
and text browsers. how quaint..
4) Needed someone to actually do something ....
The last item seems to be the one that has hit the most hurdles. As I
remember you were a member of the marketing list and have had many
opportunities to contribute constructively at planning time.
If you could choose to be constructive in either offering useful changes
that would make sense at this point in time or offereing to provide help
that would be greatly appreciated.
I'm afraid I won't be able to respond at length to any more posts..
There is still a lot of work to be done to get the website live.
Tim Parkin
Tim Parkin
We're not but they were the only people that were bothered to do
anything.. If I remember, you were one of the people that had an
opportunity to contribute but didn't... As for self selected, anybody
was free to join and help and it was even posted to the mailing list and
mentioned on numerous blogs.
How about designing a website and showing us what you think would be a
good idea? Or suggesting some way of managing all of the content and
building the system. Or taking a screenshot of what is there and
modifying it to show how you would like it changed.
You are coming across has having a chip on your shoulder about something
but you are not being clear exactly what it is?
Tim
Fredrik Lundh
> How about designing a website and showing us what you think would be a
> good idea? Or suggesting some way of managing all of the content and
> building the system.
I think I just did that:
the easiest way to get there would be to use a MoinMoin instance to main-
tain the content, and a separate renderer to generate static pages for the
main site (possibly using Cheetah or Kid as template languages).
to which you responded
A wiki is not a website and to try to shoehorn a wiki into a content manage-
ment system is not a good final goal.
which is an interesting thing to say at a time when "wikipedia" has
joined "google" and "blog" as the internet things that everyone has
heard about...
> Or taking a screenshot of what is there and modifying it to show how you
> would like it changed.
I have opinions about the backend, and you're turning it into a front-
page design issue ? or did you wonder what the backend could look
like ?
http://moinmoin.wikiwikiweb.de
</F>
Steve Holden
> Fredrik Lundh wrote:
[various stuff]
desirability of through-the-web editing. I hope he'll use some of his
undoubted energy to examine the current systems design and produce a
through-the-web interface for us. Once the new documentation site is up
and running, that is :-)
Seriously, I'm not aware of anything about the current design that would
prohibit through-the-web editing. Neither am I aware of anyone spending
the time to produce it. As you indicated, there are other priorities
just at the moment.
Magnus Lycka
> The trepidation was accounted for solely by a concern that Python would
> become involved in any kind of religious controversy, or that someone of
> extreme views might claim that Python was associated with, or against, a
> particular religious belief.
I'm sure there are a number of places where people without extreme views
react strongly to christian symbols--whether the reasons for this are
well founded or not.
ASEA, the A-part of the ABB group, stopped using their old logo in 1933.
They realized that what used to be a symbol for electrical motors in
schematic diagrams had become associated with something entirely
different. In 1933 the general opinion on nazis weren't nearly as
negative as it is now, but whatever you thought about politics, ASEA's
old logo no longer gave the right associations to people. On the other
hand, people on Bali don't seem to worry a bit about the swastikas on
their shrines and temples. Different context.
We can obviously argue on how much we should worry about the assocations
people in various corners of thge world get, whatever we intended. In
Sweden, the python snake has for some reason become associated with bad
smells. (I think it was Pippi Longstocking who used an expresion that
got stuck in the souls of the Swedes--it's all Astrid Lindgren's fault.)
I don't expect Guido to rename Python for that reason (Monty would feel
fairly neutral in Sweden), but it sometimes seem to be a disadvantage.
I think some people I've tried to convince would have been more
impressed if Python had been called XYZ or whatever...
Here at work, our conference rooms are named after old norse gods, and
the new room that was named Vile, was rapidly renamed Vili, when people
thought about the meaning of "vile" in English.
Actually, considering the status snakes have in christian tradition, I
guess you could claim that the snakes neutralize the cross!
Personally, I think it looks more like plus sign than like a cross.
> Quite apart from the fact that language
> choice should not be a religious issue (:-), you are correct in saying
> that we must be mindful of sensitivities; as I mentioned, the outline of
> the logo hasn't been raised in the year since it was first mooted. I
> hope this doesn't mean we need *two* Python logos!
It's probably possible to make a Python logo that doesn't look
like any religious symbol. I think the plus sign shaped logo
had some advantages though. It's not very pretty, but it's simple
and a plus is something positive, something that adds value...
Fredrik Lundh
> As you indicated, there are other priorities just at the moment.
you're complaining about the lack of manpower, and still think that lowering
the threshold for contributions is not a priority ? at this point, this should
be your *only* priority.
I mean, getting this from a long-time python contributor that decided to
help out
My first attempt ended almost immediately. Too much software
to download and install for anything like casual use.
should be a rather strong indicator that the project isn't on the right track.
(and it sure isn't the only indicator; I still claim that the analysis is flawed,
and that the www.python.org front-page asset shouldn't be reserved for a
target audience that doesn't exist. but that's a separate problem; if you
solve the threshold problem, we can deal with that later. if you don't, we
might get stuck with the new design for as long as we've had the old one).
> Once the new documentation site is up and running, that is :-)
that's an interesting comparision: it took me about 30 minutes to convert
10+ megabytes of reference material into a usable (X)HTML infoset (that
is, with isolated content and structural information derived from the source
material), and a few hours to get old source->new source->render tool-
chain to a state where most conversion bugs turns out to be typos in the
original documents (aka "the 80% of the remaining 20%" level).
if converting the old content is and has been the biggest problem in the
beta.python.org project, it seems to me as if you might not be doing things
in the easiest possible way...
</F>
Steve Holden
> Steve Holden wrote
>
>
>>As you indicated, there are other priorities just at the moment.
>
>
> you're complaining about the lack of manpower, and still think that lowering
> the threshold for contributions is not a priority ? at this point, this should
> be your *only* priority.
>
> I mean, getting this from a long-time python contributor that decided to
> help out
>
> My first attempt ended almost immediately. Too much software
> to download and install for anything like casual use.
>
> should be a rather strong indicator that the project isn't on the right track.
>
copy of the website rather than editing the beta site content (mea
culpa, since I believe 'twas I who gave the instructions).
> (and it sure isn't the only indicator; I still claim that the analysis is flawed,
> and that the www.python.org front-page asset shouldn't be reserved for a
> target audience that doesn't exist. but that's a separate problem; if you
> solve the threshold problem, we can deal with that later. if you don't, we
> might get stuck with the new design for as long as we've had the old one).
>
I don't think it's *reserved* for anyone. The idea is to try and offer a
system that allows easy changes to the content while maintaining a
relatively clean design.
>
>>Once the new documentation site is up and running, that is :-)
>
>
> that's an interesting comparision: it took me about 30 minutes to convert
> 10+ megabytes of reference material into a usable (X)HTML infoset (that
> is, with isolated content and structural information derived from the source
> material), and a few hours to get old source->new source->render tool-
> chain to a state where most conversion bugs turns out to be typos in the
> original documents (aka "the 80% of the remaining 20%" level).
>
> if converting the old content is and has been the biggest problem in the
> beta.python.org project, it seems to me as if you might not be doing things
> in the easiest possible way...
Well I can't disagree with that. Want to help?