Re: New site go.dev is awful

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Carla Pfaff

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Nov 23, 2021, 2:13:41 PM11/23/21
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On Tuesday, 23 November 2021 at 19:46:19 UTC+1 poe...@gmail.com wrote:
I can't think of one thing I like about the new site compared to the old one, and would like to see the old site make a comeback.

Whenever a popular website launches a redesign a certain percentage don't like it. I've been on the internet for 24 years and witnessed it countless times. I've never once seen that time got turned back because of the complaints. 

Steve Mynott

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Nov 23, 2021, 2:54:48 PM11/23/21
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Although since the website is open source and easily reproducible it
would be easy to resurrect in an unofficial form (as happened with
https://godocs.io/) should anyone care enough to do this. It only
takes a minute or two to run the old site locally.

I'll miss the old site which looked as if it were built for
programmers by programmers, but it looks like the new target audience
is corporate adoption and mobile which will help us all in the long
term.

It's clearly the product of much hard work, and it's certain to have
features missing in the old.



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Steve Mynott <steve....@gmail.com>
rsa3072/629FBB91565E591955B5876A79CEFAA4450EBD50

Hein Meling

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Nov 24, 2021, 3:21:33 PM11/24/21
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I also don’t like it very much… it is just too noisy. But I haven’t spent enough time with it to really make a note of concrete issues.

:) Hein
On Tuesday, November 23, 2021 at 7:46:19 PM UTC+1 poe...@gmail.com wrote:
Am I the only one who thinks this? The old site golang.org had a simple and elegant design and appearance. It presented just most important information and essentials; the front page was small and straight to the point, and the navigation and site as a whole emphasized information and tools to get real work done. It was like the site embodied the principles and values of the Go language itself: simple, practical, and efficient; no bullshit. A site for programming professionals designed by programming professionals.

Contrast with the new site go.dev: emphasizing and cluttered with sales pitch and persuasion tactics (as if Google's own successful usage and support for Go wasn't already enough to sell most people) and auxiliary information not directly relevant or helpful to the programming task at hand. The site looks and feels like it was designed by a third-party freelancer who just took a generic business template and added the color blue (the color of Go's logo). It displays no unique personality nor does it reflect the qualities of the Go language itself, unlike the old site. Sloppy margins and typography and obfuscated with auxiliary content, it seems no careful thought or subtlety has been given to its design or presentation.

ben...@gmail.com

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Nov 24, 2021, 4:53:33 PM11/24/21
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I don't think it's awful, and Carla's right, there's always going to be debate about these changes and a settling period. However, I do think the criticism of it being too corporate-looking now is valid. Two pieces of concrete feedback (in case the maintainers are listening), one on how to address the corporate-ness, and one minor quirk:

1) Putting the "Companies using Go" at the top makes it seem *really* corporate- rather than programmer-oriented. Why can't we lead with "Try Go", then "What's possible with Go", and only then "Companies using Go"?

2) The download link is for the Windows binary, and I'm running Linux. Would be nice if it could try to auto-detect based on my User-Agent, which includes the words "X11", "Ubuntu", and "Linux". Not quite as good for cache-ability, I know, but definitely a nicer user experience.

I like how go.dev looks quite good on a phone! Oh, and that they've kept the cute gopher(s).

-Ben

Jan Mercl

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Nov 24, 2021, 5:08:07 PM11/24/21
to ben...@gmail.com, golang-nuts
On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 10:53 PM ben...@gmail.com <ben...@gmail.com> wrote:

> 2) The download link is for the Windows binary, and I'm running Linux. 

image.png

Carla Pfaff

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Nov 25, 2021, 2:50:34 AM11/25/21
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On Wednesday, 24 November 2021 at 22:53:33 UTC+1 ben...@gmail.com wrote:
2) The download link is for the Windows binary, and I'm running Linux. Would be nice if it could try to auto-detect based on my User-Agent, which includes the words "X11", "Ubuntu", and "Linux". 

The website already does this. At least on macOS I get the Mac version download link. Maybe there's a problem with the Linux User-Agent detection ... yes, the 'setDownloadLinks' function currently only distinguishes between 'isMac' or not:

Axel Wagner

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Nov 25, 2021, 2:57:36 AM11/25/21
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Ben Hoyt

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Nov 25, 2021, 4:55:12 AM11/25/21
to Axel Wagner, golang-nuts
Thanks for that, Axel. Good to know they're aware of it and working on a solution (of sorts).

On Thu, Nov 25, 2021 at 8:57 PM 'Axel Wagner' via golang-nuts <golan...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

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