Comments on Python Redesign

[Graham Fawcett]

Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters wrote:

>"Tim Parkin" <tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com> wrote previously:
>|Please could we move this discussion to one of the appropriate lists as
>|well.  I suggest python-marketing to begin with.
>
>A marketing list is just not an appropriate forum for discussing
>redesigning the main python website.  The page www.python.org just
>simply should not be driven primarily, or even significantly, by
>"marketing" issues... it's us developers who use it, in the overwhelming
>majority.
>We developers should not be treated as second class Python users because
>someone got the idea that the page should look like what PHBs expect.
>  
>

Developers will always be first-class Python users; it's a programming 
language, after all. Whether they should be first-class users of 
www.python.org, in my humble opinion, is questionable.

http://dev.python.org/ would fly from my fingers just as quickly as 
http://www.python.org/ . As a past and present Python developer I would 
feel that I had received first-class treatment through such an accord.

I believe that, indeed, the front page ought to be comforting to the 
bosses, pointy-headed and otherwise. They are the least likely to go 
hunting for variants on *.python*.org -- it's www or nothing if you 
haven't got a technical clue. (Of course, http://www.python.com/ is 
going to be their first stop, God help us all!)

And let's face it, eye-candy and smiling faces suggest that there's 
money and savvy behind a thing. They suggest that the owners of the site 
know business, that they bathe regularly and might even own a tie. They 
offer smells of competency, viability and longeivity, and these are good 
smells to offer to decision-makers. They are psychologically inviting 
and reassuring to a larger audience, an audience that doesn't read 
Internet RFCs at bedtime and DTDs in lieu of the morning paper.

A bounty of eye-candy and a lack of content will kill any site, of 
course, but surely the marketing SIG could ensure that never happens.

Will new Python developers be dissuaded some eye-candy on the "main" 
Python portal? Perhaps they will be /distracted/ for a brief moment 
while they are looking for the "Developers" link. Once they know about 
dev.python.org, they may never return to the main portal again. No 
worries there. But they may well be delighted to know that all the 
eye-candy exists, when they try to justify the use of this "unheard-of" 
language to their management team. (If they want to persuade their 
development/engineering team, they can always direct them to 
dev.python.org.)

www.python.org for the suits and dev.python.org for the developers: 
everybody wins. Let Occam's razor cut in favour of those who can follow 
but the simplest technical path.

>On the other hand... it seems like an entirely different site could look
>like that glossy pamphlet.  Maybe something like:
>
>    http://python-business.com/
>
>Or even:
>
>    http://enterprise.python.com/
>  
>

Again, nice idea, but the bosses will never find it unless you type in 
the URL for them yourself.

Marketing-sig: For my part, I hereby grant you full privilege to do 
whatever you want with the Python home page. Give me a dev site, and a 
Python installation, and I can move the world; let the others surf where 
they may.

Yours,

-- Graham

P.S. Not in reply to you, Lulu, but I *do* think they should offer a 
boxed Python set: bundle a Python 2.3 development environment on a 
CD-ROM for $299; put the standard library on another, for an extra $299. 
Put in a nice pamphlet and a registration card, maybe a mouse pad with 
the new "fingerprint logo" on it. Put some copper in the PSF's coffers, 
and help the suits feel what we already know: that Python is so good, 
it's worth paying for. My boss would buy two of 'em, after seeing what 
Python has done for us!