On Nov 27, 2007, at 11:34 AM, David Fox wrote:
In that case we need to identify all the groups that the front page is serving and create separate areas for each, all "above the fold" as it were:
1. A "sales pitch" for new users. I see how much this disturbs some people, but maybe it is better to think of it as a quick introduction with a focus on benefits and comparisons to things which are already familiar. This is what one needs when one is in the stage of deciding whether to pursue something.
There should also be a bit of discussion on *who* folks want the pitch to attract. As I see it, there are a number of categories here as well, and maybe even links to "breakout pages" for different demographics could be in order. I expect any number of us have had the experience where we want to use Haskell on a project, and need to convince our project manager / other form of immediate supervisor / boss / whatever that this is a good idea -- so there needs to be a pitch geared to benefits that they'll latch on to -- reliability, clarity, maintainability, provability, speed, momentum and staying power, library support, etc. Then there should be a different sort of pitch for casual new users that want to get their feet wet in different sorts of programming concepts. Finally, there should be a pitch for people that really know what's up, so to speak, are looking for a place to expend some of their significant talent, and are going to be attracted by some of the mathematically cooler/geekier/blow-your-mind aspects of Haskell, the power of its type system, etc. Mindshare among these folks is key for more people that want to hack on getting Cabal to "just work," adopt the maintenance of libraries and come up with new and useful proposals therein, get involved with compiler development (or at least generate really useful test-cases and bug reports), and all that. --Sterl