On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 11:44 PM, Gregory Crosswhite wrote:

On a more serious note, "Download Haskell" /= "Download Haskell Platform", so if I were glancing down the sidebar looking for a link to download the "Haskell Platform" then the first link wouldn't have registered for me.  And putting a "X has been released link!" in the news does not count as a prominent download link.

If I wanted to know something *about* the *Haskell Platform* I would click the link The Haskell Platform under the section About. So it is actually mentioned 3 times on the front page. What could be improved are the 2 download links: "Download Haskell" and "Download GHC". It would perhaps be better to have one nice big "Download" button that takes you to a separate download page.

Furthermore, when someone offers feedback designed to improve a page, and does so in a very non-threatening way: ... then in my own humble opinion, snapping back with "Are you sure this isn't user error?" is not a particularly nice response.

E-mail isn't the best medium to convey emotion. I read Dons reply as "Are you sure this is a problem with the front page and not a slight oversight on your part?" Regards, Roel van Dijk

vandijk.roel:

On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 11:44 PM, Gregory Crosswhite wrote:

...

On a more serious note, "Download Haskell" /= "Download Haskell Platform", so if I were glancing down the sidebar looking for a link to download the "Haskell Platform" then the first link wouldn't have registered for me.  And putting a "X has been released link!" in the news does not count as a prominent download link.

If I wanted to know something *about* the *Haskell Platform* I would click the link The Haskell Platform under the section About. So it is actually mentioned 3 times on the front page. What could be improved are the 2 download links: "Download Haskell" and "Download GHC". It would perhaps be better to have one nice big "Download" button that takes you to a separate download page.

Having a single download link that only points to the Haskell Platform would be a bit of a policy shift. Is the community ready to accept that users looking for "Haskell" should be given the HP binaries? If so, I can change it to have a single "Download" button. Though it might be preferable to do that after the next release (the first non-beta release). -- Don

I'm all for making HP the default as long as we find a way to make some of the larger packages (I'm thinking gtk2hs) either ship with HP in Windows or install correctly with HP. On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 11:46 AM, Joe Fredette wrote:

I think it makes sense, the HP is supposed to set up the entire environment needed for typical haskell development (at least, that is my understanding). As such, what's the point in making downloading haskell mean downloading a single _peice_ of haskell (GHC) only to have to download _everything else anyway_ (cabal-et-al, various "standard" libraries, etc).

Perhaps we could put it to some kind of community vote.

/Joe

On Dec 3, 2009, at 11:43 AM, Don Stewart wrote:

vandijk.roel:

...

...

On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 11:44 PM, Gregory Crosswhite wrote:

...

On a more serious note, "Download Haskell" /= "Download Haskell Platform", so if I were glancing down the sidebar looking for a link to download the "Haskell Platform" then the first link wouldn't have registered for me. And putting a "X has been released link!" in the news does not count as a prominent download link.

If I wanted to know something *about* the *Haskell Platform* I would click the link The Haskell Platform under the section About. So it is actually mentioned 3 times on the front page. What could be improved are the 2 download links: "Download Haskell" and "Download GHC". It would perhaps be better to have one nice big "Download" button that takes you to a separate download page.

Having a single download link that only points to the Haskell Platform would be a bit of a policy shift. Is the community ready to accept that users looking for "Haskell" should be given the HP binaries?

If so, I can change it to have a single "Download" button. Though it might be preferable to do that after the next release (the first non-beta release).

-- Don _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

malcolm.wallace:

The suggestion was to have a single Download button, leading to a *page* of suitably described links, allowing the user to choose whether they only wanted the basics (a choice of compiler/interpreter + cabal), or the whole Platform, or something else. It would be the ideal place to explain what cabal is and how to use hackage to get more libraries than are contained in the platform. It would perhaps reduce the clutter on the front page that some people complained of (although I don't personally think it cluttered).

Sounds great! Can someone prepare such a page, please. The wiki should be directly editable. -- Don

Malcolm Wallace wrote:

The suggestion was to have a single Download button, leading to a *page* of suitably described links, allowing the user to choose whether they only wanted the basics (a choice of compiler/interpreter + cabal), or the whole Platform, or something else. It would be the ideal place to explain what cabal is and how to use hackage to get more libraries than are contained in the platform. It would perhaps reduce the clutter on the front page that some people complained of (although I don't personally think it cluttered).

It seems I'm contraversial even when I'm trying to be uncontraversial. :-} Anyway, the above suggestion sounds most optimal to me. Haskell tends to suffer from a frustrating degree of "information dragmentation" (I love whoever came up with that term...), and collecting a bunch of information in one place like this sounds very useful. I guess in a way, the current "implementations" page could become this page (or this new page makes the existing implementations page obsolete...) I also think it might be worth mentioning HP from the GHC homepage, just in case anybody has that bookmarked directly...

Don Stewart wrote:

vandijk.roel:

...

On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 11:44 PM, Gregory Crosswhite wrote:

...

On a more serious note, "Download Haskell" /= "Download Haskell Platform", so if I were glancing down the sidebar looking for a link to download the "Haskell Platform" then the first link wouldn't have registered for me. And putting a "X has been released link!" in the news does not count as a prominent download link. If I wanted to know something *about* the *Haskell Platform* I would click the link The Haskell Platform under the section About. So it is actually mentioned 3 times on the front page. What could be improved are the 2 download links: "Download Haskell" and "Download GHC". It would perhaps be better to have one nice big "Download" button that takes you to a separate download page.

Having a single download link that only points to the Haskell Platform would be a bit of a policy shift. Is the community ready to accept that users looking for "Haskell" should be given the HP binaries?

Although as others pointed out this wasn't the suggestion, I do think that it is a good idea to eventually have a single big download button à la firefox.com: Haskell Platform OS-specific (based on best effort guess) button linking directly to download, with less prominent options to download for other OS'es, or other implementations. Groetjes, Martijn.

2009/12/3 Tony Morris :

...

Furthermore, when someone offers feedback designed to improve a page, and does so in a very non-threatening way:

On Dec 2, 2009, at 2:26 PM, Andrew Coppin wrote:

...

My suggestion is that if we really want people to grab the HP rather than download GHC directly, maybe we could make the link slightly more prominent? It also wouldn't hurt to mention it from the "Implementations" page, and maybe the GHC homepage? Just a suggestion...

... then in my own humble opinion, snapping back with "Are you sure this isn't user error?" is not a particularly nice response.

When someone asks a question after being offered feedback designed to improve a page, and does so in a very non-threatening way:

...

Are you sure this isn't user error?

... then in my own humble opinion, snapping back with "\"Are you sure this isn't a user error?\" is not a particularly nice response" is not a particularly nice response.

HumbleOpinion> putStrLn response *** Exception: stack overflow Cheers, Thu