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| Hi, | |
| I'm working on making the experience with redline.st much better. To do that, I need your input. | |
| If you could either comment on this gist with your answers to the questions below or drop me | |
| an email at sean@monkeysnatchbanana.com, I'd really appreciate it. | |
| * When you arrive at the website for a programming language that you don't currently use | |
| what do you immediately want to know? What are the questions you wanted answered before | |
| you do any digging through the site? | |
| * After you've gotten the initial information, what additional information do you want to be | |
| easy to find? | |
| * What information that normally appears on most programming language websites do | |
| you think is undervalued and not given enough prominence? | |
| * What information that normally appears on most programming language websites do you | |
| find doesn't provide much value? | |
| * Anything else you would care to share that isn't addressed above? | |
By the time I get to the site, I've probably already been talked into trying it out. I think selling me on the language is not necessary. Installation and hello world are the most important things to me.
After that, searchable API documentation is something I appreciate use heavily if it's provided and it works well.
A lot of language sites feature "latest news" prominently, it's rare that I ever look at that, unless I'm already using the language. And then it's still rare.
what do you immediately want to know?
- The elevator pitch
- What does it look like (a simple example)
- How do I get it (a simple d/l link)
what additional information
- API reference
- Relevant external information (blog, source repo, links to books, etc...)
- How I can contribute
undervalued
Everything in my first answer and additionally "how to contribute"
Anything else?
- Why is Smalltalk important?
Hello,
I like the way the ruby on rails website has been organised (okay not a language, but a platform). They have four big icons with titles: "get excited" (screencasts and elevator pitch), "get started" (getting started quickly), "get better" (improvers and more detailed reference material), "get involved" (material for contacting the community)
I think screencasts are more useful with Smalltalk than most other languages given that it's such an interactive environment. It's easy to write very wordy explanations of what to do when you just need to see it.
As redline matures, I would love to see the website developed in redline + preferred web framework (e.g., seaside, iliad).
It really depends on your PL's audience. (E.g. If it's a scripting language, try pony pictures and write that it has a "beautiful object model". If it's a research language, show how a zygohistomorphic prepromorphism looks in your language. And so on.)