element) should always give as many details as possible. (It's nice to see you weighing on this discussion, BTW.) --amk (www.amk.ca) "One's ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature." -- Sherlock Holmes, in "A Study in Scarlet" From sholden at holdenweb.com Tue Aug 12 11:23:34 2003 From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden) Date: Tue Aug 12 10:25:22 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <20030812140928.GE17982@panix.com> Message-ID: <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMAAELJEPAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org > [mailto:pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org]On Behalf Of Aahz > Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 10:09 AM > To: Pydotorg-Redesign > Subject: Re: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar > (again!) > > > On Tue, Aug 12, 2003, Steve Holden wrote: > > > > I certainly agree that "Python Versions" is a waste of space - we > > already have a "Downloads" lin k in the top nav section, > and going there > > shows you everything that "Python Versions" has in it. I'd just lose > > that navbar section altogether. > > The problem is that currently if we remove Python Versions, > you have to > click through at least two pages to make a download; until > that's fixed, > it needs to stay. > Disagree. Clearly the downloads page will improve, but even before that the current download is one click away, and only older versions require two. That's placing a disincentive on the use of older versions which would be a good thing. > > Also, while "mirror sites" and "site map" are both useful > links I thing > > they are too far up. > > Agreed about mirrors; disagree about site map. Many people go almost > immediately to site map (or search) if they don't see something > obviously related to what they're looking for, because looking at the > whole site structure helps to figure what's located where. OK, "site map" could stay at the top of the nav bar, right under the "search" box (we are going to put "search" on all pages, right?) regards -- Steve Holden http://www.holdenweb.com/ Python Web Programming http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/ From amk at asti-usa.com Tue Aug 12 11:28:05 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Tue Aug 12 10:28:38 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <3F38E1B2.9080009@pollenation.net> References: <EC4B47DD-CCBB-11D7-B10B-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38E1B2.9080009@pollenation.net> Message-ID: <20030812142805.GC25825@vail.asti-usa.com> On Tue, Aug 12, 2003 at 01:46:42PM +0100, Matt Goodall wrote: > I have always thought having changing images was a terrible idea, never > mind the fact that some are unreadable. Python needs a bit more branding I don't really care much about branding, and many of the various fonts are quite attractive, so I'm happy to keep the rotating logos; my suggestion is just to winnow out a few of them. After writing a little script to put them all on one HTML page (didn't Steve Holden post a link for such a page?), I'd point the finger at the following ones: 014: greatly fattened letters make it hard to read 019: the Wingdings one: it's button, square, diamond, light bulb, clock, star. 040: zebra stripes; if you squint very hard, you can actually make out the word, but it's difficult. 053: fattened, pointillist rendering I'm unsure of 002, 023, and 030; the letters are eroded away, making the lines very thin and possibly hard to read. I like the pointillist versions much less than the outline font renderings. Ones I really liked, BTW: 029 (a nice clean-looking sans-serif), 031 (a calligraphic version), 009 (the famous X-Files font). I find I prefer ones that slope upward (the right side is higher), and like the downward-sloping ones less. --amk (www.amk.ca) Right, freeze! I mean, don't freeze, I mean stand still! -- Ace, in "Dragonfire" From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 12 11:37:01 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Tue Aug 12 10:37:04 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMAAELJEPAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> References: <20030812140928.GE17982@panix.com> <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMAAELJEPAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> Message-ID: <20030812143701.GB22764@panix.com> BTW, Steve, it would be really handy in these long discussion threads if you'd use standard quoting. On Tue, Aug 12, 2003, Steve Holden wrote: >Aahz: >> >> The problem is that currently if we remove Python Versions, you have >> to click through at least two pages to make a download; until that's >> fixed, it needs to stay. > > Disagree. Clearly the downloads page will improve, but even before > that the current download is one click away, and only older versions > require two. That's placing a disincentive on the use of older > versions which would be a good thing. Unless you're talking about the Announcements section (which isn't IMO useful), where's the one click? >> Agreed about mirrors; disagree about site map. Many people go almost >> immediately to site map (or search) if they don't see something >> obviously related to what they're looking for, because looking at the >> whole site structure helps to figure what's located where. > > OK, "site map" could stay at the top of the nav bar, right under the > "search" box (we are going to put "search" on all pages, right?) But of course. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From amk at asti-usa.com Tue Aug 12 11:39:05 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Tue Aug 12 10:39:39 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> Message-ID: <20030812143905.GD25825@vail.asti-usa.com> On Tue, Aug 12, 2003 at 02:39:38PM +0100, Matt Goodall wrote: > Actually, SIGS are *extremely* important right now for the sole reason > that it's where the DB-API is documented. That specification should be > more prominent although I haven't got any suggestions. The DB-API is also available as PEPs #, err, 248 and 249 I think (DB-API 1.0/2.0). --amk From matt at pollenation.net Tue Aug 12 17:11:04 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Tue Aug 12 10:59:18 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <20030812140232.GB17982@panix.com> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> <20030812140232.GB17982@panix.com> Message-ID: <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> Aahz wrote: >On Tue, Aug 12, 2003, Matt Goodall wrote: > > >>Actually, SIGS are *extremely* important right now for the sole reason >>that it's where the DB-API is documented. That specification should be >>more prominent although I haven't got any suggestions. >> >> > >But it's not something someone going to the home page needs. I think >that having it on the Community page is probably enough, and can be >expanded there with more detail. > > Very true, although I was really just raising the issue before I forgot again ;-). Having said that, support for database access is probably one of the key things people will look for when evaluating the language. For me, and probably lots of other people, it's a very important part of Python. I know the DB-API isn't core Python but it would be great to get a link to it on the main documentation page. - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenationinternet.com e: matt@pollenation.net From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 12 12:00:10 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:00:15 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> <20030812140232.GB17982@panix.com> <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> Message-ID: <20030812150009.GA25613@panix.com> On Tue, Aug 12, 2003, Matt Goodall wrote: > > Having said that, support for database access is probably one of the key > things people will look for when evaluating the language. For me, and > probably lots of other people, it's a very important part of Python. I > know the DB-API isn't core Python but it would be great to get a link to > it on the main documentation page. How about the Why Python? pages? -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From matt at pollenation.net Tue Aug 12 17:14:15 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:02:21 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Advocacy directory In-Reply-To: <20030812135709.GA17982@panix.com> References: <20030812135709.GA17982@panix.com> Message-ID: <3F390447.3020006@pollenation.net> Aahz wrote: >I'm about to set up a directory for placing marketing material, to go >with a new top-level link called "Why Python?". I'm currently leaning >toward making the directory name /why/; other good options would >probably be /marketing/ or /advocacy/ . Comments? > > Not marketing, why and advocacy are ok, although it's just taken me three attempts to spell advocacy correctly ;-). - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenationinternet.com e: matt@pollenation.net From fdrake at acm.org Tue Aug 12 12:07:57 2003 From: fdrake at acm.org (Fred L. Drake, Jr.) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:08:37 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Advocacy directory In-Reply-To: <3F390447.3020006@pollenation.net> References: <20030812135709.GA17982@panix.com> <3F390447.3020006@pollenation.net> Message-ID: <16185.717.830080.884228@grendel.zope.com> Matt Goodall writes: > Not marketing, why and advocacy are ok, although it's just taken me > three attempts to spell advocacy correctly ;-). I think "why" is better than "advocacy": - it's less of a turn-off for; the connotation for "why" doesn't indicate any inherent bias - it's shorter -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org> PythonLabs at Zope Corporation From matt at pollenation.net Tue Aug 12 17:21:01 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:09:09 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <20030812140928.GE17982@panix.com> References: <EC4B47DD-CCBB-11D7-B10B-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMACELDEPAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> <20030812140928.GE17982@panix.com> Message-ID: <3F3905DD.2090609@pollenation.net> > > >Agreed about mirrors; disagree about site map. Many people go almost >immediately to site map (or search) if they don't see something >obviously related to what they're looking for, because looking at the >whole site structure helps to figure what's located where. > > Interesting, do people go straight to the site map or do they trawl around the site first and then use it a last resort? Perhaps the use of the site map is a symptom of other problems? I only say this because I can't think of a time that I've ever used one myself. - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenationinternet.com e: matt@pollenation.net From fdrake at acm.org Tue Aug 12 12:13:51 2003 From: fdrake at acm.org (Fred L. Drake, Jr.) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:14:34 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> <20030812140232.GB17982@panix.com> <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> <20030812150009.GA25613@panix.com> Message-ID: <16185.1071.815699.636251@grendel.zope.com> Matt Goodall writes: > Having said that, support for database access is probably one of the key > things people will look for when evaluating the language. For me, and > probably lots of other people, it's a very important part of Python. I Definately. > know the DB-API isn't core Python but it would be great to get a link to > it on the main documentation page. I've added a link on the left navigation bar, next to the regular expressions link. Aahz writes: > How about the Why Python? pages? The existance of a common database API is a good reason why, so do include a link there, along with a short explanation as to why it's interesting. -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org> PythonLabs at Zope Corporation From matt at pollenation.net Tue Aug 12 17:29:51 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:17:59 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <20030812150009.GA25613@panix.com> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> <20030812140232.GB17982@panix.com> <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> <20030812150009.GA25613@panix.com> Message-ID: <3F3907EF.3000701@pollenation.net> Aahz wrote: >On Tue, Aug 12, 2003, Matt Goodall wrote: > > >>Having said that, support for database access is probably one of the key >>things people will look for when evaluating the language. For me, and >>probably lots of other people, it's a very important part of Python. I >>know the DB-API isn't core Python but it would be great to get a link to >>it on the main documentation page. >> >> > >How about the Why Python? pages? > It should certainly say "has great database support" on the "Why Python?" pages but I was talking about the actual API: connect(), cursor(), commit() and rollback() etc. - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenationinternet.com e: matt@pollenation.net From amk at asti-usa.com Tue Aug 12 12:17:33 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:18:06 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> <20030812140232.GB17982@panix.com> <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> Message-ID: <20030812151733.GA31600@vail.asti-usa.com> On Tue, Aug 12, 2003 at 04:11:04PM +0100, Matt Goodall wrote: > probably lots of other people, it's a very important part of Python. I > know the DB-API isn't core Python but it would be great to get a link to > it on the main documentation page. A link to /topics/database might be better, since the topic guide also links to the various database modules. --amk From fdrake at acm.org Tue Aug 12 12:19:59 2003 From: fdrake at acm.org (Fred L. Drake, Jr.) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:20:34 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <20030812151733.GA31600@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> <20030812140232.GB17982@panix.com> <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> <20030812151733.GA31600@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <16185.1439.444493.45936@grendel.zope.com> A.M. Kuchling writes: > A link to /topics/database might be better, since the topic guide also > links to the various database modules. That's what I used, since it contains prominent links to both versions of the API and the list of implementations. -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org> PythonLabs at Zope Corporation From matt at pollenation.net Tue Aug 12 17:36:19 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:24:30 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <20030812142805.GC25825@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <EC4B47DD-CCBB-11D7-B10B-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38E1B2.9080009@pollenation.net> <20030812142805.GC25825@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <3F390973.3050308@pollenation.net> A.M. Kuchling wrote: >On Tue, Aug 12, 2003 at 01:46:42PM +0100, Matt Goodall wrote: > > >>I have always thought having changing images was a terrible idea, never >>mind the fact that some are unreadable. Python needs a bit more branding >> >> > >I don't really care much about branding, > OK, branding was a bad word to use (far too many connotations), I'll let guys in python-marketing use those sorts of words from now on ;-). The idea is still important though - a consistent image lets the reader know they're back at python.org and/or haven't been sent off to another site. - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenationinternet.com e: matt@pollenation.net From oktaysafak at ixir.com Tue Aug 12 19:00:34 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:25:26 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] A brilliant quote Message-ID: <003201c36136$4f9ca4e0$0200a8c0@b> QOTW (Quote of the week): "What can I do with Python that I can't do with C#? You can go home on time at the end of the day." -- Daniel Klein (via Dr. Dobb's Python-URL) From matt at pollenation.net Tue Aug 12 17:40:48 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:29:04 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <16185.1439.444493.45936@grendel.zope.com> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> <20030812140232.GB17982@panix.com> <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> <20030812151733.GA31600@vail.asti-usa.com> <16185.1439.444493.45936@grendel.zope.com> Message-ID: <3F390A80.1010505@pollenation.net> Fred L. Drake, Jr. wrote: >A.M. Kuchling writes: > > A link to /topics/database might be better, since the topic guide also > > links to the various database modules. > >That's what I used, since it contains prominent links to both versions >of the API and the list of implementations. > Oh yeah, I hadn't noticed that before but then I know where the APIs are now ;-). Perhaps "Topic Guides" could simply be expanded to "Topic Guides - Database, XML, blah", i.e. pull out the more obvious topics to give readers more of an idea about what's behind the link. - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenationinternet.com e: matt@pollenation.net t: +44 (0)113 2252500 From guido at python.org Tue Aug 12 09:39:04 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:39:32 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 12 Aug 2003 10:28:05 EDT." <20030812142805.GC25825@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <EC4B47DD-CCBB-11D7-B10B-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38E1B2.9080009@pollenation.net> <20030812142805.GC25825@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <200308121539.h7CFd4m32382@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > 009 (the famous X-Files font) Which I hope everyone remembers was designed by the same Erik van Blokland who (with Just van Rossum) did the original python.org design. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From guido at python.org Tue Aug 12 09:42:28 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:42:53 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 12 Aug 2003 16:21:01 BST." <3F3905DD.2090609@pollenation.net> References: <EC4B47DD-CCBB-11D7-B10B-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMACELDEPAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> <20030812140928.GE17982@panix.com> <3F3905DD.2090609@pollenation.net> Message-ID: <200308121542.h7CFgSD32419@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > Interesting, do people go straight to the site map or do they trawl > around the site first and then use it a last resort? The site map is there as a last resort. > Perhaps the use of the site map is a symptom of other problems? I > only say this because I can't think of a time that I've ever used > one myself. On a new site, I usually try browsing first, then searching, then the site map. A good site map acts as the table of contents of a book: it shows you the overall structure. Depending on what you're looking for, this is redundant, unhelpful, or exactly what you need. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 12 12:52:41 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:52:48 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Advocacy directory In-Reply-To: <003a01c360e6$f68e2080$0a00a8c0@JASPER> References: <20030812135709.GA17982@panix.com> <003a01c360e6$f68e2080$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <20030812155241.GA7110@panix.com> [I'm assuming this was intended to be public, so I'm responding publicly and quoting the whole thing, reformatting for easier reading.] On Tue, Aug 12, 2003, Tim Parkin wrote: > Aahz said >> >>I'm about to set up a directory for placing marketing material, to go >>with a new top-level link called "Why Python?". I'm currently leaning >>toward making the directory name /why/; other good options would >>probably be /marketing/ or /advocacy/ . Comments? > > I'm not sure what sort of marketing material is intended to be > stored there. If it's promotional material then it could be a press > section. If it's case studies the a case studies section. > > "Why Python?" seems too generic as in 'Why do we use python', 'Why > should you use python', 'Why does python exist', or it could be an > "About.." item. It may be better to name the links corresponding to > the reason why people are at the site,i.e. assuming that they wish to > answer a questions or solve a problem. I'm concentrating on the first level first. As I've said earlier, I think most newcomers to www.python.org are probably people who've heard about Python from somewhere else. I think a prominent link named "Why Python?" will attract their attention. Once there, there should be links to additional information depending on what they're looking for. > It seems there would be three possible reasons why people would want > this material > > i) convince other people that Python is the right choice > ii) convince themselves that it's the right choice > iii) write articles for magazines, newspapers etc > > The first two are very dependant on the audience as the pitch would > be very different to a developer than to a manager (and for different > skill/experience levels). The last is a more niche section and would > consists of promotional material, press releases and pictures. OTOH, the overall information is similar for the first two. Let's not waste time micro-managing the message at this point. > My suggestion would be > > About > - For beginners > - For developers > - For business > > And possibly > > - Press This can all go into "Why Python?" quite easily. "About" doesn't attract attention the same way, IMO, and I don't think the "For..." links belong on the front page. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Tue Aug 12 17:54:51 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:55:00 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <20030812150009.GA25613@panix.com> Message-ID: <003b01c360ea$18b673d0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Aahz said >I'm about to set up a directory for placing marketing material, to go >with a new top-level link called "Why Python?". I'm currently leaning >toward making the directory name /why/; other good options would >probably be /marketing/ or /advocacy/ . Comments? I'm not sure what sort of marketing material is intended to be stored there. If it's promotional material then it could be a press section. If it's case studies the a case studies section. Otherwise ? "Why Python?" seems too generic as in 'Why do we use python', 'Why should you use python', 'Why does python exist', or it could be an "About.." item. It may be better to name the links corresponding to the reason why people are at the site,i.e. assuming that they wish to answer a questions or solve a problem. It seems there would be three possible reasons why people would want this material i) convince other people that Python is the right choice ii) convince themselves that it's the right choice iii) write articles for magazines, newspapers etc The first two are very dependant on the audience as the pitch would be very different to a developer than to a manager (and for different skill/experience levels). The last is a more niche section and would consists of promotional material, press releases and pictures. My suggestion would be About - For beginners - For developers - For business And possibly - Press My 2c Tim Parkin Pollenation From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 12 12:56:12 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:56:15 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] FWD: <no subject> Message-ID: <20030812155612.GB7110@panix.com> FYI -- despite all the complaining and planning we're doing here, this kind of comment is what we usually see on webmaster. I'm not suggesting we should slow down or anything, but let's recognize that lots of people *are* happy, and we want to be very careful not to lose that happiness. (And, yes, all too often we do get blank Subject: lines. <sigh>) ----- Forwarded message from "Dana B." <dana@momerath.us> ----- > Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2003 08:44:47 -0700 (PDT) > From: "Dana B." <dana@momerath.us> > Reply-To: dana@momerath.us > To: webmaster@python.org > > The link to "Scripting course by Hans Petter > Langtangen" on > http://www.python.org/topics/learn/prog.html in > broken. I did a quick google search and found the > course or something very similar at > http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~hpl/VitSimScripting/. > > Dana Baguley > > P.S. I'm trying to learn Python as sort of a first and > a halfth language (I have exposure but no real > competence in a handful of languages) and I've found > your site very helpful so far. Thank you. ----- End forwarded message ----- From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Tue Aug 12 18:21:05 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Tue Aug 12 12:21:12 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Advocacy directory In-Reply-To: <20030812155241.GA7110@panix.com> Message-ID: <004301c360ed$c14276e0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> >> My suggestion would be >> >> About >> - For beginners >> - For developers >> - For business >> >> And possibly >> >> - Press >This can all go into "Why Python?" quite easily. "About" doesn't >attract attention the same way, IMO, and I don't think the "For..." >links belong on the front page. Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. I think maybe an idea of what percentage of the home page links we think should be aimed at what audience. At the moment the percentages are (very) roughly. Beginners 6% Docs 10% Downloads/Modules 12% Developers 14% Community 12% Links 46% Is this what we want? And if not what sort of distribution/priorities do we have? As a further suggestion, I think there is a lot of cross talk on this list between people who are making incremental changes to the current site and people who wish to plan for a more thorough re-appraisal. I don't know what could be done about this but it seems the conversations are getting mixed and some intentions perhaps being misunderstood. Obviously I have an interest in the bigger reorganisation and have committed myself to helping in this to best of my abilities. I also realise this will be a long process and would like to gather as many 'requirements' as possible to set a foundation. Anyway.. 5.30pm here so it's time to stop before the evening shift begins. Tim From skip at pobox.com Tue Aug 12 12:28:05 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Tue Aug 12 12:28:17 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <3F38E78D.5090904@pollenation.net> References: <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMACELAEPAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> <3F38E78D.5090904@pollenation.net> Message-ID: <16185.5525.965491.386691@montanaro.dyndns.org> Steve> Hear, hear! Now all we have to do is settle on which logo to use Steve> ... Matt> Phew! Thanks Steve, at least someone else agrees with me ;-). You should be able to do it incrementally. Start by removing those which are most problematic, then converge on a set of "finalists". I forgot the banners are in CVS. You will probably have to cvs remove them and let people know so they can cvs up their pics directory. Otherwise, people will continue to generate pages which reference them. On the other hand, I rather like the different corner images. Skip From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 12 13:28:58 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Tue Aug 12 12:29:04 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] a modest proposal In-Reply-To: <1060443268.19893.1552.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> References: <000601c35c6a$485c4080$0200a8c0@b> <20030806150931.GA5777@vail.asti-usa.com> <003001c35de7$54dffda0$0200a8c0@b> <1060359818.19893.53.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16179.54064.303795.566879@montanaro.dyndns.org> <1060364697.19893.135.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16180.5176.173047.112003@montanaro.dyndns.org> <20030809002939.GF2856@panix.com> <1060443268.19893.1552.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> Message-ID: <20030812162858.GA16795@panix.com> On Sat, Aug 09, 2003, Dylan Reinhardt wrote: > > Would this group be willing to evaluate a demo of a Zope-based CMS that > could *supplement* the current offerings at python.org? If y'all are > willing to look at it, I'd be willing to assemble a small team to do it. Why don't you hold that thought until about two or three weeks after the formal transfer of python.org to the PSF? (I suggest waiting because there are probably some long-standing DNS changes that have been held pending the transfer that will get higher priority.) -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From skip at pobox.com Tue Aug 12 12:29:32 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Tue Aug 12 12:29:41 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <001001c36127$dd1d2740$0200a8c0@b> References: <EC4B47DD-CCBB-11D7-B10B-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38E1B2.9080009@pollenation.net> <001001c36127$dd1d2740$0200a8c0@b> Message-ID: <16185.5613.634.298562@montanaro.dyndns.org> Matt> I have always thought having changing images was a terrible idea, Matt> never mind the fact that some are unreadable. Getting rid of unreadable images I can see. I don't understand the aversion to a little variety. Skip From skip at pobox.com Tue Aug 12 12:30:45 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Tue Aug 12 12:30:55 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F380DE4.8050403@ocf.berkeley.edu> <000b01c36107$2c7d9980$0200a8c0@b> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> Message-ID: <16185.5685.869886.109299@montanaro.dyndns.org> Matt> Actually, SIGS are *extremely* important right now for the sole Matt> reason that it's where the DB-API is documented. That Matt> specification should be more prominent although I haven't got any Matt> suggestions. PEP 248 is DB API v1. PEP 249 is DB API v2. Skip From python at dylanreinhardt.com Tue Aug 12 18:18:19 2003 From: python at dylanreinhardt.com (Dylan Reinhardt) Date: Tue Aug 12 13:18:20 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] a modest proposal In-Reply-To: <20030812162858.GA16795@panix.com> References: <000601c35c6a$485c4080$0200a8c0@b> <20030806150931.GA5777@vail.asti-usa.com> <003001c35de7$54dffda0$0200a8c0@b> <1060359818.19893.53.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16179.54064.303795.566879@montanaro.dyndns.org> <1060364697.19893.135.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16180.5176.173047.112003@montanaro.dyndns.org> <20030809002939.GF2856@panix.com> <1060443268.19893.1552.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <20030812162858.GA16795@panix.com> Message-ID: <1060708662.6429.17.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> On Tue, 2003-08-12 at 09:28, Aahz wrote: > On Sat, Aug 09, 2003, Dylan Reinhardt wrote: > > > > Would this group be willing to evaluate a demo of a Zope-based CMS that > > could *supplement* the current offerings at python.org? If y'all are > > willing to look at it, I'd be willing to assemble a small team to do it. > > Why don't you hold that thought until about two or three weeks after the > formal transfer of python.org to the PSF? (I suggest waiting because > there are probably some long-standing DNS changes that have been held > pending the transfer that will get higher priority.) I'm happy to hold this thought for a few weeks. Obviously there are a number of pressing things to attend to. Good news about the domain transferring. Coordinating DNS with another organization can be a PITA even under the best of circumstances. Dylan From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 12 17:19:44 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Tue Aug 12 16:19:47 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: Moving python.org to Zope In-Reply-To: <NEBBLDPBKLOKNHPAEECGKEEFKFAA.zope@toenjes.com> References: <20030807173955.GB1918@panix.com> <NEBBLDPBKLOKNHPAEECGKEEFKFAA.zope@toenjes.com> Message-ID: <20030812201943.GA3410@panix.com> [switching to pydotorg-redesign] On Thu, Aug 07, 2003, Trevor Toenjes wrote: > Aahz: >> >> In addition, it's my belief (based on conversations with a number of >> expert Zope people, including my cousin (Michael Bernstein, co-author of >> _The Zope Bible_)) > > no Way! Michael-webmaven Bernstein is your cousin? I guess you got all the > good looks in the family. :) <smirk> Don't let him hear that -- he's the vain one. >> that Zope3 represents an quantum leap forward in >> Zope's power *and* usability over Zope2. But I'm adamantly against >> converting to Zope3 until it goes production, and I think the pain of >> doing a double conversion to Zope2 followed by Zope3 just isn't worth it. >> >> Can you provide any convincing arguments against my position? > > hmmm. I agree with your concerns and the opinions you stated. > I agree that Zope3 will be a quantum leap. But it is a ways off. > > But the final release of Zope3 is expected to have a reasonable > migration path for up to date Zope2 code. I dont think python.org is > going to have any challenging objects that would break, which I think > is the technical concern. It's mostly text/HTML based documentation > which will be trivial to convert. My understanding is the conversion > issues with Zope2 to Zope3 are about deeper custom-Zope objects > called Products and External methods in Zope2, which I dont suspect > are really needed for python.org. I think if we stay with stock Zope > objects, we would be ok. I could be wrong.... That's what I'm concerned about. The only iron-clad reason for using Zope as opposed to some other system is Zope's support for full-blown CMS. I've been assuming that this will require extensive customization to use appropriately, and that migrating Zope2 to Zope3 will require a fair amount of work. Less work than the original Zope2 converstion, probably, and even likely less work than going directly to Zope3 from the current site. But I'm still wondering just how much work the double conversion is likely to be, given that the initial Zope2 conversion almost certainly will take more work than going straight to Zope3. > AND Zope.org is finalizing a long painful migration, and they went > with Zope2/CMF+Plone. If it's good enough for the Zope community, I > think that says something. Not really. After all, these are people who already know and love Zope. Perhaps you're right that some form of test/case-study would be appropriate, but evaluating it is going to take a lot of work, too. > I only suggested it to make python.org easier to maintain, which it > would once you got over the hump. So convert it now, and get 2 years > of making life easier, and then look at Zope3 which might have its > first maintenance release by then. As I think I've said before, unless it's clear that we can reach the crossover point in productivity in less than a month, I don't think we can afford it. > And a zope generated site can still be mirrored, because it can be > designed as is...very static. It's just that now you will have easier > publishing and delegation of maintenance responsibilities. That I know about. Essentially, we'd have a separate server that runs Zope and it'd push to the current server. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From amk at amk.ca Tue Aug 12 22:26:35 2003 From: amk at amk.ca (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Tue Aug 12 21:43:26 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] PSF press releases Message-ID: <2DD8E8B7-CD2D-11D7-9DD2-0003931BF218@amk.ca> The psf/ directory contains a bunch of press releases, and a press-release/ directory that contains just one press release. I've just copied the press releases down a level, but haven't removed the old copies. Question: currently the press releases are listed at /psf/press.html, and /psf/press-release/ contains no index.html file. Should press.html move down a level to press-release/index.html, or is it OK if accessing press-release/ gets a directory listing? The downside is that press-release/index.ht no longer has the same sidebar links as the rest of the psf/*.ht pages. My inclination is to move it down; objections? --amk From fdrake at acm.org Tue Aug 12 23:08:51 2003 From: fdrake at acm.org (Fred L. Drake, Jr.) Date: Tue Aug 12 22:09:31 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] PSF press releases In-Reply-To: <2DD8E8B7-CD2D-11D7-9DD2-0003931BF218@amk.ca> References: <2DD8E8B7-CD2D-11D7-9DD2-0003931BF218@amk.ca> Message-ID: <16185.40371.70609.490350@grendel.zope.com> A.M. Kuchling writes: > My inclination is to move it down; objections? I think that makes more sense than leaving it. If there's a real issue with 3rd-party links to psf/press.html we can add a redirect to psf/press-release/. -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org> PythonLabs at Zope Corporation From just at letterror.com Wed Aug 13 12:18:35 2003 From: just at letterror.com (Just van Rossum) Date: Wed Aug 13 05:18:34 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images Message-ID: <r01050400-1026-2150A268CD6F11D78612003065D5E7E4@[10.0.0.23]> I've been lurking here for a while and I must say I'm quite happy people are still mostly concentrating on the contents and organization of the site. I'd be happy to contribute some time working on the actual design and I'm sure I can convince my LettError buddy Erik to do the same. There's no reason to stick with anything (typo)graphically that's currently on the site, so it's rather silly to argue about those "rotating logos". I still think they are cute (btw they're created randomly by a Python script, some of the *fonts* used are created with Python scripts; they've never been meant as logos, they're just decoration, symbolizing Python's dynamics if you will). The pixeled Python logo I also still find cute. But I also think it's time for something new. But more than anything, (graphic) design by committee sucks. One person or one small group should create a new design (I'm talking about the site as a whole, not the just logo), and the community will have to live with the fact that it will not be to everyone's taste (for example I'm sure we wouldn't be able to agree what it means for a site to look "professional"). There can be competing proposals, but the final choice will either have to made by Guido, or a (very) small group of people that he assigns. It seems that an earlier attempt (from us) at a new Python logo has been mostly forgotten. It's still on line here: http://just.letterror.com/pythonlogo/ Perhaps we'll revive it for the new site, or abandon it altogether and create something new. But the site is most important, and how it's organized should indeed be priority number one. Just From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Wed Aug 13 14:18:43 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Wed Aug 13 08:18:53 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <r01050400-1026-2150A268CD6F11D78612003065D5E7E4@[10.0.0.23]> Message-ID: <007401c36195$1195fed0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Just said: > I've been lurking here for a while and I must say I'm quite happy > people are still mostly concentrating on the contents and organization > of the site. I'd be happy to contribute some time working on the actual > design and I'm sure I can convince my LettError buddy Erik to do the > same. It's cool that the design can have a group of people discussing it. Would you mind taking a look at the designs on the wiki at the moment and making a couple of comments? Heres the main links to save time http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded.html http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index.html http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org-converted/ > But I also think it's time for something new. But more than anything, > (graphic) design by committee sucks. One person or one small group > should create a new design (I'm talking about the site as a whole, not > the just logo), and the community will have to live with the fact that > it will not be to everyone's taste (for example I'm sure we wouldn't be > able to agree what it means for a site to look "professional"). There > can be competing proposals, but the final choice will either have to > made by Guido, or a (very) small group of people that he assigns. I totally agree, having worked for various graphic design agencies (albeit not in a direct design role) the worst results have always been when all of the customer board of directors want a part of the design and all the best ones where a small group has had a free hand in producing the designs and the committee has made decisions on favourites where this is appropriate and advisable. > It seems that an earlier attempt (from us) at a new Python logo has > been mostly forgotten. I'd seen the logo and wondered what it was for, I like it but but not certain if the colours are what people want. It's also quite playful but I'm not sure if that's typical of the space in which Python should be positioned. I've put together a few logos of other companies/langauges in a similar space here and straight after a sample of logos that offer a similar image. http://pollenation.net/assets/public/samples.gif http://pollenation.net/assets/public/similar.gif While we're batting things about, what do you think of these possibles? http://pollenation.net/assets/public/pydotorg-redesign/python-logo-test. gif And here is one of them on a website http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded_logo3.html Thanks in advance for any feedback. Tim Pollenation From amk at asti-usa.com Wed Aug 13 09:58:30 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Wed Aug 13 08:59:12 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Announcing the FAQ: how? Message-ID: <20030813125830.GA6576@vail.asti-usa.com> The first part of the broken-up FAQ, the General FAQ, is now complete enough that it can be announced more widely in order to collect suggestions. Question: how to do this? I could post it on c.l.py, but it's 59K; that will put a lot of strain on mail.python.org when the posting is gatewayed and sent out. I could post it to c.l.py.announce, which probably goes to fewer people, but it presents the same problem for mail.python.org. I could post just the link to it, but expect that this will result in fewer comments than if the entire document was posted. Any suggestions for what to do? Also, when should I begin changing URLs to point to /doc/faq/ ? How much of the FAQ needs to be complete at that point? --amk (www.amk.ca) CLAUDIUS: Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go. -- _Hamlet_, III, i From skip at pobox.com Wed Aug 13 09:31:58 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Wed Aug 13 09:32:05 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <007401c36195$1195fed0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> References: <r01050400-1026-2150A268CD6F11D78612003065D5E7E4@[10.0.0.23]> <007401c36195$1195fed0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <16186.15822.225156.903290@montanaro.dyndns.org> Tim> I've put together a few logos of other companies/langauges in a Tim> similar space here and straight after a sample of logos that offer Tim> a similar image. Tim> http://pollenation.net/assets/public/samples.gif Tim> http://pollenation.net/assets/public/similar.gif Tim> While we're batting things about, what do you think of these Tim> possibles? I kind of like the infinity idea - "infinite possibilities". How about less of a sideways "8"? Maybe a constant width path with an arrowhead along the path somewhere? I can't draw worth a damn, so I can only describe what I'm thinking of. maybe-i'll-write-a-little-postscript-ly, y'rs, Skip From oktaysafak at ixir.com Wed Aug 13 17:59:05 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Wed Aug 13 10:07:26 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images References: <007401c36195$1195fed0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <000a01c361f6$e364f7c0$0200a8c0@b> "Tim Parkin" <tim.parkin@pollenationinternet.com> wrote: > It's cool that the design can have a group of people discussing it. Yes, and graphic (or visual) design is orthogonal to other issues, so we can brainstorm on this in parallel to arcitechural/technical matters. > > But I also think it's time for something new. But more than anything, > > (graphic) design by committee sucks. One person or one small group > > should create a new design (I'm talking about the site as a whole, not > > the just logo), and the community will have to live with the fact that > > it will not be to everyone's taste (for example I'm sure we wouldn't > > be able to agree what it means for a site to look "professional"). There > > can be competing proposals, but the final choice will either have to > > made by Guido, or a (very) small group of people that he assigns. > I totally agree, having worked for various graphic design agencies > (albeit not in a direct design role) the worst results have always been > when all of the customer board of directors want a part of the design > and all the best ones where a small group has had a free hand in > producing the designs and the committee has made decisions on favourites > where this is appropriate and advisable. That's my experience too (as a somewhat semi-professional or hobbyist). I totally agree with both of you, but before we are there, it's good to brainstorm and collect feedback. > While we're batting things about, what do you think of these possibles? > > http://pollenation.net/assets/public/pydotorg-redesign/python-logo-test. > gif The idea of the intifinity symbol is neat, but I can't say, err, your logos hit me right on the spot ;) > Thanks in advance for any feedback. You're welcome, thanks for your efforts. Regards, Oktay From sholden at holdenweb.com Wed Aug 13 11:05:27 2003 From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden) Date: Wed Aug 13 10:07:34 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <007401c36195$1195fed0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMAEEAIFAAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> [tim parkin] > Just said: > > I've been lurking here for a while and I must say I'm quite happy > > people are still mostly concentrating on the contents and > organization > > > of the site. I'd be happy to contribute some time working on the > actual > > design and I'm sure I can convince my LettError buddy Erik > to do the > > same. > > It's cool that the design can have a group of people discussing it. > Would you mind taking a look at the designs on the wiki at the moment > and making a couple of comments? > > Heres the main links to save time > > http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded.html > http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index.html > http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org-converted/ > I still like index-rounded.html Overall the look is a little bit "PHP-nuke"-ish, but it works. The second pollenation page is second favorite. The third page appears to me rather "heavy" on the left, so the links distract form the main content. > > > But I also think it's time for something new. But more than > anything, > > (graphic) design by committee sucks. One person or one small group > > should create a new design (I'm talking about the site as a > whole, not > > > the just logo), and the community will have to live with > the fact that > > > it will not be to everyone's taste (for example I'm sure we wouldn't > be > > able to agree what it means for a site to look > "professional"). There > > can be competing proposals, but the final choice will > either have to > > made by Guido, or a (very) small group of people that he assigns. > > I totally agree, having worked for various graphic design agencies > (albeit not in a direct design role) the worst results have > always been > when all of the customer board of directors want a part of the design > and all the best ones where a small group has had a free hand in > producing the designs and the committee has made decisions on > favourites > where this is appropriate and advisable. > Yes, I recently suggested that Guido should decree what the process was going to be, he's far too busy with security matters for this (though it 's nice to see he's reading the list). Guido? > > It seems that an earlier attempt (from us) at a new Python logo has > > been mostly forgotten. > > I'd seen the logo and wondered what it was for, I like it but but not > certain if the colours are what people want. It's also quite > playful but > I'm not sure if that's typical of the space in which Python should be > positioned. I've put together a few logos of other companies/langauges > in a similar space here and straight after a sample of logos > that offer > a similar image. > > http://pollenation.net/assets/public/samples.gif > http://pollenation.net/assets/public/similar.gif > > While we're batting things about, what do you think of these > possibles? > > http://pollenation.net/assets/public/pydotorg-redesign/python- logo-test. gif And here is one of them on a website http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded_logo3.html Thanks in advance for any feedback. FWIW, I like the fifth one down in logo-test.gif. The color is Pythonic and the font is clean and (dare I say) "professional"-looking. Rather than the current loop, however, could we try a snake eating its own tail, Ouroboros-like, but in a figure-of-eight shape (not sure how a blue snake is going to look, but my color judgment is nil anyway). Tim, I think almost any of the suggested changes would represent a great increase in the site's attractiveness and readability, and I hope that you are allowed to proceed with a visual redesign with all possible speed. regards -- Steve Holden http://www.holdenweb.com/ Python Web Programming http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/ From skip at pobox.com Wed Aug 13 10:09:56 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Wed Aug 13 10:10:12 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Announcing the FAQ: how? In-Reply-To: <20030813125830.GA6576@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <20030813125830.GA6576@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <16186.18100.176102.649297@montanaro.dyndns.org> Great work, Andrew! amk> Question: how to do this? Post links to c.l.py and c.l.py.a. If people don't take the time to click the link, you probably didn't want their feedback anway. :-) amk> Also, when should I begin changing URLs to point to /doc/faq/ ? amk> How much of the FAQ needs to be complete at that point? All I see at /doc/faq/ right now is a link to the general FAQ. Can you list all the sections so we can review all of them? If possible, it would be nice if the section numbering could be set up so when the sections are concatenated they have the same numbers as when viewed separately. Thx, Skip From guido at python.org Wed Aug 13 08:14:35 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Wed Aug 13 10:15:08 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Announcing the FAQ: how? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 13 Aug 2003 08:58:30 EDT." <20030813125830.GA6576@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <20030813125830.GA6576@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <200308131414.h7DEEZt01390@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > Question: how to do this? I could post it on c.l.py, but it's 59K; > that will put a lot of strain on mail.python.org when the posting is > gatewayed and sent out. I would not worry about such a puny amount of bandwidth. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From walter at livinglogic.de Wed Aug 13 17:27:57 2003 From: walter at livinglogic.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Walter_D=F6rwald?=) Date: Wed Aug 13 10:28:33 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMAEEAIFAAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> References: <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMAEEAIFAAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> Message-ID: <3F3A4AED.3080001@livinglogic.de> Steve Holden wrote: > [...] >> http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded.html >> http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index.html >> http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org-converted/ > > I still like index-rounded.html Overall the look is a little bit > "PHP-nuke"-ish, but it works. The second pollenation page is second > favorite. The third page appears to me rather "heavy" on the left, so > the links distract form the main content. Sure, but that's because http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org-converted/ has been automatically converted from the current site with it's many links in the sidebar. Take a look at http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org/ with has a handcrafted demo sidebar. > [...] Bye, Walter D?rwald From amk at asti-usa.com Wed Aug 13 11:36:02 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Wed Aug 13 10:36:35 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Announcing the FAQ: how? In-Reply-To: <16186.18100.176102.649297@montanaro.dyndns.org> References: <20030813125830.GA6576@vail.asti-usa.com> <16186.18100.176102.649297@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <20030813143602.GA15900@vail.asti-usa.com> On Wed, Aug 13, 2003 at 09:09:56AM -0500, Skip Montanaro wrote: > All I see at /doc/faq/ right now is a link to the general FAQ. Can you list > all the sections so we can review all of them? The general FAQ is the only one that's ready. I'm still in the middle of revising the programming FAQ; revision is a slow process because so much needs to be updated and rewritten. OTOH, it's so pleasant to come across sentences such as "You can use the new isinstance() built-in in 1.5..." and rip them out or edit them down to match the 2.2/2.3 world. > If possible, it would be nice if the section numbering could be set up so > when the sections are concatenated they have the same numbers as when viewed > separately. I have no plans to concatenate sections; that results in the existing 240K FAQ which does no one any good (slow to load, chews up lots of bandwidth, ...) --amk (www.amk.ca) It will be good to be dead - to be a god. -- The emperor Augustus in SANDMAN #30: "August" From skip at pobox.com Wed Aug 13 11:14:00 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Wed Aug 13 11:14:21 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Announcing the FAQ: how? In-Reply-To: <20030813143602.GA15900@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <20030813125830.GA6576@vail.asti-usa.com> <16186.18100.176102.649297@montanaro.dyndns.org> <20030813143602.GA15900@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <16186.21944.488318.609432@montanaro.dyndns.org> >> If possible, it would be nice if the section numbering could be set >> up so when the sections are concatenated they have the same numbers >> as when viewed separately. amk> I have no plans to concatenate sections; that results in the amk> existing 240K FAQ which does no one any good (slow to load, chews amk> up lots of bandwidth, ...) Sure, but you should be able to convert ReST to LaTeX or other print-friendly formats. Not that that will be the dominate use of the FAQ, but it might appeal to some people. Also, it might be nice to have a full table of contents (good for scanning when you don't quite know what you're looking for) whose numbering matches the individual sections. Skip From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Wed Aug 13 17:55:09 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Wed Aug 13 11:55:11 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <3F3A4AED.3080001@livinglogic.de> Message-ID: <007b01c361b3$49d25ff0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Walter said: >> The third page appears to me rather "heavy" on the left, so >> the links distract form the main content. >Sure, but that's because >http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org-converted/ >has been automatically converted from the current site with >it's many links in the sidebar. Take a look at >http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org/ >with has a handcrafted demo sidebar. Oops .. Sorry I just took the latest one. I didn?t mean to misrepresent. Tim From walter at livinglogic.de Wed Aug 13 19:08:54 2003 From: walter at livinglogic.de (=?windows-1252?Q?Walter_D=F6rwald?=) Date: Wed Aug 13 12:09:30 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <007b01c361b3$49d25ff0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> References: <007b01c361b3$49d25ff0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <3F3A6296.1070902@livinglogic.de> Tim Parkin wrote: > Walter said: > >>>The third page appears to me rather "heavy" on the left, so >>>the links distract form the main content. >> >>Sure, but that's because >>http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org-converted/ >>has been automatically converted from the current site with >>it's many links in the sidebar. Take a look at >>http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org/ >>with has a handcrafted demo sidebar. > > > Oops .. Sorry I just took the latest one. I didn?t mean to misrepresent. No problem. I wonder how the navigation would work on your design. On the start page (i.e. level 0 of the navigation) level 1 and 2 of the navigation are unfolded. What happens when you click on a level 1 link? Will all other level 1 links be folded, i.e. would the navigation look like this: > About For Beginners For Developers For Business Download Documentation Community ... (with ">" marking pages in the path to the current one) or should they stay unfolded? What happens on a level 2 page? Will the level 2 siblings of the current page be shown (i.e. like this: > About > For Beginners > For absolute Beginners For advanced Beginners For Developers For Business Download Docuementation Community ... or won't they be shown (like this: > About > For Beginners > For absolute Beginners For advanced Beginners Download Docuementation Community ... What happens on lower levels (if we ever have them)? How should the current page be marked and how should pages in the path to the current page be marked. How about visited/unvisited? Bye, Walter D?rwald From matt at pollenation.net Wed Aug 13 18:01:29 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Wed Aug 13 13:01:30 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <3F3A6296.1070902@livinglogic.de> References: <007b01c361b3$49d25ff0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> <3F3A6296.1070902@livinglogic.de> Message-ID: <1060794071.29798.42.camel@localhost> On Wed, 2003-08-13 at 17:08, Walter D?rwald wrote: > I wonder how the navigation would work on your design. My comments below have nothing to do with one design or the another. It's just a collection of thoughts I had as a read Walter's post. > On the start page > (i.e. level 0 of the navigation) level 1 and 2 of the navigation are > unfolded. What happens when you click on a level 1 link? Will all other > level 1 links be folded, i.e. would the navigation look like this: > > > About > For Beginners > For Developers > For Business > Download > Documentation > Community > ... First, something solid to think about ... If possible, I think we should aim for _no_ folding at all although that depends on just how many links are needed in the menu. ... and now something decidedly wobbly, which is probably best ignored ;) ... Something to *consider*, and I think it's been suggested before, is to have distinct parts of the site dedicated to a certain type of user: subsites if you like. The top nav could contain links to the subsites; left-hand nav is specific to the subsite. I admit that I have no idea what would go in which subsite but some of the more obvious "splits" are end users, advocacy & marketing and core development. Imagine finding out about Python, wandering along to the site and discovering an entire subsite dedicated to learning Python. For repeat users there would be targeted content - interesting news, package releases and heaps of documentation. The core developer subsite could contain bug trackers, cvs info, perhaps viewcvs and ... I'm not sure what else. This might also make it easier to delegate site maintenance to others. It would make it more obvious anyway. Is the site actually big enough for this? Probably not but there's no harm in thinking bigger in anticipation of Python's dominance :). Even if the site is big enough, there be a lot of overlap in content so it may not be terribly realistic anyway. > What happens on a level 2 page? Will the level 2 siblings of the > current page be shown (i.e. like this: I think if the menu gets 2 levels deep then it's too deep. Also, the more levels there are, the shorter the link text can be - the menu needs to be as thin as possible to leave room for the actual content. > What happens on lower levels (if we ever have them)? I don't even want to think about that ;-). - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenation.net e: matt@pollenation.net From aahz at pythoncraft.com Wed Aug 13 14:16:22 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Wed Aug 13 13:16:30 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Announcing the FAQ: how? In-Reply-To: <16186.21944.488318.609432@montanaro.dyndns.org> References: <20030813125830.GA6576@vail.asti-usa.com> <16186.18100.176102.649297@montanaro.dyndns.org> <20030813143602.GA15900@vail.asti-usa.com> <16186.21944.488318.609432@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <20030813171622.GB6250@panix.com> On Wed, Aug 13, 2003, Skip Montanaro wrote: > > amk> I have no plans to concatenate sections; that results in the > amk> existing 240K FAQ which does no one any good (slow to load, chews > amk> up lots of bandwidth, ...) > > Sure, but you should be able to convert ReST to LaTeX or other > print-friendly formats. Not that that will be the dominate use of the FAQ, > but it might appeal to some people. Also, it might be nice to have a full > table of contents (good for scanning when you don't quite know what you're > looking for) whose numbering matches the individual sections. Let's finish the FAQ content first, then we can talk about writing tools to concatenate and rip apart. (I want each FAQ question to also be available as a single file for search engines.) -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From aahz at pythoncraft.com Wed Aug 13 14:18:20 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Wed Aug 13 13:18:23 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <3F3A6296.1070902@livinglogic.de> References: <007b01c361b3$49d25ff0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> <3F3A6296.1070902@livinglogic.de> Message-ID: <20030813171820.GC6250@panix.com> On Wed, Aug 13, 2003, Walter D?rwald wrote: > > or won't they be shown (like this: > > > About > > For Beginners > > For absolute Beginners > For advanced Beginners > Download > Docuementation > Community > ... That's what I'd like to see. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From walter at livinglogic.de Wed Aug 13 20:25:58 2003 From: walter at livinglogic.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Walter_D=F6rwald?=) Date: Wed Aug 13 13:26:34 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <1060794071.29798.42.camel@localhost> References: <007b01c361b3$49d25ff0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> <3F3A6296.1070902@livinglogic.de> <1060794071.29798.42.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <3F3A74A6.3090802@livinglogic.de> Matt Goodall wrote: > On Wed, 2003-08-13 at 17:08, Walter D?rwald wrote: > > [...] >> On the start page >>(i.e. level 0 of the navigation) level 1 and 2 of the navigation are >>unfolded. What happens when you click on a level 1 link? Will all other >>level 1 links be folded, i.e. would the navigation look like this: >> >> > About >> For Beginners >> For Developers >> For Business >> Download >> Documentation >> Community >> ... > > First, something solid to think about ... > > If possible, I think we should aim for _no_ folding at all although that > depends on just how many links are needed in the menu. What does that mean? Will the level 2 pages appear as level 1 links on a level 1 page, i.e. would the navigation bar on the "About page" simply look like this: For Beginners For Developers For Business with the look of the first level links (i.e. brown background, block border)? IMHO this is more confusing that at least keeping the level 1 page that is in the path in the navigation bar. The siblings of the level 1 page could be hidden though: > About For Beginners For Developers For Business > ... and now something decidedly wobbly, which is probably best ignored > ;) ... OK! ;) > [...] > I think if the menu gets 2 levels deep then it's too deep. Also, the > more levels there are, the shorter the link text can be - the menu needs > to be as thin as possible to leave room for the actual content. We already have three levels: The homepage is level 0, "About" is level 1 and "About">"For Beginners" is level 2. Indenting a level 3 page by 10 pixels shouldn't make the navigation too wide. >>What happens on lower levels (if we ever have them)? > > I don't even want to think about that ;-). So "Home">"Documentation">"Library Reference" )or "Home">"Developers">"PEPs") is only one page and doesn't have any subpages? Bye, Walter D?rwald From sholden at holdenweb.com Wed Aug 13 14:52:31 2003 From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden) Date: Wed Aug 13 13:54:35 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <3F3A74A6.3090802@livinglogic.de> Message-ID: <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMACEBGFAAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org > [mailto:pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org]On Behalf Of > Walter D?rwald > Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 1:26 PM > To: Matt Goodall > Cc: 'Pydotorg-Redesign@Python.Org' > Subject: Re: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images > > > Matt Goodall wrote: > > > On Wed, 2003-08-13 at 17:08, Walter D?rwald wrote: > > > > [...] > >> On the start page > >>(i.e. level 0 of the navigation) level 1 and 2 of the navigation are > >>unfolded. What happens when you click on a level 1 link? > Will all other > >>level 1 links be folded, i.e. would the navigation look like this: > >> > >> > About > >> For Beginners > >> For Developers > >> For Business > >> Download > >> Documentation > >> Community > >> ... > > > > First, something solid to think about ... > > > > If possible, I think we should aim for _no_ folding at all > although that > > depends on just how many links are needed in the menu. > > What does that mean? > It means that the navigation features of the site should remain constant rather than attempting to emulate a tree-structured navigation feature. > Will the level 2 pages appear as level 1 links on a level 1 page, i.e. > would the navigation bar on the "About page" simply look like this: > > For Beginners > For Developers > For Business > > with the look of the first level links (i.e. brown background, block > border)? > No. The links you mention should be inside a *second-level* navigation feature, appearing in a position that?s common to all second-level pages. > IMHO this is more confusing that at least keeping the level 1 page > that is in the path in the navigation bar. The siblings of the level 1 > page could be hidden though: > > > About > For Beginners > For Developers > For Business > > > ... and now something decidedly wobbly, which is probably > best ignored > > ;) ... > > OK! ;) > > > [...] > > I think if the menu gets 2 levels deep then it's too deep. Also, the > > more levels there are, the shorter the link text can be - > the menu needs > > to be as thin as possible to leave room for the actual content. > > We already have three levels: The homepage is level 0, "About" is > level 1 and "About">"For Beginners" is level 2. > > Indenting a level 3 page by 10 pixels shouldn't make the navigation > too wide. > > >>What happens on lower levels (if we ever have them)? > > > > I don't even want to think about that ;-). > > So "Home">"Documentation">"Library Reference" )or > "Home">"Developers">"PEPs") is only one page and doesn't have any > subpages? > If you really want to show all intermediate levels of navigation then the most obvious mechanism for that is to put breadcrumb-style links to each level somewhere in the page content. I don?t think it?s a good idea for navigation features to morph themselves as the user interacts with the web - too many users miss the analogy with a tree and find themselves confused as bits of the navigation bar move around - or even seem to disappear when they scroll off the bottom as a result of activating a heavily-populated section. So, for definiteness, please excuse the ASCII art, I?d like to see something more like this: +----------------------------------------------------------------------- ------+ | Site-wide, always-available, every-page links | +-----------+----------------------------------------------------------- ------+ | First | Second-level nav links | | Level +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Nav | Third-level nav links, when required | | Links +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Hey, let?s have some content! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +-----------+----------------------------------------------------------- ------+ I agree it?s not high-tech, but it?s easy to understand, the navigation bars are consistent throughout any given section of the site, and it?s easy to work with. I fear we?re in danger of ignoring the KISS principle here, which would not be good given that we want to attract people who might be coming to programming for the first time and thus not be familiar with the kinds of structures we take for granted in the programming world. regards -- Steve Holden http://www.holdenweb.com/ Python Web Programming http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/ From matt at pollenation.net Wed Aug 13 19:05:38 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Wed Aug 13 14:05:39 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <3F3A74A6.3090802@livinglogic.de> References: <007b01c361b3$49d25ff0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> <3F3A6296.1070902@livinglogic.de> <1060794071.29798.42.camel@localhost> <3F3A74A6.3090802@livinglogic.de> Message-ID: <1060797914.17647.80.camel@localhost> On Wed, 2003-08-13 at 18:25, Walter D?rwald wrote: > Matt Goodall wrote: > > > If possible, I think we should aim for _no_ folding at all although that > > depends on just how many links are needed in the menu. > > What does that mean? That, if possible, the whole menu for the whole site should always be visible, i.e. no magically appearing and disappearing bits. It's a goal that I think would help the site's navigation, nothing more that that. > > I think if the menu gets 2 levels deep then it's too deep. Also, the > > more levels there are, the shorter the link text can be - the menu needs > > to be as thin as possible to leave room for the actual content. > > We already have three levels: The homepage is level 0, "About" is > level 1 and "About">"For Beginners" is level 2. My mistake, I meant _more than_ 2 levels deep. > >>What happens on lower levels (if we ever have them)? > > > > I don't even want to think about that ;-). > > So "Home">"Documentation">"Library Reference" )or > "Home">"Developers">"PEPs") is only one page and doesn't have any > subpages? I hope I haven't misunderstood what you mean but ... Sure they can have subpages but is there any need to clutter the navigation menu up with them? I would have thought it better to have a "proper" table of contents for those particular pages which is what both the Library Reference and PEPs pages have today. There is also the breadcrumb trail to use for deeper navigation and to give the reader that sense of where they are. For instance, if you're deep in the Library Reference documentation then the menu would be: About For beginners ... Download ... > Documentation Tutorials > Library Reference ... ... and the breadcrumb trail would be: Home > Documentation > Library Reference > Built-in Objects > Built-in Exceptions Hope that explains things a bit better. It always seems so obvious when I'm the one doing the typing ;-). - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenation.net e: matt@pollenation.net From matt at pollenation.net Wed Aug 13 19:11:42 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Wed Aug 13 14:11:52 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Another site ... Message-ID: <1060798300.29798.87.camel@localhost> I've always found the Gentoo site, http://www.gentoo.org/, fairly pleasant to use and I've never had any problems finding info. Probably a few too many graphics for my liking though. It even looks like it's been designed - not bad for a bunch of geeks ;-). - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenation.net e: matt@pollenation.net From walter at livinglogic.de Wed Aug 13 22:03:08 2003 From: walter at livinglogic.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Walter_D=F6rwald?=) Date: Wed Aug 13 15:03:43 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Another site ... In-Reply-To: <1060798300.29798.87.camel@localhost> References: <1060798300.29798.87.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <3F3A8B6C.2050505@livinglogic.de> Matt Goodall wrote: > I've always found the Gentoo site, http://www.gentoo.org/, fairly > pleasant to use and I've never had any problems finding info. Probably a > few too many graphics for my liking though. It even looks like it's been > designed - not bad for a bunch of geeks ;-). It *does* have links that go to the same page. E.g. go to http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/docs.xml and click on the "User Docs" link in the navigation bar. Click on Gentoo Linux/x86 and suddenly the navigation is gone. Bye, Walter D?rwald From guido at python.org Wed Aug 13 17:04:22 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Wed Aug 13 19:05:03 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 13 Aug 2003 10:05:27 EDT." <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMAEEAIFAAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> References: <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMAEEAIFAAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> Message-ID: <200308132304.h7DN4Mk02303@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > Yes, I recently suggested that Guido should decree what the process was > going to be, he's far too busy with security matters for this (though it > 's nice to see he's reading the list). Guido? The PSF board just formed a committee chaired by Thomas Wouters for this purpose. There's discussion in the board list about a technicality WRT the proper creation of the committee, but IMO this committee should set the process. > http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded_logo3.html > > Thanks in advance for any feedback. I find the font used in that logo hideous. But maybe Just can convince me that it's state of the art. :-) I find the page design itself too bland, it doesn't have enough personality. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Thu Aug 14 11:51:48 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Thu Aug 14 05:52:33 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <200308132304.h7DN4Mk02303@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> Message-ID: <000001c36249$b4ef9280$0a00a8c0@JASPER> > > Yes, I recently suggested that Guido should decree what the process > > was going to be, he's far too busy with security matters for this > > (though it's nice to see he's reading the list). Guido? >The PSF board just formed a committee chaired by Thomas Wouters for >this purpose. There's discussion in the board list about a >technicality WRT the proper creation of the committee, but IMO this >committee should set the process. What is the remit for this commitee (if you don't mind me asking). > > http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded_logo3.html > > > >Thanks in advance for any feedback. > >I find the font used in that logo hideous. But maybe Just can >convince me that it's state of the art. :-) I think in the process of designing a new look, we need to have a direction/brief and feedback plays a big part in approaching the desired solution. I know the logo doesn't seem important at all at this point in the proceedings but it does dictate a lot of the look and feel of the site (or particularly what the look and feel shouldn't be) In this interest, could you say why you think the font was hideous and do you like any of the others in the sample at http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python-logo-test.gif If not can you say why? Or point to a type of font or logo that you like? Theres another rendition at http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded_logo3.html Which you may not like but in a different way e.g. for hideous, read loathsome ;-) >I find the page design itself too bland, it doesn't have enough >personality. I can understand that as I was working towards an 'understated' brief. Do you mean you wish it to be more i) upfront and commercial e.g. http://www.discreet.com/index-nf.html http://www.adobe.com/main.html http://www.macromedia.com/ ii) colourful/playful e.g. http://www.line6.com/ http://mindstorms.lego.com/eng/default.asp http://www.shockwave.com/ iii) Profession but rich e.g. http://www.peoplesoft.com http://www.ibm.com/us/ http://www.sap.com/ http://www.atg.com iv) Minimalist e.g. http://www.whatdoiknow.org/ http://www.reservocation.com/ http://www.textism.com/ V) Minimalish(?) e.g. http://www.37signals.com/dnf/ http://www.clagnut.com/ http://www.stopdesign.com/ Or are there any other sites that you could point at that you want python to look like. We're more than happy to put a lot of effort in to the visual and navigational redesign but would like to feel we're heading in a direction that people are happy with and is likely to be used. We would like to feel that there is a good prospect of the effort being helpful but if not then it would be better spent on other projects. Apart from that, it's good to see lots of people taking part. Tim From walter at livinglogic.de Thu Aug 14 13:43:47 2003 From: walter at livinglogic.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Walter_D=F6rwald?=) Date: Thu Aug 14 06:44:23 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <1060797914.17647.80.camel@localhost> References: <007b01c361b3$49d25ff0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> <3F3A6296.1070902@livinglogic.de> <1060794071.29798.42.camel@localhost> <3F3A74A6.3090802@livinglogic.de> <1060797914.17647.80.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <3F3B67E3.10601@livinglogic.de> Matt Goodall wrote: > [...] >>>>What happens on lower levels (if we ever have them)? >>> >>>I don't even want to think about that ;-). >> >>So "Home">"Documentation">"Library Reference" )or >>"Home">"Developers">"PEPs") is only one page and doesn't have any >>subpages? > > I hope I haven't misunderstood what you mean but ... > > Sure they can have subpages but is there any need to clutter the > navigation menu up with them? I would have thought it better to have a > "proper" table of contents for those particular pages which is what both > the Library Reference and PEPs pages have today. > > There is also the breadcrumb trail to use for deeper navigation and to > give the reader that sense of where they are. For instance, if you're > deep in the Library Reference documentation then the menu would be: > > About > For beginners > ... > Download > ... > >>Documentation > > Tutorials > > Library Reference > ... > ... > > and the breadcrumb trail would be: > > Home > Documentation > Library Reference > Built-in Objects > Built-in > Exceptions > > Hope that explains things a bit better. It always seems so obvious when > I'm the one doing the typing ;-). OK, now I understand. The navigation always shows all pages upto level 2, if we are on a level 3+x page this page won't be visible in the navigation, but only in the breadcrumbs. I guess as long as the pages in the path to this page are marked in the navigation this should be OK. Bye, Walter D?rwald From aahz at pythoncraft.com Thu Aug 14 11:51:53 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Thu Aug 14 10:51:57 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] pydotorg Message-ID: <20030814145153.GA5274@panix.com> A couple of people have requested subscriptions to pydotorg and received access. Other people active on this list are also welcome to subscribe, but I'd like to make clear that pydotorg is not a discussion list, for the most part: it's the line of communication for people actively maintaining the web site. Unless you have something to add to the progress of current work, please consider your pydotorg subscription a view-only courtesy so you can see what's going on. (Side note: we'll probably also add access to the webmaster alias for the purpose of viewing webmaster traffic -- same thing applies.) -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From guido at python.org Thu Aug 14 09:21:34 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Thu Aug 14 11:22:24 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 14 Aug 2003 10:51:48 BST." <000001c36249$b4ef9280$0a00a8c0@JASPER> References: <000001c36249$b4ef9280$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <200308141521.h7EFLYO03700@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > >The PSF board just formed a committee chaired by Thomas Wouters for > >this purpose. There's discussion in the board list about a > >technicality WRT the proper creation of the committee, but IMO this > >committee should set the process. > > What is the remit for this commitee (if you don't mind me asking). Quoting from the (not yet published) meetings of the boar meeting: | It was | | RESOLVED, That a Project Management Committee, designated Python Website | Committee, be formed to be responsible for the content and management of | the Python Website (www.python.org), that its initial members be Thomas | Wouters, Kevin Altis, Just van Rossum, Aahz and Fred L. Drake Jr., that | it follows rules analog to those set for in the PSF bylaws for the PSF | board with respect to voting and meetings, and that Thomas Wouters will | be its initial chairman. > > > http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded_logo3.html > > > > > >Thanks in advance for any feedback. > > > >I find the font used in that logo hideous. But maybe Just can > >convince me that it's state of the art. :-) BTW Just is also on the committee, to make sure the design stands up to professional design standards. > I think in the process of designing a new look, we need to have a > direction/brief and feedback plays a big part in approaching the desired > solution. > > I know the logo doesn't seem important at all at this point in the > proceedings but it does dictate a lot of the look and feel of the site > (or particularly what the look and feel shouldn't be) > > In this interest, could you say why you think the font was hideous and > do you like any of the others in the sample at > > http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python-logo-test.gif I don't like any of them. > If not can you say why? No, my design sensibilities are real but often refuse verbalization (same with my language design sensibilities actually). > Or point to a type of font or logo that you like? I'll leave that to Just. > Theres another rendition at > > http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded_logo3.html > > Which you may not like but in a different way e.g. for hideous, read > loathsome ;-) Doesn't seem any different than the first one I didn't like. :-( > >I find the page design itself too bland, it doesn't have enough > >personality. > > I can understand that as I was working towards an 'understated' brief. > Do you mean you wish it to be more > > i) upfront and commercial e.g. > http://www.discreet.com/index-nf.html OK but hate the Flash. > http://www.adobe.com/main.html OK. > http://www.macromedia.com/ OK in style except the big flash takes up too much space. > ii) colourful/playful e.g. > http://www.line6.com/ Yuck. I hate black backgrounds (actually any non-whit background) and text inside images (hard to select). > http://mindstorms.lego.com/eng/default.asp The colors are fine, but again too much space devoted to animation, and I don't like the font they use for small headings (I think we should stick to default or at least universally aailable fonts). > http://www.shockwave.com/ Looks OK. But our structure is probably not as regular. > iii) Profession but rich e.g. > http://www.peoplesoft.com I like it. I've always wanted the Python home page to use multiple narrow columns to get more information in. > http://www.ibm.com/us/ OK, but reminds me that this page (and many of the others above) seems designed to be viewed at a particular width. I don't like that very much (it's not how HTML was intended). > http://www.sap.com/ A little too bold. > http://www.atg.com Nice. > iv) Minimalist e.g. > http://www.whatdoiknow.org/ Amateurish (in the bad sense of the word). Hate the script font. > http://www.reservocation.com/ Cool, but won't work for the amount of info we want to put on the front page. > http://www.textism.com/ Nah. > V) Minimalish(?) e.g. > http://www.37signals.com/dnf/ Works for me, maybe a little too fragmented. > http://www.clagnut.com/ Hm. There's something broken about the very uneven column lengths. Also don't like the colors. > http://www.stopdesign.com/ So-so. I'm not so keen on wide navigation columns on the right, I realize. > Or are there any other sites that you could point at that you want > python to look like. www.python.org, but better :-) > We're more than happy to put a lot of effort in to the visual and > navigational redesign but would like to feel we're heading in a > direction that people are happy with and is likely to be used. We would > like to feel that there is a good prospect of the effort being helpful > but if not then it would be better spent on other projects. I'd like to separate the site's *structure* and its *visual design*. For visual design, I think one person will have to come up with a look. The structure ought to be worked out collaboratively (after reading Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me *Think*"). > Apart from that, it's good to see lots of people taking part. Definitely. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From oktaysafak at ixir.com Thu Aug 14 19:53:48 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Thu Aug 14 11:55:04 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts Message-ID: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> Hi everybody, I tried to capture some ideas of mine for a new logo. You can see them at: http://www.geocities.com/oktay_safak/python.jpg I had many constraints in mind but to summarize: The new logo needs to convey Python's character and traits: a modern, elegant, simple yet beautiful, lean but powerful programming language.(As Guido pointed out, a design needs character and an appropriate one) The designs are meant to be friendly and eye-catching for newcomers to the language, as well as making a strong professional impression on enterprise software business manager - types (decision makers). Since the logo will have a big influence in dictating other elements of design on the road to designing a new site and finding a matching visual identity for Python, it has to be simple and flexible and it should offer variety. Blah, blah, blah... As you'll see, they are mostly variations on a theme. Lack of time... Different avenues should be explored too. The spiral is a logarithmic spiral but it's there just as an idea and I didn't have the time to work on it or on something else that's better. I hope I'll have some free time in the weekend, then I'll give it another go. It's supposed to represent the above mentioned qualities of Python as well as representing Python's steady growth and accelerating march to excellence :-P if you take it, that's ;-P (reality: It's there because it's a neat symbol) Suggestions and criticisms welcome. Regards, Oktay From sdeibel at wingide.com Thu Aug 14 13:24:20 2003 From: sdeibel at wingide.com (Stephan Deibel) Date: Thu Aug 14 12:18:17 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <E19nKXr-0000Of-00@mail.python.org> References: <E19nKXr-0000Of-00@mail.python.org> Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.50.0308141218390.3094-100000@hedgehog> > > http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded_logo3.html In case it's worth anything, I rather liked the idea of using an infinity in the logo. More than the spiral, tho that's not bad either. Also like the above page in general, tho there are some problems in spacing in the left margin on Mozilla 1.4. > http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python-logo-test.gif While I'm liking everything, I may as well mention I really like the infinity with light coming from within too, although I doubt that will work in small size, and it might look interesting to have the yellow light illuminate the Python text too. - Stephan From amk at asti-usa.com Thu Aug 14 13:57:01 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Thu Aug 14 12:57:35 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> References: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> Message-ID: <20030814165701.GA16162@vail.asti-usa.com> On Thu, Aug 14, 2003 at 06:53:48PM -0700, Oktay Safak wrote: > The spiral is a logarithmic spiral but it's there just as an idea ... I quite like the concept. The grey colour and outlined font also looks quite dignified; sans-serif seems preferable. While I'm at it: someone suggested "Infinite possibilities" as a slogan, and the more I think about, the better it seems. It's short, only two words long, and it captures the wide range of applications Python spans, from teaching kids to program, to writing quick one-off scripts, to building elaborate business-critical systems. It lends itself to logo ideas (infinity symbols, open spirals, infinite lines). Unfortunately there's already a company with the same name (www.ip-wizard.com). --amk From skip at pobox.com Thu Aug 14 13:03:36 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Thu Aug 14 13:03:48 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.50.0308141218390.3094-100000@hedgehog> References: <E19nKXr-0000Of-00@mail.python.org> <Pine.LNX.4.50.0308141218390.3094-100000@hedgehog> Message-ID: <16187.49384.868789.196886@montanaro.dyndns.org> >> > http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded_logo3.html Stephan> In case it's worth anything, I rather liked the idea of using Stephan> an infinity in the logo. More than the spiral, tho that's not Stephan> bad either. More on my infinity idea. Take a fat arrow. Now bend it into a figure-8 shape so that the arrow begins and ends at the intersection. (See attached bad art.) Skip -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: infinite-arrow.png Type: image/png Size: 1466 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pydotorg-redesign/attachments/20030814/8ccfd7d1/infinite-arrow.png From fdrake at acm.org Thu Aug 14 14:08:31 2003 From: fdrake at acm.org (Fred L. Drake, Jr.) Date: Thu Aug 14 13:09:20 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <16187.49384.868789.196886@montanaro.dyndns.org> References: <E19nKXr-0000Of-00@mail.python.org> <Pine.LNX.4.50.0308141218390.3094-100000@hedgehog> <16187.49384.868789.196886@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <16187.49679.387622.320331@grendel.zope.com> Skip Montanaro writes: > More on my infinity idea. Take a fat arrow. Now bend it into a figure-8 > shape so that the arrow begins and ends at the intersection. Cool idea. > (See attached bad art.) Hey, I didn't know you hired my 4-year-old to do artwork for you! ;-) -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org> PythonLabs at Zope Corporation From fdrake at acm.org Thu Aug 14 14:10:32 2003 From: fdrake at acm.org (Fred L. Drake, Jr.) Date: Thu Aug 14 13:11:08 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <20030814165701.GA16162@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> <20030814165701.GA16162@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <16187.49800.356480.922914@grendel.zope.com> A.M. Kuchling writes: > Unfortunately there's already a company with the same name > (www.ip-wizard.com). If that's a real problem (and it might be), we might be able to use "expanding possibilities" and the infinity sign. -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org> PythonLabs at Zope Corporation From todd at slack.net Thu Aug 14 14:12:27 2003 From: todd at slack.net (Todd Grimason) Date: Thu Aug 14 13:12:28 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b>; from oktaysafak@ixir.com on Thu, Aug 14, 2003 at 06:53:48PM -0700 References: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> Message-ID: <20030814131227.A15702@crank.slack.net> * Oktay Safak <oktaysafak@ixir.com> [2003-08-14 11:55]: > The spiral is a logarithmic spiral but it's there just as an idea and I I have to say the first thing that came to my mind is Debian: http://www.debian.org/ Perhaps newcomers to programming, Windows-only users, and CTO types won't confuse them, but chances are anyone with much familiarity with the Linux world will surely call it. (Or worse perhaps, think it's "Debian Python" or some such beast). Umm, sorry I don't have anything better to offer at the moment, just wanted to throw that out there... -- ___________________________ toddgrimason*todd@slack.net From python at dylanreinhardt.com Thu Aug 14 18:22:26 2003 From: python at dylanreinhardt.com (Dylan Reinhardt) Date: Thu Aug 14 13:22:27 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <20030814165701.GA16162@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> <20030814165701.GA16162@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <1060881706.8662.50.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> On Thu, 2003-08-14 at 09:57, A.M. Kuchling wrote: > While I'm at it: someone suggested "Infinite possibilities" as a > slogan, and the more I think about, the better it seems. This is drifting well into the domain of the marketing-python group, which is starting to build some momentum on answering some big-picture strategy questions. It's a bit awkward to have web redesign and marketing strategy span separate lists, but that's the division of labor we gave ourselves. :-) The list is here: http://pythonology.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-python FWIW, Dylan From guido at python.org Thu Aug 14 12:24:03 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Thu Aug 14 14:24:40 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 14 Aug 2003 13:12:27 EDT." <20030814131227.A15702@crank.slack.net> References: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> <20030814131227.A15702@crank.slack.net> Message-ID: <200308141824.h7EIO3Y03990@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > I have to say the first thing that came to my mind is Debian: Agreed, that kills the spiral idea for me. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From oktaysafak at ixir.com Fri Aug 15 00:32:20 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Thu Aug 14 16:33:32 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts References: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> <20030814131227.A15702@crank.slack.net> Message-ID: <00c801c362a3$4457c560$0c00a8c0@net04> Todd Grimason <todd@slack.net> wrote: > * Oktay Safak <oktaysafak@ixir.com> [2003-08-14 11:55]: > > > The spiral is a logarithmic spiral but it's there just as an idea and I > > I have to say the first thing that came to my mind is Debian: > http://www.debian.org/ Oh, of course, I missed it! Thanks for the feedback. Regards, Oktay From oktaysafak at ixir.com Fri Aug 15 00:41:19 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Thu Aug 14 16:41:41 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts References: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> <20030814131227.A15702@crank.slack.net> <200308141824.h7EIO3Y03990@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> Message-ID: <00cf01c362a4$6a54b240$0c00a8c0@net04> Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> wrote: > > I have to say the first thing that came to my mind is Debian: > > Agreed, that kills the spiral idea for me. Hey, I got my first BDFL pronouncement, thanks :-) ...and what about the infinity symbol being the logo of MS Visual Studio? Does it kill that idea too? Best Regards, Oktay From oktaysafak at ixir.com Fri Aug 15 00:51:51 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Thu Aug 14 16:52:13 2003 Subject: Ynt: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts References: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> <20030814165701.GA16162@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <00da01c362a5$e3253c20$0c00a8c0@net04> A.M. Kuchling <amk@asti-usa.com> wrote: > On Thu, Aug 14, 2003 at 06:53:48PM -0700, Oktay Safak wrote: > > The spiral is a logarithmic spiral but it's there just as an idea ... > > I quite like the concept. The grey colour and outlined font also > looks quite dignified; sans-serif seems preferable. Thanks. > While I'm at it: someone suggested "Infinite possibilities" as a > slogan, and the more I think about, the better it seems. It's short, > only two words long, and it captures the wide range of applications > Python spans, from teaching kids to program, to writing quick one-off > scripts, to building elaborate business-critical systems. It lends > itself to logo ideas (infinity symbols, open spirals, infinite lines). > Unfortunately there's already a company with the same name > (www.ip-wizard.com). What about "Endless possibilities"? It doesn't sound as good as your suggestion though. Regards, Oktay From guido at python.org Thu Aug 14 16:01:52 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Thu Aug 14 18:02:36 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 14 Aug 2003 23:41:19 +0300." <00cf01c362a4$6a54b240$0c00a8c0@net04> References: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> <20030814131227.A15702@crank.slack.net> <200308141824.h7EIO3Y03990@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> <00cf01c362a4$6a54b240$0c00a8c0@net04> Message-ID: <200308142201.h7EM1q704449@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > ...and what about the infinity symbol being the logo of MS Visual Studio? > Does it kill that idea too? I don't like that much either; infinity symbols have been overused (and not just by MS). BTW, I'd rather not have to review any more logo submissions for a while. I suggest that the webdesign committee set up a procedure for choosing a logo that only gives me the three final choices of some committee. :-) --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Fri Aug 15 01:01:10 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Thu Aug 14 19:03:55 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Marketing or Design? Design or Structure? ... Logos?! In-Reply-To: <1060881706.8662.50.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> Message-ID: <000001c362b7$fcdec160$0a00a8c0@JASPER> >This is drifting well into the domain of the marketing-python group, >which is starting to build some momentum on answering some big-picture >strategy questions. > >It's a bit awkward to have web redesign and marketing strategy span >separate lists, but that's the division of labor we gave ourselves. :-) As much as there is a lot of crossover, I think the two have differing remits just as a marketing department and a design work together but address very different issues. In my experience, marketing is about the message, design about the delivery. Also I think the connection between design and site structure is one that is often overlooked. Although it is true that the structure of the information will dictate a lot of the architecture for the site, it is also true that the way in which the site is designed will apply various constraints on how the data *can* be organised/delivered. A simple example is the current site where the navigational groupings allowing global navigation (top), hierarchial list of navigational elements (left menu) and ad-hoc links and doc-contents. If the site were more like the peoplesoft site, there are five or six navigational groupings on the home page alone. Each of these has a different intensity to the user and these can come to mean things such as the bottom left box is announcements and the bottom right box tutorials/forum messages or whatever. It also gives room to push one message very hard (the central image, title and text) this is typically used to show that the site has undergone a major change or that a major event is happening, adding the feeling of how 'dynamic' the site is. Furthermore, the logo is part of this as it dictates a certain amount of the look and feel of the site and hence what message it will portray. This is only true if you actually think a look and feel can influence how people perceive something (although my first impressions tend to last, sometimes unconciously). In this vein it would be very, very beneficial to gain an idea of who are the decision makers and what their opinions/likes/hates are. The feedback from Guido about the list of sites is very useful in a situation where people are contributing to the design but can only say whether they like or dislike something but not why. To this end I propose setting up a few 'polls' to gather opinions on certain issues. I only intend to set up a couple every week and they should only take 2 or 3 minutes to fill in (I'll make them a form with select boxes for scores and an email submission). If people feel this is a dreadful idea then speak up otherwise I'll set the first one up tomorrow. In the meantime heres a couple of logo's (can't resist now) :- http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python1.gif http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python5.gif http://pollenation.net/assets/public/pythonesque.gif Tim From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Fri Aug 15 01:09:57 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Thu Aug 14 19:12:20 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <200308142201.h7EM1q704449@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> Message-ID: <000101c362b9$34576380$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Guido: >BTW, I'd rather not have to review any more logo submissions for a >while. I suggest that the webdesign committee set up a procedure for >choosing a logo that only gives me the three final choices of some >committee. :-) Without contributing it's difficult to know what you might like. As a half way house could you tell us maybe 3 logos that you do like so we can have a guage of both ends of the scale? As I was getting at in my last e-mail, it's difficult to know what direction to head in creating a design without a brief, but even more difficult without any feedback from the decision makers, but if that's the way it has to be then fair enough. Does this apply to web site designs/information architecture also? Finally ;-) ... who else are decision makers as far as the design goes (Just is, I presume) Is there anyone else that we might solicit opinion from / explain possibilities to? Tim Parkin From guido at python.org Thu Aug 14 17:21:34 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Thu Aug 14 19:22:26 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 15 Aug 2003 00:09:57 BST." <000101c362b9$34576380$0a00a8c0@JASPER> References: <000101c362b9$34576380$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <200308142321.h7ENLYC04548@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > Without contributing it's difficult to know what you might like. As a > half way house could you tell us maybe 3 logos that you do like so we > can have a guage of both ends of the scale? No. My brother knows what I will like, he's on the committee headed by Thomas. I need to get out of the logo reviewing business NOW. > As I was getting at in my last e-mail, it's difficult to know what > direction to head in creating a design without a brief, but even more > difficult without any feedback from the decision makers, but if that's > the way it has to be then fair enough. Talk to the committee. They may have their own idea on how to get to a design. > Does this apply to web site > designs/information architecture also? Less so; that's an area where you all have done very useful work. > Finally ;-) ... who else are > decision makers as far as the design goes (Just is, I presume) Is there > anyone else that we might solicit opinion from / explain possibilities > to? I posted the names on the committee already. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From python at dylanreinhardt.com Fri Aug 15 01:59:42 2003 From: python at dylanreinhardt.com (Dylan Reinhardt) Date: Thu Aug 14 20:59:43 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: Marketing or Design? Design or Structure? ... Logos?! In-Reply-To: <000001c362b7$fcdec160$0a00a8c0@JASPER> References: <000001c362b7$fcdec160$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <1060909146.8668.198.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> On Thu, 2003-08-14 at 16:01, Tim Parkin wrote: > In my experience, marketing is about the message, design about the > delivery. True enough. You make a number of fine points about the array of issues that this group can (and should) take on. I made a comment because this list was starting to task itself with developing a *slogan* for Python. That's deep into message territory. The slogan discussion was the only thing I meant to flag and hadn't intended to imply anything beyond that. Just clarifying... :-) Dylan From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Fri Aug 15 10:25:04 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Fri Aug 15 04:29:33 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <16187.49800.356480.922914@grendel.zope.com> Message-ID: <000001c36306$e2ce9990$0a00a8c0@JASPER> >A.M. Kuchling writes: > > Unfortunately there's already a company with the same name > > (www.ip-wizard.com). > >If that's a real problem (and it might be), we might be able to use >"expanding possibilities" and the infinity sign. > > -Fred In that vein http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python8.gif Tim From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Fri Aug 15 10:28:47 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Fri Aug 15 04:32:59 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <16187.49800.356480.922914@grendel.zope.com> Message-ID: <000101c36307$64027770$0a00a8c0@JASPER> >A.M. Kuchling writes: > > Unfortunately there's already a company with the same name > > (www.ip-wizard.com). > >If that's a real problem (and it might be), we might be able to use >"expanding possibilities" and the infinity sign. > > -Fred In that vein http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python8.gif Tim From amk at asti-usa.com Fri Aug 15 16:16:25 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Fri Aug 15 15:16:59 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [Pydotorg] Re: python.org Commercial Exits In-Reply-To: <3F3CE423.1040503@lemburg.com> References: <3F34095D.6030107@lemburg.com> <16180.7186.818089.252768@montanaro.dyndns.org> <3F3CE423.1040503@lemburg.com> Message-ID: <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> On Fri, Aug 15, 2003 at 03:46:11PM +0200, M.-A. Lemburg wrote: > Just wanted to ping in on this again, because I don't see any > changes on python.org web-site. <sigh> The sidebar discussion has yet again exploded off into a zillion subthreads. I want to actually do something about this. Proposal: * Create /community/companies.html. Criterion for listing: companies that either use Python primarily, or have made strong commitments to using it and supporting the community. * Change the top-level sidebar to http://www.amk.ca/python.org.html . Suggestions that haven't been acted on: * Move down the 'Mirror sites' link (this is a good idea) That's it. Last call for suggestions, or vetos from the appropriate people, please. --amk (www.amk.ca) A bad workman always blames his fools. -- The Doctor, in "Time and the Rani" From amk at asti-usa.com Fri Aug 15 16:28:57 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Fri Aug 15 15:29:34 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Dropping language comparisons Message-ID: <20030815192857.GB19965@vail.asti-usa.com> The material at doc/Comparisons.html is all pretty elderly. I don't think we can devote the effort to keep it up to date, and few of us can claim to be Tcl/Perl/Lisp/whatever experts anyway. If marketing-python wants to someday write something, fine, but for now IMHO this page should simply be dropped. Objections? --amk From skip at pobox.com Fri Aug 15 15:37:09 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Fri Aug 15 15:37:36 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [Pydotorg] Re: python.org Commercial Exits In-Reply-To: <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <3F34095D.6030107@lemburg.com> <16180.7186.818089.252768@montanaro.dyndns.org> <3F3CE423.1040503@lemburg.com> <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <16189.13925.551699.593745@montanaro.dyndns.org> amk> Proposal: amk> * Create /community/companies.html. Criterion for listing: amk> companies that either use Python primarily, or have made strong amk> commitments to using it and supporting the community. amk> * Change the top-level sidebar to http://www.amk.ca/python.org.html . amk> Suggestions that haven't been acted on: amk> * Move down the 'Mirror sites' link (this is a good idea) Go for it. Skip From skip at pobox.com Fri Aug 15 15:39:37 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Fri Aug 15 15:39:53 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Dropping language comparisons In-Reply-To: <20030815192857.GB19965@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <20030815192857.GB19965@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <16189.14073.59500.515788@montanaro.dyndns.org> amk> If marketing-python wants to someday write something, fine, but for amk> now IMHO this page should simply be dropped. Objections? No particular objections except to note that the issue of language comparisons does come up from time-to-time. (It's a relevant question to ask if you're coming to Python from some other language.) This sounds like Wiki material to me. Perhaps we should solicit a volunteer from c.l.py to create and manage a section of the Wiki devoted to language comparisons. Skip From bac at OCF.Berkeley.EDU Fri Aug 15 14:10:04 2003 From: bac at OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Brett C.) Date: Fri Aug 15 16:10:18 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [Pydotorg] Re: python.org Commercial Exits In-Reply-To: <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <3F34095D.6030107@lemburg.com> <16180.7186.818089.252768@montanaro.dyndns.org> <3F3CE423.1040503@lemburg.com> <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <3F3D3E1C.2030205@ocf.berkeley.edu> A.M. Kuchling wrote: > Proposal: > > * Create /community/companies.html. Criterion for listing: > companies that either use Python primarily, or have made strong commitments > to using it and supporting the community. > > * Change the top-level sidebar to http://www.amk.ca/python.org.html . > Suggestions that haven't been acted on: > * Move down the 'Mirror sites' link (this is a good idea) > All works for me. -Brett From mal at lemburg.com Fri Aug 15 22:28:35 2003 From: mal at lemburg.com (M.-A. Lemburg) Date: Fri Aug 15 16:43:58 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [Pydotorg] Re: python.org Commercial Exits In-Reply-To: <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <3F34095D.6030107@lemburg.com> <16180.7186.818089.252768@montanaro.dyndns.org> <3F3CE423.1040503@lemburg.com> <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <3F3D3463.8050100@lemburg.com> A.M. Kuchling wrote: > On Fri, Aug 15, 2003 at 03:46:11PM +0200, M.-A. Lemburg wrote: > >>Just wanted to ping in on this again, because I don't see any >>changes on python.org web-site. > > <sigh> The sidebar discussion has yet again exploded off into a > zillion subthreads. I want to actually do something about this. Ah, so that's why there was no reaction :-) > Proposal: > > * Create /community/companies.html. Criterion for listing: > companies that either use Python primarily, or have made strong commitments > to using it and supporting the community. > > * Change the top-level sidebar to http://www.amk.ca/python.org.html . > Suggestions that haven't been acted on: > * Move down the 'Mirror sites' link (this is a good idea) > > That's it. Last call for suggestions, or vetos from the appropriate > people, please. Fair enough (the "Companies" link is missing from your sidebar, though). I would also move the "site map" link next to the "search" link. BTW, the "community" link on the top stil points to the PSA; that should probably be a new index page listing all the entries you have in the side-bar. Please don't forget to add the PSF donation button in a prominent place, e.g. on the top right corner. Aahz has the code for the button. -- Marc-Andre Lemburg eGenix.com Professional Python Software directly from the Source (#1, Aug 15 2003) >>> Python/Zope Products & Consulting ... http://www.egenix.com/ >>> mxODBC, mxDateTime, mxTextTools ... http://python.egenix.com/ ________________________________________________________________________ 2003-08-12: Released eGenix mx Extensions for Python 2.3 ::: Try mxODBC.Zope.DA for Windows,Linux,Solaris,FreeBSD for free ! :::: From bac at OCF.Berkeley.EDU Fri Aug 15 14:09:50 2003 From: bac at OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Brett C.) Date: Fri Aug 15 16:44:01 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [Pydotorg] Re: python.org Commercial Exits In-Reply-To: <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <3F34095D.6030107@lemburg.com> <16180.7186.818089.252768@montanaro.dyndns.org> <3F3CE423.1040503@lemburg.com> <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <3F3D3E0E.2070401@ocf.berkeley.edu> A.M. Kuchling wrote: > Proposal: > > * Create /community/companies.html. Criterion for listing: > companies that either use Python primarily, or have made strong commitments > to using it and supporting the community. > > * Change the top-level sidebar to http://www.amk.ca/python.org.html . > Suggestions that haven't been acted on: > * Move down the 'Mirror sites' link (this is a good idea) > All works for me. -Brett From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Sat Aug 16 00:00:39 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Fri Aug 15 18:03:15 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <16187.49800.356480.922914@grendel.zope.com> Message-ID: <001201c36378$b04827d0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Fred L. Drake write: >A.M. Kuchling writes: > > Unfortunately there's already a company with the same name > > (www.ip-wizard.com). > >If that's a real problem (and it might be), we might be able to use >"expanding possibilities" and the infinity sign. I've mocked a page up with the expanding possibilities strapline... http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python.html Still some work to do to get it how I really want it but I think it's a start. Tim Parkin From fdrake at acm.org Fri Aug 15 19:49:27 2003 From: fdrake at acm.org (Fred L. Drake, Jr.) Date: Fri Aug 15 18:50:05 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <000001c36306$e2ce9990$0a00a8c0@JASPER> References: <16187.49800.356480.922914@grendel.zope.com> <000001c36306$e2ce9990$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <16189.25463.379945.666268@grendel.zope.com> Tim Parkin writes: > In that vein > > http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python8.gif Hey, I like that one! -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org> PythonLabs at Zope Corporation From jlgijsbers at planet.nl Fri Aug 15 17:30:22 2003 From: jlgijsbers at planet.nl (Johannes Gijsbers) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:11 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Wiki integration Message-ID: <20030815212526.GA7128@luetin> The consensus on this list seemed to be that integrating the wiki with the rest of the site was a desirable thing. I've just taken a first shot at implementing it, by partially using ht2html. Basically, there's a index.ht file in the same directory is and moin_config.py gets its page footer and header from the processed index.html. The moin_config.py I used is attached. I also created a new css file for the wiki, based on ui.css from MoinMoin, which imports ht2html.css for consistency with the rest of the site. When I get CVS access, would anyone object when I implement this on python.org? Johannes -------------- next part -------------- """ MoinMoin - Configuration Copyright (c) 2000-2002 by J?rgen Hermann <jh@web.de> All rights reserved, see COPYING for details. Note that there are more config options than you'll find in the version of this file that is installed by default; see the module MoinMoin.config for a full list of names and their default values. Also, the URL http://purl.net/wiki/moin/HelpOnConfiguration has a list of config options. $Id: moin_config.py,v 1.8 2002/11/25 20:23:09 jhermann Exp $ """ __version__ = "$Revision: 1.8 $"[11:-2] # If you run several wikis on one host (commonly called a wiki farm), # uncommenting the following allows you to load global settings for # all your wikis. You will then have to create "farm_config.py" in # the MoinMoin package directory. # # from MoinMoin.farm_config import * # basic options (you normally need to change these) sitename = 'Python Language Website' interwikiname = None data_dir = './data/' url_prefix = '/wiki' logo_url = url_prefix + '/img/moinmoin.gif' # encoding and WikiName char sets # (change only for outside America or Western Europe) charset = 'iso-8859-1' upperletters = "A-Z??????????????????????????????" lowerletters = "0-9a-z?????????????????????????????????" # options people are likely to change due to personal taste show_hosts = 1 # show hostnames? nonexist_qm = 1 # show '?' for nonexistent? backtick_meta = 1 # allow `inline typewriter`? allow_extended_names = 1 # allow ["..."] markup? edit_rows = 20 # editor size max_macro_size = 50 # max size of RecentChanges in KB (0=unlimited) bang_meta = 0 # use ! to escape WikiNames? show_section_numbers = 1 # enumerate headlines? # charting needs "gdchart" installed! # you can remove the test and gain a little speed (i.e. keep only # the chart_options assignment, or remove this code section altogether) try: import gdchart chart_options = {'width': 720, 'height': 400} except ImportError: pass # values that depend on above configuration settings logo_string = '' css_url = url_prefix + '/css/wiki.css' # stylesheet link, or '' html_head = """ <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html;charset=%s"> """ % (charset,) # security critical actions (deactivated by default) if 0: allowed_actions = ['DeletePage', 'AttachFile'] navi_bar = [] ht2html_file = file('index.html') ht_text = ht2html_file.read() ht2html_file.close() def get_text_delimited_by(text, start, end): return text[text.index(start):text.index(end)] title1 = get_text_delimited_by(ht_text, '', '') title1 += '<td valign="top" width="90%" class="body"><br/>' title2 = '' page_footer1 = '' page_footer2 = '</td>' + get_text_delimited_by(ht_text, '', '') -------------- next part -------------- Other-links: <h3>PythonInfo Wiki</h3> <li><a href="FrontPage">Wiki FrontPage</a> <li><a href="RecentChanges">RecentChanges</a> <li><a href="TitleIndex">TitleIndex</a> <li><a href="WordIndex">WordIndex</a> <li><a href="SiteNavigation">SiteNavigation</a> <li><a href="HelpContents">HelpContents</a> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: wiki.css Type: text/css Size: 1482 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pydotorg-redesign/attachments/20030815/af2a25f5/wiki-0168.css From python at dylanreinhardt.com Fri Aug 15 19:46:52 2003 From: python at dylanreinhardt.com (Dylan Reinhardt) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:21 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <001201c36378$b04827d0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> References: <001201c36378$b04827d0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <1060991177.12527.64.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> On Fri, 2003-08-15 at 15:00, Tim Parkin wrote: > Fred L. Drake write: > >A.M. Kuchling writes: > > > Unfortunately there's already a company with the same name > > > (www.ip-wizard.com). > > > >If that's a real problem (and it might be), we might be able to use > >"expanding possibilities" and the infinity sign. > > I've mocked a page up with the expanding possibilities strapline... This is a gorgeous page and very well organized. Huge kudos on that. But once more, *please* don't introduce a slogan. I know that Python *should* have one and you've identified exactly where it should go and what it should probably look like... but don't just make one up. The site can really use a new look, but this is not the proper time or place to be setting our strategic agenda. Dylan From aahz at pythoncraft.com Fri Aug 15 23:43:20 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:24 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [Pydotorg] Re: python.org Commercial Exits In-Reply-To: <3F3D3463.8050100@lemburg.com> References: <3F34095D.6030107@lemburg.com> <16180.7186.818089.252768@montanaro.dyndns.org> <3F3CE423.1040503@lemburg.com> <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> <3F3D3463.8050100@lemburg.com> Message-ID: <20030816034305.GB20080@panix.com> On Fri, Aug 15, 2003, M.-A. Lemburg wrote: > > Please don't forget to add the PSF donation button in a prominent place, > e.g. on the top right corner. Aahz has the code for the button. It's near the top of my list, but other things keep getting higher priority (such as catching up on my e-mail after being without for thirty hours ;-). (Yes, I'm on the west coast of the US, but my e-mail is in NYC.) -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From zope at toenjes.com Sat Aug 16 00:37:40 2003 From: zope at toenjes.com (Trevor Toenjes) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:27 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <001201c36378$b04827d0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <NEBBLDPBKLOKNHPAEECGMEAKKHAA.zope@toenjes.com> WOW!!!! ...should say it all. Kudos Tim. You got your game on... The direction for the homepage is nearly dead on for execution. Brilliant. The concept is very strong. I havent seen anything proposed come this close to what python needs. Thank you for the time and thought commitment to develop this mockup and bring some real creative to the table. It's very lightweight and could be easily maintained and updated. I dont care particularly for the logo or the tagline. I think we can be more unique than infinities and nautilus shapes. And I am not particularly fond of integrating a symbol into a logo, and prefer strong fontography for longevity. Which, by the way, you are doing pretty good exploring the font choices. I still think a Gilliam-esque influence should be explored. :) IMHO, any symbology should be able to stand on its own for python's identity, and I am not sure you can do that with the infinity symbol. The tagline is also weak and there needs to be more discussion and new ideas before that is nailed. Consider a descriptor to help first timers "get it" faster. -Trevor > -----Original Message----- > From: pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org > [mailto:pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org]On Behalf Of Tim Parkin > Sent: Friday, August 15, 2003 6:01 PM > To: 'Fred L. Drake, Jr.'; amk@amk.ca > Cc: 'Pydotorg-Redesign' > Subject: RE: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts > > > Fred L. Drake write: > >A.M. Kuchling writes: > > > Unfortunately there's already a company with the same name > > > (www.ip-wizard.com). > > > >If that's a real problem (and it might be), we might be able to use > >"expanding possibilities" and the infinity sign. > > I've mocked a page up with the expanding possibilities strapline... > > http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python.html > > Still some work to do to get it how I really want it but I think it's a > start. > > Tim Parkin > > > > _______________________________________________ > Pydotorg-redesign mailing list > Pydotorg-redesign@python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pydotorg-redesign From vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com Sat Aug 16 17:03:59 2003 From: vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com (Brandon J. Van Every) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:29 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Python logos should have snakes Message-ID: <000801c3643b$16d5bc20$bd6cfea9@vangogh> Hello. By way of introduction, I don't use Python, and I'm rude. I've been giving some feedback on marketing-python about what the non-converted think of Python. I have some things to say about logos. I've been scanning your archives and am very pleased to see that you're working on so many wonderful things. But you're bogged down on the logo, so I'm going to say a couple of things sans tact, to remind you of this and that. >From a placeholder standpoint, the current Python logo is fine. From a marketing standpoint, it sucks rocks. The design is deliberately "tech retro," like Atari 2600 Space Invader graphics from my youth. I can't think of anything more foolish than telling a business audience that your programming language is retro. We have a phrase in game development: "Programmer Art." This is the stuff that programmers stick in as a placeholder until real artists get around to the job. Is www.python.org a marketing vehicle? Yes it is. When people spread info about Python by word of mouth, or presentation slide, they say "Go to www.python.org." It's easy to remember, that's why we point people there. So as long as you have the "Python is amateur and retro!" logo screaming at people, you are doing big damage to the marketing of Python. Reorganizing the content is great, it's needed, I applaud. But you need to fix this logo *NOW*. If nothing else, remove it. That would take someone 5 minutes. A Python logo should have a snake in it. I don't know why this hasn't been focused on. It is obvious, obvious, obvious brand identity. The graphic design problem is "figure out how to combine the word 'Python' with a snake." It isn't infinities or spirals or asking what kind of extant corporate bland Guido prefers. Make logos with *SNAKES*. I actually like the "Sesame Street" logo with a snake http://just.letterror.com/pythonlogo/ but I also think http://pollenation.net/assets/public/samples.gif show that it may not hold up well in company. I think it is worth noting that the Java logo is the only distinctive one of the batch. Possibly the Python snake logo is fixable with some tweaking, however. I think the eyes and tongue are too subtle. I'm also thinking that Green is the correct color for a Python, not purple. What if you change the shape of the snake to be less "Romper Room" and more "I, Claudius?" http://www.historyinfilm.com/claudius/ That's not a literal suggestion, the idea is simply to communicate deadliness and danger rather than playfulness. Business types like to *kill* or *strangle* their competiton, not play with it. Of course I will refrain from the useless suggestion of taking inspiration from "Le Petit Prince," but I can't help mentioning the thought. :-) Cheers, www.3DProgrammer.com Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA 20% of the world is real. 80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads. From magnus at thinkware.se Sat Aug 16 17:33:46 2003 From: magnus at thinkware.se (Magnus =?iso-8859-1?Q?Lyck=E5?=) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:32 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] logos In-Reply-To: <005301c36454$a14092e0$0200a8c0@b> References: <000201c363c0$963a0000$bd6cfea9@vangogh> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20030816163434.020df8c0@www.thinkware.se> At 17:15 2003-08-16 -0700, Oktay Safak wrote: >Be patient, we are working on both issues. We just need some time. It will >be a big change and I wouldn't like to see it rushed. If we'll change it, we >need to get it right. Some food for thought: > >http://www.geocities.com/oktay_safak/python.jpg > >http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python-logo-test.gif > >http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python8.gif >http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python1.gif >http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python5.gif > >I'd love to hear your comments on them. None of them really caught my attention or seem like an improvement, but I'm no pro in the field. Is any of them made by someone who has an arts or design education, or works as a graphics design professional? I think the first thing to consider when making a logotype is what values and messages we want to convey with it. What do we want people to feel when they see the logo? This will narrow down the choices of color, shape and font quite a bit...and made correctly, a logo will convey a message. Those Python logos said nothing to me. Why so grey? Is dull and boring the main message? Do we want people to feel desire, or trust? Do we want to give an impression of high quality or hitech or speed or what? I think we have to decide what factor is most important and do the most of that. How do we say: "Developing with Python takes less time" in our logo? Frankly, I think the name "Python" is a liability. (Not that there is a lot we can do about that now.) If someone asks me to compare Python and Ruby, I'll immediately admit that that other language has a more sellable name, particularly in Sweden where "tastes python" means "tastes like shit". Maybe we should still try to make the best of that though. It could work. Agility, surprising power, not the fastest creature out there, but faster than one might imagine, and really flexible and big enough to get around big obstacles. Hm...this seems more like a TV commercial than a logo... (Although, when I've seen pythons in real life, they almost always just lie there and do nothing... Hm...) >Note that Guido has killed the >spiral and the infinity symbol ideas though. Good! We have a programming language called Python. Although the name has an origin that is related to Monty Python and not to snakes, the obvious choice *if* we want some kind of symbol would be (like the Python icons in Windows) to use the snake. I realize that both the spiral and the infinity symbol could be seen as an abstract image of a snake, but it's too far fetched. People who see a spiral or infinity symbol won't think: "Aha, a snake, it's about Python." It's one thing if there is a little snake that coils into an infinity symbol, but what's the message? Python programs take forever to finish? What would the spiral stand for? Goes round and round a long time before it reaches the goal? I'm not at all sure we want some kind of symbol or icon like that in the logo at all. Making something distinctive graphic out of the letters P-y-t-h-o-n like we have today is probably a really good idea. Look at the pros: Volvo, Ford, IBM, HP, LEGO, Amazon, Microsoft etc. Almost all of them have just the plain text and some fairly simple (but probably very expensive to come up with) decoration or little detail in or around the text. When there is something non-textual (Audi and Saab for instance) it's often a logo which was developed many decades ago that is still being used, since it's just a strongly rooted symbol in the public mind. Some (like Volvo) have even dropped the old symbol and reverted to plain text. Asian car companies (Mazda, Hyundai, Toyota etc) often use symbols these days since they must be recognized by people who don't use the latin alphabet. That's not really relevant for us, since Python is useless for people who don't type with the latin alphabet... Don't underestimate the value of text as graphics. My son loved cars when he was one and a half years old. He knew more than half a dozen brands, and if you asked "Where's the Ford?" on a parking lot, he'd walk over to the closest Ford, put his finger on the logo, and say "Huh!" which was about all his vocabulary allowed by then. When he was a little over two, I was once reading in a newspaper while he was present, and suddenly he poked his finger in the text and said "Toyota". Quite to my surprise, he had his finger on the word "Toyota". There were no pictures, no logos, just a full page of plain, normal 10 pt text. But "Toyota" looked close enough to "TOYOTA" which was a logotype he recognized (from older Toyotas). To him, this was just a picture. He still can't read two years later, but words are pictures too. Some of these pictures are well known to him, and convey very clear messages. There is so much a pro can do with text. The VOLVO logo gives a very clear image of the values Volvo stands for. Safe, solid, trustworthy and a little boring. There is no way you can add "sporty like a Ferrari" to the image of the logo, and keep the other values. Ford makes a point of keeping an old-fashioned logo, giving the message that "hey, we more or less invented the entire concept of a car". Introducing little figures is a difficult and dangerous task. If you just knew how much grief the Ericsson marketing people have had with their stylized E, consisting of three parallel, rounded bars. They even had to send out internal memos forbidding employees to answer the phone saying "Three hotdogs" instead of "Ericsson". -- Magnus Lycka (It's really Lyckå), magnus@thinkware.se Thinkware AB, Sweden, www.thinkware.se I code Python ~ The Agile Programming Language From aahz at pythoncraft.com Sat Aug 16 17:57:37 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:34 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] logos In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20030816163434.020df8c0@www.thinkware.se> References: <000201c363c0$963a0000$bd6cfea9@vangogh> <5.2.1.1.0.20030816163434.020df8c0@www.thinkware.se> Message-ID: <20030816215628.GA12659@panix.com> On Sat, Aug 16, 2003, Magnus Lyck? wrote: > > I think the first thing to consider when making a logotype > is what values and messages we want to convey with it. > What do we want people to feel when they see the logo? This > will narrow down the choices of color, shape and font quite > a bit...and made correctly, a logo will convey a message. > > Those Python logos said nothing to me. Why so grey? Is dull > and boring the main message? We want blue! We want blue! (I happen to like the electric blue of the "Python Powered" logo on the "Python: Programming the way Guido indented it" t-shirts.) -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From aahz at pythoncraft.com Sat Aug 16 20:52:58 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:37 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] python.org Commercial Exits In-Reply-To: <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <3F34095D.6030107@lemburg.com> <16180.7186.818089.252768@montanaro.dyndns.org> <3F3CE423.1040503@lemburg.com> <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <20030817005256.GA23855@panix.com> [now that I'm back from the power outage -- yes, I'm on the west coast of the USA, but my ISP is in NYC -- I've got some comments] On Fri, Aug 15, 2003, A.M. Kuchling wrote: > > Proposal: > > * Create /community/companies.html. Criterion for listing: > companies that either use Python primarily, or have made strong > commitments to using it and supporting the community. Works for me. You don't say, but I assume this replaces "Commercial Exits" on sidebar. > * Change the top-level sidebar to http://www.amk.ca/python.org.html . > Suggestions that haven't been acted on: > * Move down the 'Mirror sites' link (this is a good idea) Works for me. Should replace "SIGs" with Site Map (if not now, eventually). I want PyCon in the sidebar until Community points to /community/ *and* /community/ is beefed up to prominently display PyCon. Now that I've added the quickie links to /download/, I think the docs should go above "Python Versions" in the sidebar. Please change "Developer's Guide" back to "Python Project" and include the bugs/patches links -- I added those partly for efficient access and partly to emphasize that this is for people who want to contribute bugs and patches: the developers of Python itself. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From zope at toenjes.com Sun Aug 17 14:56:04 2003 From: zope at toenjes.com (Trevor Toenjes) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:39 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] 3 Simple Logo Development Guidelines In-Reply-To: <16189.25463.379945.666268@grendel.zope.com> Message-ID: <NEBBLDPBKLOKNHPAEECGGEEIKHAA.zope@toenjes.com> Since it looks like efforts and opinions are being scattered, here are some tactical suggestions to get back on track... 1. An identity analysis needs to be completed to summarize what the logo needs to communicate to its viewers. If we cant agree on this, then no one will agree on the final design, because you are all shooting in different directions from completely different angles. In order to be truly effective as a volunteer group, you have to come to an agreement on a direction. VERY IMPORTANT: The summary needs to include prioritizing the various needs, so there is no confusion on how to weight the selection criteria. The summary can include..."quirky style to show uniqueness" vs. "it must look corporate in the style of contemporary American business identities" OR keywords like ...flexible, powerful, fun, geeky, sophisticated, international The final criteria needs to be precise and not too inclusive. 2. All logos should be developed in black and white first. After final acceptance, then a color palette can be developed. If it doesn't work in black and white, then it needs to be tossed out. 3. Each submitted logo needs to be accompanied by a positioning explanation about what particularly need is being met by the design and how the designer believes that is being communicated visually. NOTE: Sub-Branding. Remember, after THE LOGO is selected, then variations on the theme can be developed for the various segments. examples: Python Community could have some fun color variation. Python Powered. Python Documentation can have a variation. The PSF can have its own variation on the main theme, with a variation on the colors. The decision is a Marketing decision, and not a web design decision. I am concerned that this effort is fragmented on 2 lists and may not include individuals that have valuable positioning and direction input. hence the cross-post. I think all logo and identity discussions should be confined to the marketing list. This discussion should not stall pydot-redesign in anyway, and is probably a distraction. If it is redeveloped conservatively, then redoing the look and feel (skins/templates) later will be trivial, once the new logo and color-palette is selected. There is much informational architecture and other things to do while a logo is being developed. And if this still fails to produce results that everyone is happy with, then consider accessing real creative design talent. (I can help with that if the time comes.) An agency would still require us to complete Step 1 before they do 2 and 3. Meanwhile, don't be too critical on each other. Face it, there is no top agency-level creative talent on this list. I don't expect a typical python developer to have the skills to design a logo and identity that meets the strategic needs to move Python forward on a global marketing scale. But we should have fun winging it, like most non-funded marketing activities. :) Cheers, Trevor From lac at strakt.com Mon Aug 18 02:23:06 2003 From: lac at strakt.com (Laura Creighton) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:42 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] 3 Simple Logo Development Guidelines In-Reply-To: Message from "Trevor Toenjes" <zope@toenjes.com> of "Sun, 17 Aug 2003 14:55:11 EDT." <NEBBLDPBKLOKNHPAEECGGEEIKHAA.zope@toenjes.com> References: <NEBBLDPBKLOKNHPAEECGGEEIKHAA.zope@toenjes.com> Message-ID: <200308180622.h7I6Mvq3009726@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> Somebody asked me once what I wanted from the Marketing Python mailing list. answer: Notes like these. Something more substantial and sophisticated than 'i know the markets, and I have an opinion, and you should like mine because i say so'. So -- How do we make an identity analysis? Laura ......... In a message of Sun, 17 Aug 2003 14:55:11 EDT, "Trevor Toenjes" writes: >Since it looks like efforts and opinions are being scattered, here are so >me >tactical suggestions to get back on track... > >1. An identity analysis needs to be completed to summarize what the logo >needs to communicate to its viewers. If we cant agree on this, then no o >ne >will agree on the final design, because you are all shooting in different >directions from completely different angles. In order to be truly >effective as a volunteer group, you have to come to an agreement on a >direction. > >VERY IMPORTANT: The summary needs to include prioritizing the various >needs, so there is no confusion on how to weight the selection criteria. > >The summary can include..."quirky style to show uniqueness" vs. "it must >look corporate in the style of contemporary American business identities" >OR keywords like >...flexible, powerful, fun, geeky, sophisticated, international >The final criteria needs to be precise and not too inclusive. > >2. All logos should be developed in black and white first. After final >acceptance, then a color palette can be developed. If it doesn't work in >black and white, then it needs to be tossed out. > >3. Each submitted logo needs to be accompanied by a positioning explanat >ion >about what particularly need is being met by the design and how the desig >ner >believes that is being communicated visually. > > > >NOTE: Sub-Branding. > Remember, after THE LOGO is selected, then variations on the theme can > be >developed for the various segments. >examples: >Python Community could have some fun color variation. >Python Powered. >Python Documentation can have a variation. >The PSF can have its own variation on the main theme, with a variation on >the colors. > >The decision is a Marketing decision, and not a web design decision. I a >m >concerned that this effort is fragmented on 2 lists and may not include >individuals that have valuable positioning and direction input. hence th >e >cross-post. I think all logo and identity discussions should be confined > to >the marketing list. > >This discussion should not stall pydot-redesign in anyway, and is probabl >y a >distraction. If it is redeveloped conservatively, then redoing the look >and >feel (skins/templates) later will be trivial, once the new logo and >color-palette is selected. There is much informational architecture and >other things to do while a logo is being developed. > >And if this still fails to produce results that everyone is happy with, t >hen >consider accessing real creative design talent. (I can help with that if >the >time comes.) An agency would still require us to complete Step 1 before >they do 2 and 3. > >Meanwhile, don't be too critical on each other. Face it, there is no top >agency-level creative talent on this list. I don't expect a typical pyt >hon >developer to have the skills to design a logo and identity that meets the >strategic needs to move Python forward on a global marketing scale. But >we >should have fun winging it, like most non-funded marketing activities. : >) > >Cheers, >Trevor > >_______________________________________________ >marketing-python mailing list >marketing-python@wingide.com >http://pythonology.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-python From walter at livinglogic.de Mon Aug 18 06:14:44 2003 From: walter at livinglogic.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Walter_D=F6rwald?=) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:44 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <16189.25463.379945.666268@grendel.zope.com> References: <16187.49800.356480.922914@grendel.zope.com> <000001c36306$e2ce9990$0a00a8c0@JASPER> <16189.25463.379945.666268@grendel.zope.com> Message-ID: <3F40A6F1.5090403@livinglogic.de> Fred L. Drake, Jr. wrote: > Tim Parkin writes: > > In that vein > > > > http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python8.gif > > Hey, I like that one! Here's a new bunch of logo attempts, done by our designer Peter B?ker: http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/Python_logo.gif Bye, Walter D?rwald From aahz at pythoncraft.com Mon Aug 18 12:02:43 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:47 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] FWD: Re: What's better about Ruby than Python? Message-ID: <20030818160240.GA13977@panix.com> Did we decide whether we were removing the language comparisons page? If not, we should ask Alex to reSTify this. ----- Forwarded message from Alex Martelli <aleaxit@yahoo.com> ----- > From: Alex Martelli <aleaxit@yahoo.com> > Newsgroups: comp.lang.python > Subject: Re: What's better about Ruby than Python? > Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 17:26:30 +0200 > Organization: None in Sight > > Erik Max Francis wrote: > >> "Brandon J. Van Every" wrote: >> >>> What's better about Ruby than Python? I'm sure there's something. >>> What is it? >> >> Wouldn't it make much more sense to ask Ruby people this, rather than >> Python people? > > Might, or might not, depending on one's purposes -- for example, if > one's purposes include a "sociological study" of the Python community, > then putting questions to that community is likely to prove more > revealing of informaiton about it, than putting them elsewhere:-). > > Personally, I gladly took the opportunity to follow Dave Thomas' > one-day Ruby tutorial at last OSCON. Below a thin veneer of syntax > differences, I find Ruby and Python amazingly similar -- if I was > computing the minimum spanning tree among just about any set of > languages, I'm pretty sure Python and Ruby would be the first two > leaves to coalesce into an intermediate node:-). > > Sure, I do get weary, in Ruby, of typing the silly "end" at the end > of each block (rather than just unindenting) -- but then I do get > to avoid typing the equally-silly ':' which Python requires at the > _start_ of each block, so that's almost a wash:-). Other syntax > differences such as '@foo' versus 'self.foo', or the higher significance > of case in Ruby vs Python, are really just about as irrelevant to me. > > Others no doubt base their choice of programming languages on just > such issues, and they generate the hottest debates -- but to me that's > just an example of one of Parkinson's Laws in action (the amount on > debate on an issue is inversely proportional to the issue's actual > importance). > > One syntax difference that I do find important, and in Python's > favour -- but other people will no doubt think just the reverse -- > is "how do you call a function which takes no parameters". In > Python (like in C), to call a function you always apply the > "call operator" -- trailing parentheses just after the object > you're calling (inside those trailing parentheses go the args > you're passing in the call -- if you're passing no args, then > the parentheses are empty). This leaves the mere mention of > any object, with no operator involved, as meaning just a > reference to the object -- in any context, without special > cases, exceptions, ad-hoc rules, and the like. In Ruby (like > in Pascal), to call a function WITH arguments you pass the > args (normally in parentheses, though that is not invariably > the case) -- BUT if the function takes no args then simply > mentioning the function implicitly calls it. This may meet > the expectations of many people (at least, no doubt, those > whose only previous experience of programming was with Pascal, > or other languages with similar "implcit calling", such as > Visual Basic) -- but to me, it means the mere mention of an > object may EITHER mean a reference to the object, OR a call > to the object, depending on the object's type -- and in those > cases where I can't get a reference to the object by merely > mentioning it I will need to use explicit "give me a reference > to this, DON'T call it!" operators that aren't needed otherwise. > I feel this impacts the "first-classness" of functions (or > methods, or other callable objects) and the possibility of > interchanging objects smoothly. Therefore, to me, this specific > syntax difference is a serious black mark against Ruby -- but > I do understand why others would thing otherwise, even though > I could hardly disagree more vehemently with them:-). > > Below the syntax, we get into some important differences in > elementary semantics -- for example, strings in Ruby are > mutable objects (like in C++), while in Python they are not > mutable (like in Java, or I believe C#). Again, people who > judge primarily by what they're already familiar with may > think this is a plus for Ruby (unless they're familiar with > Java or C#, of course:-). Me, I think immutable strings are > an excellent idea (and I'm not surprised that Java, independently > I think, reinvented that idea which was already in Python), though > I wouldn't mind having a "mutable string buffer" type as well > (and ideally one with better ease-of-use than Java's own > "string buffers"); and I don't give this judgment because of > familiarity -- before studying Java, apart from functional > programming languages where _all_ data are immutable, all the > languages I knew had mutable strings -- yet when I first saw > the immutable-string idea in Java (which I learned well before > I learned Python), it immediately struck me as excellent, a > very good fit for the reference-semantics of a higher level > programming language (as opposed to the value-semantics that > fit best with languages closer to the machine and farther from > applications, such as C) with strings as a first-class, built-in > (and pretty crucial) data type. > > Ruby does have some advantages in elementary semantics -- for > example, the removal of Python's "lists vs tuples" exceedingly > subtle distinction. But mostly the score (as I keep it, with > simplicity a big plus and subtle, clever distinctions a notable > minus) is against Ruby (e.g., having both closed and half-open > intervals, with the notations a..b and a...b [anybody wants > to claim that it's _obvious_ which is which?-)], is silly -- > IMHO, of course!). Again, people who consider having a lot of > similar but subtly different things at the core of a language > a PLUS, rather than a MINUS, will of course count these "the > other way around" from how I count them:-). > > Don't be misled by these comparisons into thinking the two > languages are _very_ different, mind you. They aren't. But > if I'm asked to compare "capelli d'angelo" to "spaghettini", > after pointing out that these two kinds of pasta are just > about undistinguishable to anybody and interchangeable in any > dish you might want to prepare, I would then inevitably have > to move into microscopic examination of how the lengths and > diameters imperceptibly differ, how the ends of the strands > are tapered in one case and not in the other, and so on -- to > try and explain why I, personally, would rather have capelli > d'angelo as the pasta in any kind of broth, but would prefer > spaghettini as the pastasciutta to go with suitable sauces for > such long thin pasta forms (olive oil, minced garlic, minced > red peppers, and finely ground anchovies, for example - but if > you sliced the garlic and peppers instead of mincing them, then > you should choose the sounder body of spaghetti rather than the > thinner evanescence of spaghettini, and would be well advised > to forego the achoview and add instead some fresh spring basil > [or even -- I'm a heretic...! -- light mint...] leaves -- at > the very last moment before serving the dish). Ooops, sorry, > it shows that I'm traveling abroad and haven't had pasta for > a while, I guess. But the analogy is still pretty good!-) > > So, back to Python and Ruby, we come to the two biggies (in > terms of language proper -- leaving the libraries, and other > important ancillaries such as tools and environments, how to > embed/extend each language, etc, etc, out of it for now -- they > wouldn't apply to all IMPLEMENTATIONS of each language anyway, > e.g., Jython vs Classic Python being two implementations of > the Python language!): > > 1. Ruby's iterators and codeblocks vs Python's iterators > and generators; > > 2. Ruby's TOTAL, unbridled "dynamicity", including the ability > to "reopen" any existing class, including all built-in ones, > and change its behavior at run-time -- vs Python's vast but > _bounded_ dynamicity, which never changes the behavior of > existing built-in classes and their instances. > > Personally, I consider [1] a wash (the differences are so > deep that I could easily see people hating either approach > and revering the other, but on MY personal scales the pluses > and minuses just about even up); and [2] a crucial issue -- > one that makes Ruby much more suitable for "tinkering", BUT > Python equally more suitable for use in large production > applications. It's funny, in a way, because both languages > are so MUCH more dynamic than most others, that in the end > the key difference between them from my POV should hinge on > that -- that Ruby "goes to eleven" in this regard (the > reference here is to "Spinal Tap", of course). In Ruby, > there are no limits to my creativity -- if I decide that > all string comparisons must become case-insensitive, _I CAN > DO THAT_! I.e., I can dynamically alter the built-in string > class so that > a = "Hello World" > b = "hello world" > if a == b > print "equal!\n" > else > print "different!\n" > end > WILL print "equal". In python, there is NO way I can do > that. For the purposes of metaprogramming, implementing > experimental frameworks, and the like, this amazing dynamic > ability of Ruby is _extremely_ appealing. BUT -- if we're > talking about large applications, developed by many people > and maintained by even more, including all kinds of libraries > from diverse sources, and needing to go into production in > client sites... well, I don't WANT a language that is QUITE > so dynamic, thank you very much. I loathe the very idea of > some library unwittingly breaking other unrelated ones that > rely on those strings being different -- that's the kind of > deep and deeply hidden "channel", between pieces of code that > LOOK separate and SHOULD BE separate, that spells d-e-a-t-h > in large-scale programming. By letting any module affect the > behavior of any other "covertly", the ability to mutate the > semantics of built-in types is just a BAD idea for production > application programming, just as it's cool for tinkering. > > If I had to use Ruby for such a large application, I would > try to rely on coding-style restrictions, lots of tests (to > be rerun whenever ANYTHING changes -- even what should be > totally unrelated...), and the like, to prohibit use of this > language feature. But NOT having the feature in the first > place is even better, in my opinion -- just as Python itself > would be an even better language for application programming > if a certain number of built-ins could be "nailed down", so > I KNEW that, e.g., len("ciao") is 4 (rather than having to > worry subliminally about whether somebody's changed the > binding of name 'len' in the __builtins__ module...). I do > hope that eventually Python does "nail down" its built-ins. > > But the problem's minor, since rebinding built-ins is quite > a deprecated as well as a rare practice in Python. In Ruby, > it strikes me as major -- just like the _too powerful_ macro > facilities of other languages (such as, say, Dylan) present > similar risks in my own opinion (I do hope that Python never > gets such a powerful macro system, no matter the allure of > "letting people define their own domain-specific little > languages embedded in the language itself" -- it would, IMHO, > impair Python's wonderful usefulness for application > programming, by presenting an "attractive nuisance" to the > would-be tinkerer who lurks in every programmer's heart...). > > > Alex > > ----- End forwarded message ----- From aahz at pythoncraft.com Mon Aug 18 13:06:56 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:50 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] donate.png? Message-ID: <20030818170654.GA25184@panix.com> Per MAL's push (thank you!), I've installed a button on the front-page sidebar that goes directly to the PSF donations page. However, I don't like that button -- it's difficult to read on a high-res monitor and it's a GIF (borrowed from PayPal). Would someone like to make a button similar to http://www.python.org/pics/donate.gif with a pixel of space between letters that's a PNG? Feel free to use a different color scheme, too, but MAKE IT READABLE. ;-) -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From altis at semi-retired.com Mon Aug 18 13:15:09 2003 From: altis at semi-retired.com (Kevin Altis) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:52 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Dropping language comparisons In-Reply-To: <16189.14073.59500.515788@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <KJEOLDOPMIDKCMJDCNDPGEKCEDAA.altis@semi-retired.com> > From: Skip Montanaro > > amk> If marketing-python wants to someday write something, > fine, but for > amk> now IMHO this page should simply be dropped. Objections? > > No particular objections except to note that the issue of language > comparisons does come up from time-to-time. (It's a relevant question to > ask if you're coming to Python from some other language.) > > This sounds like Wiki material to me. Perhaps we should solicit > a volunteer > from c.l.py to create and manage a section of the Wiki devoted to language > comparisons. This question is raised so frequently, that despite some of the material being old, it is better than nothing. So I vote for leaving the Comparisons page in place and updating if possible, dropping any links that seem particularly misleading. Last week Stephen Ferg posted a new doc: "Java and Python Side-by-Side Comparison - discusses the reasons why programmers can be more productive in Python than in Java." http://www.ferg.org/projects/python_java_side-by-side.html There are also some relatively new pro Python articles like Which Language Do You Recommend? by Paul Baranowski http://peek-a-booty.org/Docs/WhichLanguageDoYouRecommend.htm We have to have something to point people at and it is easier to modify than to create something from scratch. ka From altis at semi-retired.com Mon Aug 18 13:21:38 2003 From: altis at semi-retired.com (Kevin Altis) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:54 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [Pydotorg] Re: python.org Commercial Exits In-Reply-To: <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <KJEOLDOPMIDKCMJDCNDPOEKCEDAA.altis@semi-retired.com> > From: A.M. Kuchling > > On Fri, Aug 15, 2003 at 03:46:11PM +0200, M.-A. Lemburg wrote: > > Just wanted to ping in on this again, because I don't see any > > changes on python.org web-site. > > <sigh> The sidebar discussion has yet again exploded off into a > zillion subthreads. I want to actually do something about this. > > Proposal: > > * Create /community/companies.html. Criterion for listing: > companies that either use Python primarily, or have made strong > commitments > to using it and supporting the community. +1 I expect that after we have gone through the home page redesign, the Exits and Commercial Exits sections won't be on the home page anyway. > * Change the top-level sidebar to http://www.amk.ca/python.org.html . > Suggestions that haven't been acted on: > * Move down the 'Mirror sites' link (this is a good idea) > > That's it. Last call for suggestions, or vetos from the appropriate > people, please. I thought the sidebar discussion had been rolled into the home page redesign discussion and that we were not planning on any dramatic sidebar changes but I guess I missed something amongst all the emails. I'm just catching up with the deluge, so I should be in sync in another day or so. ka From altis at semi-retired.com Mon Aug 18 13:28:58 2003 From: altis at semi-retired.com (Kevin Altis) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:56 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] RE: [marketing-python] 3 Simple Logo Development Guidelines In-Reply-To: <NEBBLDPBKLOKNHPAEECGGEEIKHAA.zope@toenjes.com> Message-ID: <KJEOLDOPMIDKCMJDCNDPMEKDEDAA.altis@semi-retired.com> > From: Trevor Toenjes > > The decision is a Marketing decision, and not a web design decision. I am > concerned that this effort is fragmented on 2 lists and may not include > individuals that have valuable positioning and direction input. hence the > cross-post. I think all logo and identity discussions should be > confined to > the marketing list. > > This discussion should not stall pydot-redesign in anyway, and is > probably a > distraction. If it is redeveloped conservatively, then redoing > the look and > feel (skins/templates) later will be trivial, once the new logo and > color-palette is selected. There is much informational architecture and > other things to do while a logo is being developed. I'll second this. The logo process can happen in parallel with the overall redesign and should be confined to the marketing-python list rather than being cross-posted. If Just isn't already on marketing-python, then when there is something that he should take a look at, we'll cc him. ka From mmclay at comcast.net Sun Aug 24 06:14:37 2003 From: mmclay at comcast.net (Michael McLay) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:59 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] PWC: informal announcement In-Reply-To: <20030823221403.GA18750@panix.com> References: <20030823221403.GA18750@panix.com> Message-ID: <200308220034.37081.mmclay@comcast.net> On Saturday 23 August 2003 06:14 pm, Aahz wrote: > [This was supposed to go out a couple of days ago, but I didn't see the > point while the virus storm was at its highest. If you reply to this, > please keep it on *one* list.] > > Some people have been asking who will make decisions regarding the web > site. At the most recent PSF board meeting, it was decided that a > committee would take over for Guido -- though Guido as BDFL retains the > right to veto a recommendation of the committee. There should be little > change for most issues, particularly in the short term -- if you've been > doing work, just continue what you've been doing. I've been doing some work on a prototype redesign. Please take a look at: http://drydock.python.net:9673/python The look is straight plone, with the substitution of a one of the proposed new logos. Thanks are in order to Stefan Drees and the other starship webmasters for getting Zope and plone operational on the new starship. I've only completed a draft for the Manager and Donation links. The prototype still needs a market pitch for Developers, Students, etc.. If anyone is interested in filling in some of the holes, embellishing my first draft, or fixing the grammar and speling, please let me know and I'll add you as a manager to the plone interface. I tried to write in marketing-speak for managers. It's not my native tongue, so I won't be offended if your comment suggest I missed the mark. However, please do so politely:-) I've just spent my last round tuit, so I'll probably not be able to work on extending the content for a couple days. From lac at strakt.com Sun Aug 24 11:42:31 2003 From: lac at strakt.com (Laura Creighton) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:02 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] PWC: informal announcement In-Reply-To: Message from Michael McLay <mmclay@comcast.net> of "Fri, 22 Aug 2003 00:34:36 EDT." <200308220034.37081.mmclay@comcast.net> References: <20030823221403.GA18750@panix.com> <200308220034.37081.mmclay@comcast.net> Message-ID: <200308240709.h7O79mq3008995@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> In a message of Fri, 22 Aug 2003 00:34:36 EDT, Michael McLay writes: >On Saturday 23 August 2003 06:14 pm, Aahz wrote: >> [This was supposed to go out a couple of days ago, but I didn't see the >> point while the virus storm was at its highest. If you reply to this, >> please keep it on *one* list.] >> >> Some people have been asking who will make decisions regarding the web >> site. At the most recent PSF board meeting, it was decided that a >> committee would take over for Guido -- though Guido as BDFL retains the >> right to veto a recommendation of the committee. There should be littl >e >> change for most issues, particularly in the short term -- if you've bee >n >> doing work, just continue what you've been doing. > >I've been doing some work on a prototype redesign. Please take a look at: > > http://drydock.python.net:9673/python > >The look is straight plone, with the substitution of a one of the propose >d new >logos. Thanks are in order to Stefan Drees and the other starship webmast >ers >for getting Zope and plone operational on the new starship. I don't see the logic of making the look a straight Plone. Of course, if this is only a way to organise material for development purposes, all fine and good. But we want to look _different_, don't we? I also don't like the idea of having a login page on the front of our website. But this is just for organisational purposes, correct? Laura From roy at panix.com Sun Aug 24 15:07:51 2003 From: roy at panix.com (Roy Smith) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:05 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] PWC: informal announcement In-Reply-To: <200308220856.25313.mmclay@comcast.net> Message-ID: <B6CA8CF6-D641-11D7-B13D-0050E405C35A@panix.com> On Friday, August 22, 2003, at 08:56 AM, Michael McLay wrote: > >> The "donating to the PSF" page is formatted differently from the >> others >> (the center text has longer lines). I assume this is unintentional? > > I'm not seeing a difference in line lengths. I haven't finished the > Donations > page. I cribbed something I had written for other purposes to get > something > to fill up the space. It needs some refinement. I made a couple of screen shots to show what I'm talking about. Maybe it's browser-specific? I'm using Safari on Mac-OSX. www.panix.com/~roy/PythonShot-1.pdf www.panix.com/~roy/PythonShot-2.pdf PS -- anybody know how to make OSX do a screenshot as a gif or jpeg? From roy at panix.com Sun Aug 24 15:17:29 2003 From: roy at panix.com (Roy Smith) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:07 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] PWC: informal announcement In-Reply-To: <200308220034.37081.mmclay@comcast.net> Message-ID: <86AB413E-D630-11D7-B13D-0050E405C35A@panix.com> On Friday, August 22, 2003, at 12:34 AM, Michael McLay wrote: > > I've been doing some work on a prototype redesign. Please take a look > at: > > http://drydock.python.net:9673/python Over all, very nice. But, of course I've got some nit-picks... Why the calender in the right margin? What events are we going to show when you click on a date? It's pretty, and perhaps it's a nice demo of plone technology, but I'm a bit of a minimalist when it comes to web design. The question I always ask is, "Does the value justify the realestate dedicated to it?" Is a calander really so important that we should devote prime real estate (top of a column) to it on every page? > I've only completed a draft for the Manager and Donation links. The > prototype > still needs a market pitch for Developers, Students, etc.. If anyone is > interested in filling in some of the holes, embellishing my first > draft, or > fixing the grammar and speling, please let me know and I'll add you as > a > manager to the plone interface. I'm game. I don't know anything about plone, but I'm willing to learn. The "donating to the PSF" page is formatted differently from the others (the center text has longer lines). I assume this is unintentional? There's a fair amount of real estate devoted to membership related stuff. What would people be joining? What benefits do they get? What benefits do we get by making people join something before getting access to certain material? The drinking from the firehose link doesn't have any indication that it's an off-site link, and the result is visually jarring (and somewhat confusing). Lastly, a bit of a meta-comment. Obviously, the design is the plone site with some new content dropped in. Is the intent that these two sites will have the same look-and-feel in the long run? If so, I think that's not a good idea, because their identities will merge. There are lots of e-commerce web sites I go to which have so many visual elements in common with Amazon that my first impression is that "Oh, Amazon must have bought this company". From aahz at pythoncraft.com Sun Aug 24 16:32:27 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:10 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Following directions In-Reply-To: <200308220034.37081.mmclay@comcast.net> References: <20030823221403.GA18750@panix.com> <200308220034.37081.mmclay@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20030824161335.GA19009@panix.com> On Fri, Aug 22, 2003, Michael McLay wrote: > On Saturday 23 August 2003 06:14 pm, Aahz wrote: >> >> [This was supposed to go out a couple of days ago, but I didn't see the >> point while the virus storm was at its highest. If you reply to this, >> please keep it on *one* list.] > > [....] This is not quite a flame, but I am not happy that people are ignoring my clear and explicit request to keep replies to one list. I (perhaps foolishly) did not set Reply-To: because each list has a different purpose. I've set Reply-To: on this message to marketing-python, because I think that's where the traffic has been coming from. For the record, here are brief mandates for several important lists: * pydotorg-pwc: The Python Website Committee serves as a decision-making body for the website, under the PSF board. This is not a public list. * psc: The list for the Public Support Committee -- if you're trying to suggest ways for the PSF to raise money, this is the place. This is not a public list. * pydotorg: the working list for people actively maintaining the python.org servers (primarily the website, but also the mailing lists); in other words, people with checkin privs. This list should be used for current work *ONLY*. This is not a public list. * pydotorg-redesign: the list for discussing medium-term and blue-sky proposals for updating the python.org website. This list does not have a PSF mandate, but should be considered to have implicit approval because it was created with the advice and consent of Guido. This is a public list. * marketing-python: the list for discussing general marketing issues related to expanding the Python userbase. It does not have a PSF mandate, but the PSF has been working closely with many of the key people on marketing-python. This is a public list. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From mmclay at comcast.net Sun Aug 24 17:20:20 2003 From: mmclay at comcast.net (Michael McLay) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:13 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Look and Feel for the website In-Reply-To: <200308240709.h7O79mq3008995@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> References: <20030823221403.GA18750@panix.com> <200308220034.37081.mmclay@comcast.net> <200308240709.h7O79mq3008995@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> Message-ID: <200308220717.45484.mmclay@comcast.net> On Sunday 24 August 2003 03:09 am, Laura Creighton wrote: > > I don't see the logic of making the look a straight Plone. Of course, if > this is only a way to organise material for development purposes, all > fine and good. But we want to look _different_, don't we? I also don't > like the idea of having a login page on the front of our website. But > this is just for organisational purposes, correct? I'm not a graphic designer. I was only interested in building content and putting in the top level categories for the group to build upon. Someone like Just would be much more qualified to come up with a unique look and feel for the the site. Plone is a reasonable starting point, but I'm sure someone else will have better ideas for the details of the new look and feel. I put up a dart board, a starting point for discussion and nothing else. From mmclay at comcast.net Sun Aug 24 18:04:38 2003 From: mmclay at comcast.net (Michael McLay) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:16 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] PWC: informal announcement In-Reply-To: <86AB413E-D630-11D7-B13D-0050E405C35A@panix.com> References: <86AB413E-D630-11D7-B13D-0050E405C35A@panix.com> Message-ID: <200308220856.25313.mmclay@comcast.net> On Sunday 24 August 2003 08:43 am, Roy Smith wrote: > On Friday, August 22, 2003, at 12:34 AM, Michael McLay wrote: > > I've been doing some work on a prototype redesign. Please take a look > > at: > > > > http://drydock.python.net:9673/python > > Over all, very nice. But, of course I've got some nit-picks... > > Why the calender in the right margin? What events are we going to show > when you click on a date? It's pretty, and perhaps it's a nice demo of > plone technology, but I'm a bit of a minimalist when it comes to web > design. The question I always ask is, "Does the value justify the > realestate dedicated to it?" Is a calander really so important that we > should devote prime real estate (top of a column) to it on every page? The calendar will only be useful if we can generate enough conent to show that there are alot of opportunities for people to learn about python. Local Python user groups should be able to place announcements. And of course big events like the PyCon. People offering training courses could also use this as a place to advertise their classes. I would also expect we would also allow Zope sprints and other Python related events in the calendar. If we don't have enough traffic then I agree that it would be a distraction from the site. If we do get enough traffic then the calendar should be removed. It's a marketing tool for showing that Python has an active community of users. > > I've only completed a draft for the Manager and Donation links. The > > prototype > > still needs a market pitch for Developers, Students, etc.. If anyone is > > interested in filling in some of the holes, embellishing my first > > draft, or > > fixing the grammar and speling, please let me know and I'll add you as > > a > > manager to the plone interface. > > I'm game. I don't know anything about plone, but I'm willing to learn. Adding content is very easy once you have an account. I've written all of the current content as structured text and there is a good HOWTO on the plone website that teaches how to do this. The editing capability is part of the plone user interface once you are logged into the website. > The "donating to the PSF" page is formatted differently from the others > (the center text has longer lines). I assume this is unintentional? I'm not seeing a difference in line lengths. I haven't finished the Donations page. I cribbed something I had written for other purposes to get something to fill up the space. It needs some refinement. > There's a fair amount of real estate devoted to membership related > stuff. What would people be joining? What benefits do they get? What > benefits do we get by making people join something before getting > access to certain material? I've removed the login box from the top page and moved it to the members tab. I don't have a plan for what becoming a member will provide as of yet, aside from allowing Python users to submit news articles and event announcements. Beyond that the value of being a member is TBD. > > The drinking from the firehose link doesn't have any indication that > it's an off-site link, and the result is visually jarring (and somewhat > confusing). The point of adding this link is to include access to the current content directly from the front page. If we assume that the committee agrees to this new look and feel then the existing content would be moved to the new format. Until that happens the link is going to be jarring. > Lastly, a bit of a meta-comment. Obviously, the design is the plone > site with some new content dropped in. Is the intent that these two > sites will have the same look-and-feel in the long run? If so, I think > that's not a good idea, because their identities will merge. There are > lots of e-commerce web sites I go to which have so many visual elements > in common with Amazon that my first impression is that "Oh, Amazon must > have bought this company". I just used the default plone site as an easy way to get the site up and running for collaborative development. I'm not a website designer so I'll expect someone else to work on developing a new theme for the look and feel. I was only working on getting some marketing content in place. From aahz at pythoncraft.com Sun Aug 24 21:13:43 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:18 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] PWC: informal announcement Message-ID: <20030823221403.GA18750@panix.com> [This was supposed to go out a couple of days ago, but I didn't see the point while the virus storm was at its highest. If you reply to this, please keep it on *one* list.] Some people have been asking who will make decisions regarding the web site. At the most recent PSF board meeting, it was decided that a committee would take over for Guido -- though Guido as BDFL retains the right to veto a recommendation of the committee. There should be little change for most issues, particularly in the short term -- if you've been doing work, just continue what you've been doing. The Python Website Committee (PWC) consists of a cross-section of people in the Python community who've been involved with the web site currently and in the past: Thomas Wouters (chair), sysadmin Aahz, site maintainer Kevin Altis, marketing Fred Drake, documentation Just van Rossum, graphic design Becuase we just received our mandate, we really haven't started operations yet. This is just a heads-up so that people know where to look for decisions. You can reach the PWC through pydotorg-pwc@python.org (Thomas is on vacation until Sept 2, so don't expect to get much response for a while.) -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From barry at python.org Sun Aug 24 23:24:23 2003 From: barry at python.org (Barry Warsaw) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:21 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [Pydotorg] PWC: informal announcement In-Reply-To: <20030823221403.GA18750@panix.com> References: <20030823221403.GA18750@panix.com> Message-ID: <1061781833.4397.8.camel@geddy> On Sat, 2003-08-23 at 18:14, Aahz wrote: > (Thomas is on vacation until Sept 2, so don't expect to get much > response for a while.) I have no time to be involved, and I trust those already on the committee to DTRT, but if you need some sysadmin'ing in the meantime, give me a holler. -Barry From lac at strakt.com Mon Aug 25 11:06:28 2003 From: lac at strakt.com (Laura Creighton) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:23 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] idea I had (expressed in the wrong forum) Message-ID: <200308251506.h7PF6HOK015332@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> I am envisioning the new python website as having a separate section for IT Managers, Programmers, Educators, Journalists -- what have you -- wherever we want to have a special focused message about how Python is good for their particular needs. Then I had this idea for the bottom of the page. Something like: Journalist? (or whoevers pages we are in at this time). Help us improve our website. Click here to tell us what worked for you, what didn't, and your ideas, questions, comments and suggestions. Then give them a way a) to mail us something and maybe b) a way to answer a short poll about their experience. THey don't have to do this, but some people love polls. What do other people think of this idea? Laura From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 26 09:46:49 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:27 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Plone-based design In-Reply-To: <200308220034.37081.mmclay@comcast.net> References: <20030823221403.GA18750@panix.com> <200308220034.37081.mmclay@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20030826134634.GB23529@panix.com> [Michael, you're not on pydotorg-redesign, where all discussion of long-term changes to the website should take place. Please subscribe if you wish to continue participating in this discussion.] On Fri, Aug 22, 2003, Michael McLay wrote: > > I've been doing some work on a prototype redesign. Please take a look > at: > > http://drydock.python.net:9673/python > > The look is straight plone, with the substitution of a one of the > proposed new logos. Thanks are in order to Stefan Drees and the other > starship webmasters for getting Zope and plone operational on the new > starship. I'm going to oppose any approach that departs too radically from the current approach. I think that a primary navbar on top combined with a secondary navbar on the left side is a highly efficient layout, and I'll need lots of convincing to change my mind. I'm much more amenable to changes in content, site architecture (both navigation/structure and content delivery), and graphic design. I'm sure Plone can do this, I just wanted to be clear. Do keep in mind that you'll need to set up Plone primarily for delivery of static content (see previous threads on pydotorg-redesign for more info). -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz

From walter at livinglogic.de Sat Aug 2 00:20:23 2003 From: walter at livinglogic.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Walter_D=F6rwald?=) Date: Fri Aug 1 17:20:58 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Logo question In-Reply-To: <16168.17293.414460.525716@grendel.zope.com> References: <20030723124057.B18800@crank.slack.net> <20030723135342.C18800@crank.slack.net> <20030723151210.A7513@crank.slack.net> <16158.59288.437198.187484@grendel.zope.com> <3F202AD5.7050209@livinglogic.de> <16160.11440.44419.19749@grendel.zope.com> <3F20FF3A.9040000@livinglogic.de> <16166.48363.975508.393036@grendel.zope.com> <3F279BAE.70500@livinglogic.de> <20030730134026.GA15610@panix.com> <16167.61277.340656.978212@grendel.zope.com> <3F2841AB.20701@livinglogic.de> <16168.17293.414460.525716@grendel.zope.com> Message-ID: <3F2AD997.1090600@livinglogic.de> Fred L. Drake, Jr. wrote: > [...] > > > I hope you'll still be using the .ht as the source format, otherwise > > > life as we know it will end before we're ready! > > > > Sure, I'm not planning to introduce new tools right now. And I'm not > > planning to check in anything major without a review. > > Sounds good. > > Another thing to consider for document-centric content is to rework it > to use reStructuredText; Andrew Kuchling updated HT2HTML to support > that a few days ago, and I just converted doc/Summary.ht to use that; > much nicer than dealing with markup in text! But is reST rich enough and extensible enough? > > My tools don't validate the generated XHTML either, but they make sure > > that the result is well-formed XML and only the elements and attributes > > existing in XHTML are present. E.g. a

nested inside a

isn't > > My htwf.py well-formedness checker for .ht files now checks for this > particular case (well, any block tag inside and open

). Good! > Automating > the check via a validator is probably a good idea and not too > difficult. Should I find the time, I guess I could try an xmlproc based validator. > > OK, I'll post a patch once the bugtracker is in place (and the patch > > is finished ;)) > > More interesting may be the conversion tool. ;-) OK, my first try of a conversion tool is finished. A version of the Python site build from your download tar can be found at: http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org-xhtmlified/ All .ht were transformed with the conversion tool: http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org-xhtmlified/ht2xht.py To run this script, XIST is required (http://www.livinglogic.de/Python/xist/) scripts/ht2html/HTParser.py must be copied to the root directory, and the patch http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org-converted/diff.txt has to be applied to fix the bugs that even tidy can't fix. Bye, Walter D?rwald From skip at pobox.com Tue Aug 5 09:49:52 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Tue Aug 5 09:50:13 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] /psa/ bad link, site redesign progress... Message-ID: <16175.46592.262490.411778@montanaro.dyndns.org> FYI, for the people tackling the /psa/ section, see the attached note. Things seem to have quieted down substantially. Can I take that to mean people are busily working on sections of the redesign? If not, now that we seem to have identified some candidate look-n-feel's, how about working on some overall structure issues? What stays? What goes? What's new? I believe one of the more confusing sections of the site for many people is the download section. For instance, while the front /download/ page isn't too bad, once you dive into a particular section, you're treated with a lot of text and have to pick out the version you want from it, and maybe jump off to other sites to get MacPython or Sean Reifschneider's Red Hat RPMs. I think a tabular layout without any extraneous text would work better. File Platform Signature Python-2.3.exe Windows binary [signature link] Python-2.3.tgz Source, all platforms [signature link] ... Also, note that Jack Jansen has redesigned his MacPython pages to use ht2html and look structurally like the current python.org site. I think it would be best for his separate site to be folded into the main site. (I believe that's his goal.) At that point, his various Mac versions would also be made available in the above proposed table. Another thought while I'm rambling... Solaris tar (at least) has trouble with long paths in the Mac section of the tar file. The current recommendation is that they use GNU tar. Perhaps a better move would be to switch to Zip files. I suspect zip is more widely available than tar, and may not suffer from the path length problems some tar implementations have. Skip -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Guido Draheim Subject: python-dev summary, link grossly outdated Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2003 14:38:53 +0200 Size: 4216 Url: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pydotorg-redesign/attachments/20030805/0a0c1a70/attachment.eml From amk at asti-usa.com Tue Aug 5 11:24:31 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Tue Aug 5 10:25:07 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] /psa/ bad link, site redesign progress... In-Reply-To: <16175.46592.262490.411778@montanaro.dyndns.org> References: <16175.46592.262490.411778@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <20030805142431.GA16047@vail.asti-usa.com> On Tue, Aug 05, 2003 at 08:49:52AM -0500, Skip Montanaro wrote: > FYI, for the people tackling the /psa/ section, see the attached note. This will be taken care of when the /psa/ section disappears. Since no one has commented on the new pages at /community/, I'll assume they're OK and begin updating links to /psa/. > Things seem to have quieted down substantially. Can I take that to mean > people are busily working on sections of the redesign? If not, now that we > seem to have identified some candidate look-n-feel's, how about working on > some overall structure issues? What stays? What goes? What's new? I think we're stuck on the question of choosing a look and feel, because it's unknown it is to choose one. We have a few proposals (the Pollenation mockups, Walter's prototype) but who decides to go with one style or decides that they're all unsuitable? Guido? The PSF Board? The readership of this mailing list? Is anyone going to apply Walter's patch to fix various well-formedness problems? http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org-converted/diff.txt Is Walter going to get CVS commit access, or should I try to check in the changes (I can do that tonight)? --amk (www.amk.ca) Not hat people, are you? Either of you? -- The Doctor, in "Frontios" From walter at livinglogic.de Tue Aug 5 18:23:49 2003 From: walter at livinglogic.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Walter_D=F6rwald?=) Date: Tue Aug 5 11:24:24 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] /psa/ bad link, site redesign progress... In-Reply-To: <20030805142431.GA16047@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <16175.46592.262490.411778@montanaro.dyndns.org> <20030805142431.GA16047@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <3F2FCC05.6020907@livinglogic.de> A.M. Kuchling wrote: > [...] > I think we're stuck on the question of choosing a look and feel, > because it's unknown it is to choose one. We have a few proposals > (the Pollenation mockups, Walter's prototype) but who decides to go > with one style or decides that they're all unsuitable? Guido? The > PSF Board? The readership of this mailing list? We could try a slow migration. The first thing would be to fix fonts and margins etc. in the current style sheet. > Is anyone going to apply Walter's patch to fix various well-formedness > problems? > http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org-converted/diff.txt > Is Walter going to get CVS commit access, That was the plan, but I'm still getting "Permission denied (publickey)" when trying to check out. > or should I try to check in > the changes (I can do that tonight)? That would be great. Bye, Walter D?rwald From fdrake at acm.org Tue Aug 5 12:33:08 2003 From: fdrake at acm.org (Fred L. Drake, Jr.) Date: Tue Aug 5 11:33:44 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] /psa/ bad link, site redesign progress... In-Reply-To: <3F2FCC05.6020907@livinglogic.de> References: <16175.46592.262490.411778@montanaro.dyndns.org> <20030805142431.GA16047@vail.asti-usa.com> <3F2FCC05.6020907@livinglogic.de> Message-ID: <16175.52788.533049.627100@grendel.zope.com> Walter D?rwald writes: > That was the plan, but I'm still getting > "Permission denied (publickey)" when trying to check out. Barry's swamped right now; please send a complete description of the error you're getting to the pydotorg list. You should be on that now... since I just added your name. ;-) -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. PythonLabs at Zope Corporation From amk at asti-usa.com Tue Aug 5 16:40:11 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Tue Aug 5 15:40:49 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] /psa/ bad link, site redesign progress... In-Reply-To: <3F2FCC05.6020907@livinglogic.de> References: <16175.46592.262490.411778@montanaro.dyndns.org> <20030805142431.GA16047@vail.asti-usa.com> <3F2FCC05.6020907@livinglogic.de> Message-ID: <20030805194011.GA10452@vail.asti-usa.com> > >or should I try to check in > >the changes (I can do that tonight)? > > That would be great. It's done. I haven't done a "make install" in all of the relevant directories, though, because once I change the /psa/ link all of the pages will have to be updated anyway. --amk From altis at semi-retired.com Thu Aug 7 13:08:10 2003 From: altis at semi-retired.com (Kevin Altis) Date: Thu Aug 7 15:01:25 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] keep reorganization discussion on pydotorg-redesign? Message-ID: Shouldn't the discussion of reorganizing the top nav and sub-pages stay on pydotorg-redesign? This is part of the overall redesign process and many of the people on the other list are not part of the current pydotorg maintainers list. Also, we probably want to avoid too much churn. If we start making changes to the top nav, help, etc. that are going to be live on python.org then we should go ahead and decide on the process for agreeing on the changes so we can avoid backing them out later. We said we would do mockups and get some general agreement for the home page and sitewide style changes, but are going to apply that to the other reorganization bits like the new community page? I don't want to kill the momentum AMK has going, so let's decide quickly. I'm mostly bringing this up because the top nav is now a topic. ka From fdrake at acm.org Thu Aug 7 16:24:44 2003 From: fdrake at acm.org (Fred L. Drake, Jr.) Date: Thu Aug 7 15:25:21 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [Pydotorg] keep reorganization discussion on pydotorg-redesign? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <16178.42876.214292.408843@grendel.zope.com> Kevin Altis writes: > Shouldn't the discussion of reorganizing the top nav and sub-pages stay on > pydotorg-redesign? This is part of the overall redesign process and many of > the people on the other list are not part of the current pydotorg > maintainers list. That's reasonable. > Also, we probably want to avoid too much churn. If we start making changes > to the top nav, help, etc. that are going to be live on python.org then we > should go ahead and decide on the process for agreeing on the changes so we > can avoid backing them out later. > > We said we would do mockups and get some general agreement for the home page > and sitewide style changes, but are going to apply that to the other > reorganization bits like the new community page? I don't want to kill the > momentum AMK has going, so let's decide quickly. I'm mostly bringing this up > because the top nav is now a topic. There's a real tension here, I think. Everyone involved has the goal of a better site, but different people approach it differently. The incremental approach Andrew is taking has the advantage that the results of the effort are immediate and site visitors can take advantage of them immediately. The planning-first approach allows a considered attack on the problem of organization on the site, and avoids minor churn in favor of a single (really big) churn. Clearly both have merits. The best, of course, is whichever gives us a new site. ;-) So the incremental approach appears to be winning for the organizational aspect: Andrew is chugging right along making changes as he sees fit, with input from others when time is available. If we want to approach site organization with the plan-first approach, someone needs to take the time to write up and propose a new site map. With that in hand, it'll be easier to make the changes needed to implement the new organization. Maybe someone is working on this, but I don't recall hearing about it. This would be a good place for a volunteer to announce their intentions and to post a proposal. I consider the site organization discussion to be separate from the site design discussion, though they are closely related. I'm hoping that the bulk of the changes needed to implement a new design can be made by changing the stylesheets and templating support (what's currently done in HT2HTML), and doing as little as possible in the content itself. -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. PythonLabs at Zope Corporation From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Thu Aug 7 22:22:25 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Thu Aug 7 16:22:56 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [Pydotorg] keep reorganization discussionon pydotorg-redesign? In-Reply-To: <16178.42876.214292.408843@grendel.zope.com> Message-ID: <002a01c35d21$a6526ef0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Fred wrote: >There's a real tension here, I think. Everyone involved has the goal >of a better site, but different people approach it differently. The >incremental approach Andrew is taking has the advantage that the >results of the effort are immediate and site visitors can take >advantage of them immediately. The planning-first approach allows a >considered attack on the problem of organization on the site, and >avoids minor churn in favor of a single (really big) churn. > >Clearly both have merits. The best, of course, is whichever gives us >a new site. ;-) I, personally, have no problems with an incremental approach as long as this does not place limitations on the scope of a pre-planned redesign. However these limitations may occur, they can only act to the detriment of the results of a global re-organisation. >If we want to approach site organization with the plan-first approach, >someone needs to take the time to write up and propose a new site >map. With that in hand, it'll be easier to make the changes needed to >implement the new organization. Maybe someone is working on this, but >I don't recall hearing about it. This would be a good place for a >volunteer to announce their intentions and to post a proposal. We've obviously expressed an interest in taking this further. In addition to the creation of the design, there is a proposed top-level navigation that we would love to get some feedback on (http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/redesign-notes.txt) I realise this is only a set of notes along with a proposal, but hopefully it's a start. At the end of the day the designs suggested need some further work to ensure compatibility with as many browsers as possible and so a decision needs to be made on which will be implemented before that work takes place. >I consider the site organization discussion to be separate from the >site design discussion, though they are closely related. I'm hoping >that the bulk of the changes needed to implement a new design can be >made by changing the stylesheets and templating support (what's >currently done in HT2HTML), and doing as little as possible in the >content itself. I've missed out on whatever threads have taken place on the pydotorg mailing list. I've applied for inclusion and will check the archives when I can. Until that point I can't really comment on what has taken place so far. Obviously the re-organisation will have an incredible impact on usability. If we're keeping these things separate, which list should discussions of site wide navigation versus contextual navigation take place in and ditto for discussion of search related matters. Regardless of those discussions, however, it would be of great benefit to be able to write a script/tool to extract all of the content and remove all 'location' from it (ie links would be pageid's only) in this way it would be a simple matter to re-map to any configuration. If this tool also dumped the output back into HT2HTML format then the site could be reorganised at any point and under whatever reasoning. This ultimately means there is a route to react to feedback upon launch of a beta site. What do people think? Tim Parkin Pollenation Internet tim@pollenation.net From aahz at pythoncraft.com Thu Aug 7 18:47:25 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Thu Aug 7 17:47:30 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [Pydotorg] keep reorganization discussion on pydotorg-redesign? In-Reply-To: <16178.42876.214292.408843@grendel.zope.com> References: <16178.42876.214292.408843@grendel.zope.com> Message-ID: <20030807214725.GB1173@panix.com> On Thu, Aug 07, 2003, Fred L. Drake, Jr. wrote: > > I consider the site organization discussion to be separate from the > site design discussion, though they are closely related. I'm hoping > that the bulk of the changes needed to implement a new design can be > made by changing the stylesheets and templating support (what's > currently done in HT2HTML), and doing as little as possible in the > content itself. Yup. Although AMK hasn't been as active lately, he's got one of the longest tenures of all the webmasters and has seen many of these discussions come and go. All the changes he's been making are ones that have seen some past consensus, and I don't think they impact the current design discussion. If he's got the energy to do it, he should keep going. At the very least, killing /psa/ will lessen the work for the next stage. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From walter at livinglogic.de Fri Aug 8 22:54:57 2003 From: walter at livinglogic.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Walter_D=F6rwald?=) Date: Fri Aug 8 15:55:33 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] /psa/ bad link, site redesign progress... In-Reply-To: <20030805194011.GA10452@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <16175.46592.262490.411778@montanaro.dyndns.org> <20030805142431.GA16047@vail.asti-usa.com> <3F2FCC05.6020907@livinglogic.de> <20030805194011.GA10452@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <3F340011.207@livinglogic.de> A.M. Kuchling wrote: >>>or should I try to check in >>>the changes (I can do that tonight)? >> >>That would be great. > > > It's done. I haven't done a "make install" in all of the relevant > directories, though, because once I change the /psa/ link all of the > pages will have to be updated anyway. I've started working on well-formedness problems for the .htm and .html files in the repository. Here's the patch: http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/diff-html.txt (This covers only a part of the files, and it doesn't make it XHTML (i.e. lowercase names and quoted attributes), but it simplifies the job for the conversion tool. I've someone could OK this patch, I'd check it in. Bye, Walter D?rwald From sdeibel at wingide.com Fri Aug 8 17:12:48 2003 From: sdeibel at wingide.com (Stephan Deibel) Date: Fri Aug 8 16:06:53 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Simplify and prioritize (fwd) Message-ID: This was posted on marketing-python. I thought it contained some valid points. Aahz responding "Color, okay. Graphics and photos, nyet" which is for the most part valid and also matches my own viewpoint for the most part, but on the other hand a site like this www.blender.org seems to do a good job with relatively few graphics + color. OK, I've got DSL and it loaded fast but the point is that adding a few small images here and there (maybe less than in the above) can make things look a lot nicer. I've been off this list for a while so hopefully I'm not revisiting something that's been covered. - Stephan ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 15:28:30 -0400 From: Trevor Toenjes To: marketing-python@wingide.com Subject: [marketing-python] Simplify and prioritize I have gotten enough feedback for some recommendations. python.org's primary purpose is to attract others to the language. That is what everyone on this list is most concerned about. Second, it is to be the launch pad for the community. If we decide we cant accomplish both effectively on the homepage, then I don't think making the community a subdomain or a click-thru would upset the community if they saw Python's popularity grow. It is the job of the marketing group to make those tough target-marketing decisions. The message needs to be "why people use python." Highlight veteran developers and journeymen, er... journeypersons, and their testimonials on the homepage. Just one at a time, though. We either rotate them monthly or randomly display from an archive. (seconds in zope to do either) This list is already generating the direction some of the quotes should go. And, darn it, let's get some color, graphics, and photos on the homepage. If everyone wants to attract new users easier, then let's put some makeup on her and make her kissable. It needs to be more consumer friendly. If you want to attract business-types, then you have no choice but to do this. And all images are watermarked with "PIL Generated." :) (it would be interesting if we became known as the marketing-savvy Open Source development group) :) Highlight one or two top projects ONLY. And this needs to be rotated regularly. Keep the makeup fresh and touchup often. But dont throw too much up at one time, or it will look gaudy and like you are trying too hard. Use BIG NAMES. Use well branded logos and images(that means ones people instantly recognize.) Tease with the top stories and people will dig deeper to find more until they are sold. People in general want to be sold. If we dont close the deal, then that is our fault, and no one elses. _______________________________________________ marketing-python mailing list marketing-python@wingide.com http://pythonology.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-python From python at dylanreinhardt.com Fri Aug 8 21:22:44 2003 From: python at dylanreinhardt.com (Dylan Reinhardt) Date: Fri Aug 8 16:22:45 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <16179.54064.303795.566879@montanaro.dyndns.org> References: <000601c35c6a$485c4080$0200a8c0@b> <20030806150931.GA5777@vail.asti-usa.com> <003001c35de7$54dffda0$0200a8c0@b> <1060359818.19893.53.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16179.54064.303795.566879@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <1060374136.19887.247.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> Hi all, Over on the Marketing Python list, we've had several threads around marketing strategy that have intersected with issues of concern to this group. Several requests have been made to move this discussion over here. One thread in particular that seems to belong here is the Zope question. As a strategic issue, there may be significant value in showcasing Zope. I believe there are also strong arguments to make from a usefulness and manageability standpoint. So here's a post in which I took up the question posted to the other list: why use Zope? >From here, I'll try to keep my web-related advocacy over here where it belongs. :-) Dylan ---- forwarded message follows ---- On Fri, 2003-08-08 at 09:43, Skip Montanaro wrote: > Can you give some reasons why Zope (2 or 3) would be a better way to build > python.org than the current ht2html tools? I expect there are far more than I could think of, but I'm happy to throw out a few. The core advantage of Zope is that it facilitates user participation. Zope (including CMF/Plone) is a very solid platform for building systems that allow users to contribute and manage content. Zope makes it possible to create and manage content without touching the filesystem. Zope provides workflows that ensure that only moderator/editor-approved content may be published. Once content is approved, it can transparently make that content available to the systems used to search the site. Zope's chief advantage, IMO, is that it opens the door to user-contributed howtos, white papers, etc. while significantly *reducing* administrator workload. In a system (such as our current one), content resides on the filesystem. Access to the filesystem is not given out willy-nilly, of course. Thus, the person who is responsible for maintaining the site is pressed into service as the editor/gatekeeper for content. In Zope, content editors/moderators don't need access to the filesystem to perform their responsibilities. The admin is thus freed to focus on what *admins* do, keeping data backed up, logfiles rotated, etc. As roles are more narrowly defined, work becomes easier to delegate. But wait... there's more! Templating is trivially easy. Search functions actually work. Forums are simple. Structured, link-heavy subsystems like the FAQ become far easier to keep up to date. Imagine... to add something to the FAQ, an authorized user might need only to add an FAQ object through the web. That FAQ object has a small number of properties such as an index number, a question string, an answer string and maybe a way of selecting related questions. Once added (and/or approved) the new question/answer is seamlessly integrated into the FAQ index and search function. Roles can be as fine-grained as you wish. If you want to establish different levels of responsibility for contributing an FAQ vs. contributing a howto, you can. If you want to give specific people editorial control, but only over a specific part of the site, that's easy. All that, and replication & caching are trivial. A one-line shell script is all it takes to take a snapshot of a Zope system and cache it locally. Zope is easily integrated with proxying systems like Apache or Squid. Content is easily changed and updated, but the end result is only as dynamic as you choose to make it. Moreover, Zope is easily maintained. If Zope is installed to use the DirectoryStorage product, the Zope database is stored as a collection of files, each of which is basically a pickle of an object in the database. This storage method is easy to back up incrementally and can be copied into a CVS. So... to summarize: 1. User contributions 2. Finer-grained roles 3. Reduction of admin workload 4. Easy replication/caching 5. It's cool as heck I could go on and on... but hopefully that makes enough of a case to determine whether it's worth considering in any greater detail. Dylan From python at dylanreinhardt.com Fri Aug 8 21:30:27 2003 From: python at dylanreinhardt.com (Dylan Reinhardt) Date: Fri Aug 8 16:30:27 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <1060374136.19887.247.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> References: <000601c35c6a$485c4080$0200a8c0@b> <20030806150931.GA5777@vail.asti-usa.com> <003001c35de7$54dffda0$0200a8c0@b> <1060359818.19893.53.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16179.54064.303795.566879@montanaro.dyndns.org> <1060374136.19887.247.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> Message-ID: <1060374598.19893.255.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> Ugh... I meant to send this to where it *really* belongs, pydotorg, not pydotorg-redesign. Sorry for the bother. Dylan On Fri, 2003-08-08 at 13:22, Dylan Reinhardt wrote: > Hi all, > > Over on the Marketing Python list, we've had several threads around marketing strategy that have intersected with issues of concern to this group. Several requests have been made to move this discussion over here. > > One thread in particular that seems to belong here is the Zope question. > > As a strategic issue, there may be significant value in showcasing Zope. I believe there are also strong arguments to make from a usefulness and manageability standpoint. > > So here's a post in which I took up the question posted to the other list: why use Zope? > > >From here, I'll try to keep my web-related advocacy over here where it belongs. :-) > > Dylan > > > ---- forwarded message follows ---- > > On Fri, 2003-08-08 at 09:43, Skip Montanaro wrote: > > Can you give some reasons why Zope (2 or 3) would be a better way to build > > python.org than the current ht2html tools? > > I expect there are far more than I could think of, but I'm happy to > throw out a few. > > The core advantage of Zope is that it facilitates user participation. > Zope (including CMF/Plone) is a very solid platform for building systems > that allow users to contribute and manage content. > > Zope makes it possible to create and manage content without touching the > filesystem. Zope provides workflows that ensure that only > moderator/editor-approved content may be published. Once content is > approved, it can transparently make that content available to the > systems used to search the site. > > Zope's chief advantage, IMO, is that it opens the door to > user-contributed howtos, white papers, etc. while significantly > *reducing* administrator workload. > > In a system (such as our current one), content resides on the > filesystem. Access to the filesystem is not given out willy-nilly, of > course. Thus, the person who is responsible for maintaining the site is > pressed into service as the editor/gatekeeper for content. > > In Zope, content editors/moderators don't need access to the filesystem > to perform their responsibilities. The admin is thus freed to focus on > what *admins* do, keeping data backed up, logfiles rotated, etc. As > roles are more narrowly defined, work becomes easier to delegate. > > But wait... there's more! Templating is trivially easy. Search > functions actually work. Forums are simple. Structured, link-heavy > subsystems like the FAQ become far easier to keep up to date. > > Imagine... to add something to the FAQ, an authorized user might need > only to add an FAQ object through the web. That FAQ object has a small > number of properties such as an index number, a question string, an > answer string and maybe a way of selecting related questions. Once > added (and/or approved) the new question/answer is seamlessly integrated > into the FAQ index and search function. > > Roles can be as fine-grained as you wish. If you want to establish > different levels of responsibility for contributing an FAQ vs. > contributing a howto, you can. If you want to give specific people > editorial control, but only over a specific part of the site, that's > easy. > > All that, and replication & caching are trivial. A one-line shell > script is all it takes to take a snapshot of a Zope system and cache it > locally. Zope is easily integrated with proxying systems like Apache or > Squid. Content is easily changed and updated, but the end result is > only as dynamic as you choose to make it. > > Moreover, Zope is easily maintained. If Zope is installed to use the > DirectoryStorage product, the Zope database is stored as a collection of > files, each of which is basically a pickle of an object in the > database. This storage method is easy to back up incrementally and can > be copied into a CVS. > > So... to summarize: > 1. User contributions > 2. Finer-grained roles > 3. Reduction of admin workload > 4. Easy replication/caching > 5. It's cool as heck > > I could go on and on... but hopefully that makes enough of a case to > determine whether it's worth considering in any greater detail. > > Dylan > > > _______________________________________________ > Pydotorg-redesign mailing list > Pydotorg-redesign@python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pydotorg-redesign From aahz at pythoncraft.com Fri Aug 8 17:48:08 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Fri Aug 8 16:48:12 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <1060374598.19893.255.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> References: <000601c35c6a$485c4080$0200a8c0@b> <20030806150931.GA5777@vail.asti-usa.com> <003001c35de7$54dffda0$0200a8c0@b> <1060359818.19893.53.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16179.54064.303795.566879@montanaro.dyndns.org> <1060374136.19887.247.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <1060374598.19893.255.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> Message-ID: <20030808204808.GB27958@panix.com> On Fri, Aug 08, 2003, Dylan Reinhardt wrote: > > Ugh... I meant to send this to where it *really* belongs, pydotorg, not > pydotorg-redesign. > > Sorry for the bother. Actually, pydotorg-redesign *is* the right place for this now. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Fri Aug 8 22:59:26 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Fri Aug 8 16:59:34 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <20030808204808.GB27958@panix.com> Message-ID: <002901c35def$fa64c1e0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> >On Fri, Aug 08, 2003, Dylan Reinhardt wrote: >> >> Ugh... I meant to send this to where it *really* belongs, pydotorg, not >> pydotorg-redesign. >> >> Sorry for the bother. > >Actually, pydotorg-redesign *is* the right place for this now. I can see a lot of advantages too. What are the disadvantages though? Tim Parkin From sholden at holdenweb.com Fri Aug 8 18:31:46 2003 From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden) Date: Fri Aug 8 17:33:12 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Simplify and prioritize (fwd) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org > [mailto:pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org]On Behalf Of > Stephan Deibel > Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 4:13 PM > To: pydotorg-redesign@python.org > Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Simplify and prioritize (fwd) > [Stephan's top-posting remedied to relieve Aahz' apoplexy ;-] > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 15:28:30 -0400 > From: Trevor Toenjes > To: marketing-python@wingide.com > Subject: [marketing-python] Simplify and prioritize > > I have gotten enough feedback for some recommendations. > > python.org's primary purpose is to attract others to the language. > That is what everyone on this list is most concerned about. > > Second, it is to be the launch pad for the community. > If we decide we cant accomplish both effectively on the homepage, then > I don't think making the community a subdomain or a > click-thru would upset > the community if they saw Python's popularity grow. It is > the job of the > marketing group to make those tough target-marketing decisions. > > The message needs to be "why people use python." > Highlight veteran developers and journeymen, er... > journeypersons, and > their testimonials on the homepage. Just one at a time, > though. We either > rotate them monthly or randomly display from an archive. > (seconds in zope to > do either) > This list is already generating the direction some of the > quotes should go. > > And, darn it, let's get some color, graphics, and photos on > the homepage. > If everyone wants to attract new users easier, then let's put > some makeup on > her and make her kissable. It needs to be more consumer > friendly. If you > want to attract business-types, then you have no choice but > to do this. > > And all images are watermarked with "PIL > Generated." :) > (it would be interesting if we became known as the > marketing-savvy Open > Source development group) :) > > Highlight one or two top projects ONLY. And this needs to be rotated > regularly. Keep the makeup fresh and touchup often. But > dont throw too > much up at one time, or it will look gaudy and like you are > trying too hard. > Use BIG NAMES. Use well branded logos and images(that means > ones people > instantly recognize.) Tease with the top stories and people > will dig deeper > to find more until they are sold. > > People in general want to be sold. If we dont close the > deal, then that is > our fault, and no one elses. > -------- End of Original Message -------- > This was posted on marketing-python. I thought it contained > some valid > points. Aahz responding "Color, okay. Graphics and photos, > nyet" which > is for the most part valid and also matches my own viewpoint > for the most > part, but on the other hand a site like this www.blender.org > seems to do a > good job with relatively few graphics + color. > Personally I think a *minimum* amount of photographic-quality graphics is an absolute requirement to make the web site "stand out" from the crowd. Aahz might disagree, but as long as the content makes equal sense in lynx/links I don't see any objection to quite a lot of color and just a little photography. Interestingly the Blender web site looks, from the layout, like it's built in PHP-nuke or something very similar. Such frameworks do make it remarkably easy to manage content. Is creosote so heavily loaded we couldn't consider generating pages per-view? > OK, I've got DSL and it loaded fast but the point is that > adding a few > small images here and there (maybe less than in the above) > can make things > look a lot nicer. > Absolutely. And Trevor's main point, which is that we need to take a more conventional marketing approach, is well made. It's all right saying "if they web site has to be flashy to make them download Python then let them stay away", but this is cutting our noses off to spite our faces. Most readers of this list would stand to benefit, directly or indirectly, from an increase in Python's popularity, and we've been talking about this since before PyCon with precious little to show for it but a few mockups, and Andrew's/Fred's excellent restructuring work on the content. We have some terrific skills at our disposal. The present site shows how sadly they are being underutilized. I think it's time to ask for a BDFL pronouncement on how the webmasters make decisions and who's in charge of the site! > I've been off this list for a while so hopefully I'm not revisiting > something that's been covered. > > - Stephan > You might be, but it could stand to be said again. There's a LOT that could be done to improve the present design even in the framework of the existing content-generation methods. I'm also hoping that we can provide the webmasters with a few simple scripts for tasks like "Add a job posting", "Put a news item in" and so on, but that's another discussion. regards -- Steve Holden http://www.holdenweb.com/ Python Web Programming http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/ From skip at pobox.com Fri Aug 8 17:31:49 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Fri Aug 8 17:34:49 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <002901c35def$fa64c1e0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> References: <20030808204808.GB27958@panix.com> <002901c35def$fa64c1e0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <16180.5829.835303.348532@montanaro.dyndns.org> Tim> I can see a lot of advantages too. What are the disadvantages Tim> though? Since I'm the person who's posted what I feel to be some Zope disadvantages over on marketing-python, I'll refer you to my two most recent posts: http://pythonology.org/pipermail/marketing-python/2003-August/004642.html http://pythonology.org/pipermail/marketing-python/2003-August/004645.html Skip From bac at OCF.Berkeley.EDU Fri Aug 8 15:32:22 2003 From: bac at OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Brett C.) Date: Fri Aug 8 17:42:21 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <002901c35def$fa64c1e0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> References: <002901c35def$fa64c1e0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <3F3416E6.8010407@ocf.berkeley.edu> Tim Parkin wrote: >>On Fri, Aug 08, 2003, Dylan Reinhardt wrote: >> >>>Ugh... I meant to send this to where it *really* belongs, pydotorg, > > not > >>>pydotorg-redesign. >>> >>>Sorry for the bother. >> >>Actually, pydotorg-redesign *is* the right place for this now. > > > I can see a lot of advantages too. What are the disadvantages though? > This idea was thrown out at PyCon during the pydotorg BOF talk. The main problem is that not all of the pydotorg maintainers (including me) know Zope. This would require us to learn how to use the system. Now considering we are all volunteers that might cost us some maintainers or at least stall the move-over if this were to happen. Yes, it was mentioned that the Zope community would probably be willing to help with the setup and transition, but since this is volunteer there is nothing holding them to following through (yes, I am being pessimistic). There is also the issue of the fact that the change-over would have to happen pretty much all at once. At this moment it is piecemeal which has been manageable thanks to the fact that one person (mostly AM Kuchling and Walter Doerwald, I think) can, when they have time, work on a page or section and move it over to a clean layout and such. And Zope will have to work through Lynx for Aahz. =) Personally I am on the fence on this change-over issue. -Brett From Jack.Jansen at cwi.nl Sat Aug 9 00:57:40 2003 From: Jack.Jansen at cwi.nl (Jack Jansen) Date: Fri Aug 8 17:57:52 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <16180.5829.835303.348532@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <54B12120-C9EB-11D7-A50E-000A27B19B96@cwi.nl> On vrijdag, aug 8, 2003, at 23:31 Europe/Amsterdam, Skip Montanaro wrote: > > Tim> I can see a lot of advantages too. What are the disadvantages > Tim> though? > > Since I'm the person who's posted what I feel to be some Zope > disadvantages > over on marketing-python, I'll refer you to my two most recent posts: > > > http://pythonology.org/pipermail/marketing-python/2003-August/ > 004642.html > > http://pythonology.org/pipermail/marketing-python/2003-August/ > 004645.html In addition to those disadvantages, with which I pretty much agree, I fail to see any *real* advantages to using Zope ("real" here as opposed to the publicity value/eat your own dogfood thing). Zope shines when you have lots of active content, we don't. Zope shines when you have distinct groups of designers, programmers and content people, we don't. Zope shines when you need to enforce complicated permissions, we don't. Given the group of people on pydotorg ht2html+cvs+rsync strikes me as being spot-on as the right set of tools for the job. There's definitely of room for improvement (staging, for instance, or an easier way to get out of the rigid ht2html patrix layout), but I see no reason for more than evolutionary change. -- - Jack Jansen http://www.cwi.nl/~jack - - If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma Goldman - From python at dylanreinhardt.com Fri Aug 8 23:26:44 2003 From: python at dylanreinhardt.com (Dylan Reinhardt) Date: Fri Aug 8 18:26:45 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] Can Python compete with Visual Basic? In-Reply-To: <16180.5176.173047.112003@montanaro.dyndns.org> References: <000601c35c6a$485c4080$0200a8c0@b> <20030806150931.GA5777@vail.asti-usa.com> <003001c35de7$54dffda0$0200a8c0@b> <1060359818.19893.53.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16179.54064.303795.566879@montanaro.dyndns.org> <1060364697.19893.135.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16180.5176.173047.112003@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <1060381574.19893.567.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> [Forwarding this discussion to pydotorg-redesign as requested] On Fri, 2003-08-08 at 14:20, Skip Montanaro wrote: > (See my response to Aahz's note for some of my problems with Zope.) > > Dylan> The core advantage of Zope is that it facilitates user > Dylan> participation. Zope (including CMF/Plone) is a very solid > Dylan> platform for building systems that allow users to contribute and > Dylan> manage content. > > I see that as a plus, though more so in situations where you have either a > huge number of contributors, It's tough to know how many contributors the would have if contributions were easier to make. At present, the number of people who contribute to c.l.python are probably a good estimate of the upper bound. The number who already contribute content to python.org are a fair lower bound estimate. > or where you have contributors who are likely > to be antagonistic toward one another *That* I can't speak to... :-) > Editorial oversight - good, no filesystem involvement - I'm not so sure > about. Just to clarify... all this information *does* get written to the filesystem. It's just that access to the filesystem is mediated through Zope. The information is saved to disk, shell access isn't required. > That would be good if we had people beating the doors down to contribute. > We need more domain-specific contributors, not generalists like me. Again, tough to know what we *might* have if we did more to encourage contributions. Maybe this is a case of "if you build it, they will come" or maybe it isn't. > Understood. Roles is one of Zope's strong points. One of Python's mantras > is, "we're all adults here". In the context of the website that means I'm > responsible enough to keep my fingers out of the stuff I don't know about. > Barry doesn't have to constrain my administrative privileges. Trusting of your team's good judgment is an approach that works well for a small group of hand-picked admins. It doesn't scale well. > How about the 60+ www.python.org mirrors? Would they have to run Zope to be > a mirror? Nope. Zope returns HTML. Mirroring a Zope CMS can be as easy as having a cron job copy the output of a wget -r into the appropriate htdocs directory. Bear in mind, that's a *content* system I'm talking about being easy to cache. Caching content objects is easy because you have (at any given time) a finite number of objects and a finite number of ways of rendering each one. If your system needs to perform logic to render an essentially infinite number of possible application states, caching is far trickier. I doubt we need (or want) a full web application running python.org. > Copied into CVS, or can a CVS (or some other source code) repository sit > behind it, automatically checking in updates as I make changes through the > web? I think you *can* store the live data in CVS, but as I recall, using a copy was recommended. I believe that was more of a performance issue than a technical limitation. If this turns out to be important, I'd be happy to do some research on what the current thinking is. > I'm not suggesting Zope isn't good stuff. I'm not convinced though that it > is the right tool for this particular job. Of course. No sense putting the solution before the requirements. On the other hand, looking at what the solution offers may suggest requirements that are worth embracing. > If we are looking to more > prominently feature Python-based tools in the construction of > www.python.org, then we should consider all options. Sure. > There are many other > Python-based content management tools out there and most, if not all of them > are newer than Zope. But are they newer *and* more useful than Zope? Also, let's not forget that newer is not necessarily more impressive to certain types of people. *Established* and *stable* may be far stronger qualities to software evaluators and other fiscal-minded types. > If Zope was a true one-size-fits-all content > management system I doubt these other options would have popped up. I wonder. Hanging out on c.l.python, I sense a real reluctance to support Zope. I don't know what the history is there, but something seems to be muddying the waters besides technical considerations. Products like Twisted may overlap (some) with Zope, but serve an obviously different set of needs. It makes sense that both Twisted and Zope exist. I'm not sure at makes sense that we have so many different templating systems. :-) Dylan From python at dylanreinhardt.com Fri Aug 8 23:39:45 2003 From: python at dylanreinhardt.com (Dylan Reinhardt) Date: Fri Aug 8 18:39:46 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <54B12120-C9EB-11D7-A50E-000A27B19B96@cwi.nl> References: <54B12120-C9EB-11D7-A50E-000A27B19B96@cwi.nl> Message-ID: <1060382353.19893.598.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> On Fri, 2003-08-08 at 14:57, Jack Jansen wrote: > In addition to those disadvantages, with which I pretty much agree, I > fail > to see any *real* advantages to using Zope ("real" here as opposed to > the > publicity value/eat your own dogfood thing). A substantial goal in its own right... but not a technical requirement. > Zope shines when you have lots of active content, we don't. Zope shines > when > you have distinct groups of designers, programmers and content people, > we > don't. Zope shines when you need to enforce complicated permissions, we > don't. Absolutely true and somewhat circular. We *can't* do dynamic content management now, therefore we don't. It follows that a system that *does* offer dynamic content management is not required... after all, we don't do it now, do we? I'm not saying we should choose tools and then *find* uses for them... but neither should we let our goals become unduly constrained by what we've been able to accomplish in the past. FWIW, Dylan From altis at semi-retired.com Fri Aug 8 17:04:20 2003 From: altis at semi-retired.com (Kevin Altis) Date: Fri Aug 8 18:57:36 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <54B12120-C9EB-11D7-A50E-000A27B19B96@cwi.nl> Message-ID: > From: Jack Jansen > > On vrijdag, aug 8, 2003, at 23:31 Europe/Amsterdam, Skip Montanaro > wrote: > > > > > Tim> I can see a lot of advantages too. What are the disadvantages > > Tim> though? > > > > Since I'm the person who's posted what I feel to be some Zope > > disadvantages > > over on marketing-python, I'll refer you to my two most recent posts: > > > > > > http://pythonology.org/pipermail/marketing-python/2003-August/ > > 004642.html > > > > http://pythonology.org/pipermail/marketing-python/2003-August/ > > 004645.html > > In addition to those disadvantages, with which I pretty much agree, I > fail > to see any *real* advantages to using Zope ("real" here as opposed to > the > publicity value/eat your own dogfood thing). > > Zope shines when you have lots of active content, we don't. Zope shines > when > you have distinct groups of designers, programmers and content people, > we > don't. Zope shines when you need to enforce complicated permissions, we > don't. > > Given the group of people on pydotorg ht2html+cvs+rsync strikes me as > being > spot-on as the right set of tools for the job. There's definitely of > room for > improvement (staging, for instance, or an easier way to get out of the > rigid ht2html patrix layout), but I see no reason for more than > evolutionary > change. That sums up the issue pretty well, the people and process of today versus where we might go in the future. Also, you touched on why change is or isn't needed and the timeframe. python.org is being maintained today in what I would describe as, not surprisingly, a way that only appeals to sys admin and programmer types and the process doesn't scale well. I understand why the current process is what it is, but as part of the redesign process we said we were going to improve the day to day maintainence and reduce the workload of the people involved. At the heart of the Zope issue is that of using a content management system (CMS) more sophisticated than cvs and a script to apply a template. Some sort of CMS is almost certainly needed before the day to day content updates can be handled by new blood that are less command-line oriented and the system can tolerate a mistyped command or flag. Writers, editorial, managers, designers, etc. that normally drive day to day site changes can't really use the current system. I'll go ahead and say that I think it would be a nice goal to be able to have python.org content managed by those kinds of folks and not the programmers who would rather be doing something else with their time. Of course, many of the same people managing content today will also want to contribute in the future, so the CMS has to balance their usage requirements too. I'm not advocating Zope here, I'm just trying to define what the real needs are today as well as what they would be in the future to continue to improve the python.org site. Please add to or correct the answers below. I'm just gonna braindump some ideas in no particular order. Q: Should we have a staging server? A: Probably Q: Does using Zope or another system for CMS mean that content has to be served dynamically? A: I don't think so. The staging server might be the CMS and python.org and its mirrors would be based on that. That is a pretty common setup. python.org doesn't have dynamic database driven content (except the wiki), shopping carts, etc. AFAIK Q: How much traffic do the mirror sites get? A: ? Q: Which parts of the site today are dynamic and are not mirrored? A: The wiki, search, some CGI scripts, anything else? It would be worth repeating the different sections that make up the site like the main docs which are not part of the cvs and ht2html process, IIRC. Q: Do we need personalized content pages on the main site? A: Probably not on the main site, but like CVS, the wiki, and any staging server with a CMS should support user login for editorial workflow... Q: What are the active portions of the content other than the wiki? A: This is the day to day work of pydotorg, right? So job postings, events, submissions for user groups. What else? What messages to webmaster@python.org result in the site needing changes? Q: If there was a CMS like Zope/Plone, how would changes to the site be tracked and could changes be backed out? A: ? Q: Could/should the CMS incorporate changes from the command-line, static page additions, or something outside the normal CMS interface which is likely browser-based? A: I would think so if the CMS is done in Python. Q: Can the wiki page templates be made to follow the new site templates? A: Hopefully On a related note, there seems to be some consensus that the wiki is ugly and helps make finding answers on python.org even harder (separate nav, separate search, separate layout style). The fact that some content has migrated out of the normal pydotorg tree and into the wiki to simplify maintainence might be indicative of the need for a real CMS and more writer/editorial labor. Q: Can the current process evolve in stages to a CMS? A: I think so. That's more than I intended to spew. Hopefully, this will create some more talking points. ka From Jack.Jansen at cwi.nl Sat Aug 9 02:12:59 2003 From: Jack.Jansen at cwi.nl (Jack Jansen) Date: Fri Aug 8 19:13:03 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <1060382353.19893.598.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> Message-ID: I stand corrected, Kevin and Dylan are probably right that my reasoning is somewhat circular: the current tools are right for the current crowd and the current tasks because they co-evolved. -- - Jack Jansen http://www.cwi.nl/~jack - - If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma Goldman - From barry at python.org Sat Aug 9 00:14:00 2003 From: barry at python.org (Barry Warsaw) Date: Fri Aug 8 19:15:29 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg] RE: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1060384405.2078.50.camel@yyz> On Fri, 2003-08-08 at 19:04, Kevin Altis wrote: > That sums up the issue pretty well, the people and process of today versus > where we might go in the future. Also, you touched on why change is or isn't > needed and the timeframe. python.org is being maintained today in what I > would describe as, not surprisingly, a way that only appeals to sys admin > and programmer types and the process doesn't scale well. I understand why > the current process is what it is, but as part of the redesign process we > said we were going to improve the day to day maintainence and reduce the > workload of the people involved. I'll just point out that for some of us , the current set up is a HUGE improvement in the workload over what we used to have. Also, the current setup needs very little babysitting. Except for twiddling a directory permission here and there, and installing an Apache rewrite now and again, the system is more or less self-powered. I applaud and worship the pydotorg and webmaster team for doing such a great job on the content. Any CMS is going to require more care and feeding and certainly a lot of effort to get installed and running (witness new.zope.org). I'm not advocating against it, but we need to be realistic about how much effort we can collectively put into this, given that we're all squeezing in volunteer time. raise-a-million-bucks-a-year-and-count-me-in-ly y'rs, -Barry From skip at pobox.com Fri Aug 8 19:20:34 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Fri Aug 8 19:20:41 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: References: <54B12120-C9EB-11D7-A50E-000A27B19B96@cwi.nl> Message-ID: <16180.12354.381218.167401@montanaro.dyndns.org> (I am just thinking out loud here, not proposing this.) There's a lot of admitted self-interest on the marketing-python mailing list in seeing Python "grow". This means people will have more opportunity for Python jobs. If Zope or a similar content management system replaces the current system, one possible carrot might be that a corner of the python.org website could be used by contributors for personal websites. Maybe it's just nerd cachet, but it seems like it would be an attractive enticement. Skip From python at dylanreinhardt.com Sat Aug 9 00:31:12 2003 From: python at dylanreinhardt.com (Dylan Reinhardt) Date: Fri Aug 8 19:31:13 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1060385437.19893.649.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> On Fri, 2003-08-08 at 16:04, Kevin Altis wrote: > Q: Does using Zope or another system for CMS mean that content has to be > served dynamically? > A: I don't think so. The staging server might be the CMS and python.org and > its mirrors would be based on that. That is a pretty common setup. > python.org doesn't have dynamic database driven content (except the wiki), > shopping carts, etc. AFAIK You are correct. Using Zope does not inherently impose any requirement that content be served dynamically. > Q: If there was a CMS like Zope/Plone, how would changes to the site be > tracked and could changes be backed out? > A: ? If the chosen CMS were Zope/Plone, changes can be tracked in a number of ways. Zope provides its own version control, allowing you to revert to old versions of objects. There is a trade-off, however, for the longer you store history, the larger (and faster) your database grows. Version rollback through Zope can raise dependency issues in certain cases. A more robust system for revision control is provided when Zope's database is stored as a collection of files, one per object revision. When stored this way, Zope's entire data set can be managed with your favorite revision control tools. So, in a nutshell, yes. It can be done through-the-web *and* it can be done correctly. :-) > > Q: Could/should the CMS incorporate changes from the command-line, static > page additions, or something outside the normal CMS interface which is > likely browser-based? > A: I would think so if the CMS is done in Python. A running Zope process is easily scripted from shell and a non-running Zope installation can be imported and controlled by a Python script. Furthermore, it is easy (given the right privileges) to import static files in as Zope objects. > Q: Can the current process evolve in stages to a CMS? > A: I think so. Evolutionary change is both possible and advisable. As one example, it would be easy enough to create a subdomain that is managed by Zope and leave everything else as it is. You could use a CMS to provide a howto/whitepaper library. If that sucks, nothing's lost... the existing site still works. If the file library takes off, maybe we'll have other ideas of what we should be doing in a CMS. Or maybe we'll be happy with what we have. Seems win-win to me. Dylan From amk at amk.ca Fri Aug 8 20:41:17 2003 From: amk at amk.ca (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Fri Aug 8 19:44:01 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <1060381574.19893.567.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> Message-ID: On Friday, August 8, 2003, at 06:26 PM, Dylan Reinhardt wrote: > At present, the number of people who contribute to c.l.python are > probably a good estimate of the upper bound. The number who already > contribute content to python.org are a fair lower bound estimate. In fact the existing FAQ is already open to be edited by anyone through the FAQwizard script. The result has been a FAQ with uneven quality, uneven relevance, and many, *many* outdated questions. The nature of the web interface means it's much harder to revise the FAQ; there's no way to break up the sections, no way to rearrange questions, no way to do a search-and-replace over the entire FAQ ... Despite the FAQ being open to anyone for editing, no one edits it. I don't believe switching to Zope will magically result in a flood of command-line fearful people suddenly appearing and offering to maintain extensive documentation collections. The Wiki seems to be used mostly for pages of links, not extensive text; we could implement a little link-tree-editing application and get much of the same effect as the Wiki. Stray thought: are there a few people who do a majority of the Wiki maintenance? If yes, we should invite them to get commit access for pydotorg. Is there a way to get a full list of people who've edited pages? > I wonder. Hanging out on c.l.python, I sense a real reluctance to > support Zope. I don't know what the history is there, but something > seems to be muddying the waters besides technical considerations. Every complaint I've seen has been technical; even developers of competing systems are still friends with the Zope people. I wrote up http://www.amk.ca/python/writing/why-not-zope.html as an explanation of why one project I worked on no longer uses Zope. --amk From python at dylanreinhardt.com Sat Aug 9 00:50:29 2003 From: python at dylanreinhardt.com (Dylan Reinhardt) Date: Fri Aug 8 19:50:31 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg] RE: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <1060384405.2078.50.camel@yyz> References: <1060384405.2078.50.camel@yyz> Message-ID: <1060386601.19887.669.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> On Fri, 2003-08-08 at 16:13, Barry Warsaw wrote: > I applaud and > worship the pydotorg and webmaster team for doing such a great job on > the content. No doubt. Cheers! > > Any CMS is going to require more care and feeding and certainly a lot of > effort to get installed and running (witness new.zope.org). The problem with new.zope.org is pretty unique. Long before Zope *had* CMS tools zope.org had hacked together their own. The real pain of the NZO migration has been the process of bringing all that old stuff forward into the modern era. The process ran longer than they expected and still has a few bugs left in the collector. It's been embarrassing, frankly. But it's not indicative of what challenges a new system would face. > I'm not > advocating against it, but we need to be realistic about how much effort > we can collectively put into this, given that we're all squeezing in > volunteer time. What if I offered to stop pestering the list with hypothetical situations and organized a few Zope hackers to cook up a prototype? I'm envisioning a howto/whitepaper system that could *supplement* the existing python.org, should it be deemed worthy of such a task. I'd be happy to handle hosting until such time as it is integrated into the official site offerings. Any interest? Dylan From aahz at pythoncraft.com Fri Aug 8 21:15:48 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Fri Aug 8 20:15:51 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Simplify and prioritize (fwd) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20030809001548.GB2856@panix.com> [I'm going to be repeating much of what I said to Trevor in response to his private message, but it's faster for me to rewrite that than to get his permission.] On Fri, Aug 08, 2003, Steve Holden wrote: > > [Stephan's top-posting remedied to relieve Aahz' apoplexy ;-] >>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >>> Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 15:28:30 -0400 >>> From: Trevor Toenjes >>> To: marketing-python@wingide.com >>> Subject: [marketing-python] Simplify and prioritize >>> >>> python.org's primary purpose is to attract others to the language. >>> That is what everyone on this list is most concerned about. I'm not sure I agree with this, in the sense that python.org is intended to grab people who've never heard of Python. I believe that python.org is used *after* people have already heard about Python, in order to learn more about Python and to justify using it. That's quite a different marketing perspective. >>> And, darn it, let's get some color, graphics, and photos on the >>> homepage. If everyone wants to attract new users easier, then let's >>> put some makeup on her and make her kissable. It needs to be more >>> consumer friendly. If you want to attract business-types, then you >>> have no choice but to do this. "Consumer friendly" does not directly correlate with graphics and photos. Particularly if my belief is correct, people going to python.org will place their emphasis on finding information. There's also the issue that lots of web research shows that any slow-loading page drives people away. > Stephan Deibel: >> >> This was posted on marketing-python. I thought it contained some >> valid points. Aahz responding "Color, okay. Graphics and photos, >> nyet" which is for the most part valid and also matches my own >> viewpoint for the most part, but on the other hand a site like this >> www.blender.org seems to do a good job with relatively few graphics + >> color. > > Personally I think a *minimum* amount of photographic-quality graphics > is an absolute requirement to make the web site "stand out" from the > crowd. Aahz might disagree, but as long as the content makes equal sense > in lynx/links I don't see any objection to quite a lot of color and just > a little photography. No, a *little* color, otherwise you lose a sense of design coherence. It's also critical that text be dark on a light background for readability (with perhaps a few headlines of light text on dark background for emphasis). I'm not adamantly opposed to visual imagery, but any page had better load in less than thirty seconds on a 33.6 modem. > Interestingly the Blender web site looks, from the layout, like it's > built in PHP-nuke or something very similar. Such frameworks do make it > remarkably easy to manage content. Is creosote so heavily loaded we > couldn't consider generating pages per-view? That's not the issue. The issue is creating the setup. > Absolutely. And Trevor's main point, which is that we need to take a > more conventional marketing approach, is well made. It's all right > saying "if they web site has to be flashy to make them download Python > then let them stay away", but this is cutting our noses off to spite > our faces. But making a flashy web site *will* drive some people away. That's very different from saying that we need an attractive web site. I also don't agree that a "conventional" marketing approach is necessarily what will work best for us. There are many ways of getting attention that conventional marketing doesn't cover. The way I see it, the purpose of the web site is to *support* our other marketing efforts. > We have some terrific skills at our disposal. The present site shows how > sadly they are being underutilized. I think it's time to ask for a BDFL > pronouncement on how the webmasters make decisions and who's in charge > of the site! That seems reasonable to me. But the big question from my POV is how the web site gets maintained, and until some people step forward to show their commitment, the people currently doing the work to maintain the web site should get a collective veto over any changes. Currently, IIRC (and with a little memory help by skimming the pydotorg archives), the people doing most of the website work are: * Aahz * Skip Montanaro * AMK * Fred Drake * Steve Holden * Mats Wichmann with * Barry Warsaw * Greg Ward * Thomas Wouters doing most of the sysadmin work. > You might be, but it could stand to be said again. There's a LOT that > could be done to improve the present design even in the framework of the > existing content-generation methods. Yup. > I'm also hoping that we can provide the webmasters with a few simple > scripts for tasks like "Add a job posting", "Put a news item in" and so > on, but that's another discussion. That would be delightful, and I certainly don't consider it another discussion -- that's at the root of much of my opposition to some of the ideas that have come up. I don't have the experience or the mental bandwidth to make such improvements, but I'm not willing to let the currently minimal level of website maintenance get uprooted unless it's for something demonstrably better for keeping the website updated. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From aahz at pythoncraft.com Fri Aug 8 21:18:54 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Fri Aug 8 20:18:56 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <54B12120-C9EB-11D7-A50E-000A27B19B96@cwi.nl> References: <16180.5829.835303.348532@montanaro.dyndns.org> <54B12120-C9EB-11D7-A50E-000A27B19B96@cwi.nl> Message-ID: <20030809001853.GC2856@panix.com> On Fri, Aug 08, 2003, Jack Jansen wrote: > > Zope shines when you have lots of active content, we don't. Zope > shines when you have distinct groups of designers, programmers and > content people, we don't. Zope shines when you need to enforce > complicated permissions, we don't. Quite frankly, I'd really love to have a more-complicated permission system than we currently have because that would make it easier to offload sections of the web site. That IMO is the primary reason for switching to Zope or something else, in fact. But doing it *right* with the resources we have is something I worry about. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From aahz at pythoncraft.com Fri Aug 8 21:23:50 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Fri Aug 8 20:23:52 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Experimenting with subdomains In-Reply-To: <1060385437.19893.649.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> References: <1060385437.19893.649.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> Message-ID: <20030809002350.GD2856@panix.com> On Fri, Aug 08, 2003, Dylan Reinhardt wrote: > > As one example, it would be easy enough to create a subdomain that is > managed by Zope and leave everything else as it is. You could use a > CMS to provide a howto/whitepaper library. If that sucks, nothing's > lost... the existing site still works. If the file library takes off, > maybe we'll have other ideas of what we should be doing in a CMS. Or > maybe we'll be happy with what we have. Seems win-win to me. This raises another issue that has stalled some work in the past: CNRI still owns python.org as a domain, restricting our ability to create subdomains. Until that changes (and the PSF *is* working on this), our ability to experiment is somewhat limited. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From aahz at pythoncraft.com Fri Aug 8 21:24:58 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Fri Aug 8 20:25:01 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <3F3416E6.8010407@ocf.berkeley.edu> References: <002901c35def$fa64c1e0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> <3F3416E6.8010407@ocf.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <20030809002458.GE2856@panix.com> On Fri, Aug 08, 2003, Brett C. wrote: > > And Zope will have to work through Lynx for Aahz. =) I'm not anticipating that this will be a problem. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From aahz at pythoncraft.com Fri Aug 8 21:29:39 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Fri Aug 8 20:29:42 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] python.org content management In-Reply-To: <16180.5176.173047.112003@montanaro.dyndns.org> References: <000601c35c6a$485c4080$0200a8c0@b> <20030806150931.GA5777@vail.asti-usa.com> <003001c35de7$54dffda0$0200a8c0@b> <1060359818.19893.53.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16179.54064.303795.566879@montanaro.dyndns.org> <1060364697.19893.135.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16180.5176.173047.112003@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <20030809002939.GF2856@panix.com> On Fri, Aug 08, 2003, Skip Montanaro wrote: > > I'm not suggesting Zope isn't good stuff. I'm not convinced though > that it is the right tool for this particular job. If we are looking > to more prominently feature Python-based tools in the construction of > www.python.org, then we should consider all options. There are many > other Python-based content management tools out there and most, if not > all of them are newer than Zope. If Zope was a true one-size-fits-all > content management system I doubt these other options would have > popped up. Are there? Non-Zope CMS solutions? I've seen a lot of web frameworks, but damn few that appear to address CMS in particular. Am I missing something? -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From richard at mechanicalcat.net Sat Aug 9 13:57:38 2003 From: richard at mechanicalcat.net (Richard Jones) Date: Fri Aug 8 22:57:53 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Roundup field list In-Reply-To: <20030729014451.GA5770@panix.com> References: <20030419010224.GA3613@panix.com> <200304241403.49935.richard@mechanicalcat.net> <20030729014451.GA5770@panix.com> Message-ID: <200308091257.42470.richard@mechanicalcat.net> On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 11:44 am, Aahz wrote: > [After a long delay....] :) > On Thu, Apr 24, 2003, Richard Jones wrote: > > On Sat, 19 Apr 2003 11:02 am, Aahz wrote: > >> Submitter > >> Do we need a separate field for e-mail address, or is an RFC-822 > >> field good enough for both? Should there be a separate Creator > >> field for Roundup users (defaults to "Roundup" when created by e-mail)? > > > > Submitters are automatically registered with the tracker - but they're > > given no permissions for actually accessing it beyond the email > > interface. > > > > This is "creator" (and also "author" of the initial sbumission > > message) in the classic Roundup schema. > > Okie-doke. How does an auto-user get a password? They visit the tracker and use the "forgotten password" form. > >> Reviewer > >> We don't need this now, but I'd expect we'll need it once we start > >> really moving forward with a site redesign. > > > > No problem - what automatic behaviours would you see attached to the > > reviewer property? > > Gets treated as owner for now (in terms of notifications). Yes, we > could just keep changing assignedto, but my experience is that makes it > harder to read for people not directly in the loop. > > > Here's the complete list of proposed fields: [snip] So, where to from here? Richard -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: signature Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pydotorg-redesign/attachments/20030809/684fa8f8/attachment-0001.bin From sholden at holdenweb.com Sat Aug 9 11:19:18 2003 From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden) Date: Sat Aug 9 10:21:11 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <1060385437.19893.649.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org > [mailto:pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org]On Behalf Of Dylan > Reinhardt > Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 7:31 PM > To: Kevin Altis > Cc: pydotorg@python.org; pydotorg-redesign@python.org > Subject: RE: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question > [...] > > Evolutionary change is both possible and advisable. > > As one example, it would be easy enough to create a subdomain that is > managed by Zope and leave everything else as it is. You > could use a CMS > to provide a howto/whitepaper library. If that sucks, > nothing's lost... > the existing site still works. If the file library takes off, maybe > we'll have other ideas of what we should be doing in a CMS. Or maybe > we'll be happy with what we have. Seems win-win to me. > Now *that's* a good way to introduce these methods. Personally, as a technical type with a business hat I'm very interested in seeing the marketing types (e.g. Trevor Toenjes) get to work on some decent marketing content for Python. regards -- Steve Holden http://www.holdenweb.com/ Python Web Programming http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/ > From altis at semi-retired.com Sat Aug 9 08:38:30 2003 From: altis at semi-retired.com (Kevin Altis) Date: Sat Aug 9 10:31:32 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] FW: PQR 2.2 going to move to Simon's page? Message-ID: Just an idea for the python.org documentation page. THE PQR can be pretty handy. ka -----Original Message----- From: Richard Gruet Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 4:29 AM To: Kevin Altis Subject: Re: PQR 2.2 going to move to Simon's page? Hi Kevin I was just wondering the same ;-) I asked - and even beseeched - Simon to update his site many times, but for an unknown and incomprehensible reason (madness, laziness - I exclude death because he's still activeon the net -), he never did it, which I find regrettable since there are links to his PQR page which get now outdated. Maybe you can try to mail him and ask for the change, he is welcome to sync with my page... So my page http://rgruet.free.fr/#QuickRef is de facto the official home. Regarding the python.org documentation tree, are you refering to the links on html pages, the official manual pages or the CVS ? Recently, the http://www.python.org/doc/Intros.html still correctly linked to my page after I asked for the change, but I now realize that it's again pointing at Simon's page !?! I have personally nothing against including the PQR as part of the official documentation, but I think it'd be enough to correctly reference it from http://www.python.org/doc/ under "Quick references" for example (the organisation of python.org is somehow confusing, it's strange that the quick ref is in the section "introductory material on Python" ??). As for the CVS, I learned that Raymond Hettinger had made his own version of the PQR2.3, from PQR 2.0 (!) without thinking to mail me about his project, when he suddenly realized that I existed when I issued the PQR2.2. He then generously proposed me to join his effort and add my corrections to his version. To me the contrary seemed more sensible (his version had missed many changes since 2.0), so I declined the invitation (and he didn't bother answering to mine). The conclusion is that maybe you will have two PQR 2.3. I plan to update the PQR to 2.3 one of this day, I swear, I'm currently looking at the changes in 2.3. Richard ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kevin Altis" To: Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 7:32 AM Subject: PQR 2.2 going to move to Simon's page? > Hey Richard, > just wondering if the 2.2 quick reference is ever going to move to Simon's > PQR page or if your page will remain the official home? OTOH, maybe the > quick reference should just live on python.org as part of the documenation > tree? > > I don't suppose you're looking into a 2.3 update? ;-) > > ka > From sholden at holdenweb.com Sat Aug 9 11:31:48 2003 From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden) Date: Sat Aug 9 10:33:36 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Simplify and prioritize (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20030809001548.GB2856@panix.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Aahz [mailto:aahz@pythoncraft.com] > Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 8:16 PM > To: Steve Holden > Cc: pydotorg-redesign@python.org > Subject: Re: [Pydotorg-redesign] Simplify and prioritize (fwd) > > > [I'm going to be repeating much of what I said to Trevor in > response to > his private message, but it's faster for me to rewrite that > than to get > his permission.] > > On Fri, Aug 08, 2003, Steve Holden wrote: > > > > [Stephan's top-posting remedied to relieve Aahz' apoplexy ;-] > > > > >>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > >>> Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 15:28:30 -0400 > >>> From: Trevor Toenjes > >>> To: marketing-python@wingide.com > >>> Subject: [marketing-python] Simplify and prioritize > >>> > >>> python.org's primary purpose is to attract others to the language. > >>> That is what everyone on this list is most concerned about. > > I'm not sure I agree with this, in the sense that python.org > is intended > to grab people who've never heard of Python. I believe that > python.org > is used *after* people have already heard about Python, in > order to learn > more about Python and to justify using it. That's quite a different > marketing perspective. > Possibly so, but I don't see a more relevant vehicle than www.python.org for the purpose. Are you suggesting that other existing channels do the job? > >>> And, darn it, let's get some color, graphics, and photos on the > >>> homepage. If everyone wants to attract new users easier, > then let's > >>> put some makeup on her and make her kissable. It needs to be more > >>> consumer friendly. If you want to attract > business-types, then you > >>> have no choice but to do this. > > "Consumer friendly" does not directly correlate with graphics > and photos. > Particularly if my belief is correct, people going to python.org will > place their emphasis on finding information. There's also > the issue that > lots of web research shows that any slow-loading page drives > people away. > Sorry, you are just plain wrong here. A *modest* amount of graphical content makes even technical material more likely to be read. I'd be perfectly happy to accept an overhead of (say) 20k per page just to see some visual interest in the pages. > > Stephan Deibel: > >> > >> This was posted on marketing-python. I thought it contained some > >> valid points. Aahz responding "Color, okay. Graphics and photos, > >> nyet" which is for the most part valid and also matches my own > >> viewpoint for the most part, but on the other hand a site like this > >> www.blender.org seems to do a good job with relatively few > graphics + > >> color. > > > > Personally I think a *minimum* amount of > photographic-quality graphics > > is an absolute requirement to make the web site "stand out" from the > > crowd. Aahz might disagree, but as long as the content > makes equal sense > > in lynx/links I don't see any objection to quite a lot of > color and just > > a little photography. > > No, a *little* color, otherwise you lose a sense of design coherence. > It's also critical that text be dark on a light background for > readability (with perhaps a few headlines of light text on dark > background for emphasis). I'm not adamantly opposed to > visual imagery, > but any page had better load in less than thirty seconds on a > 33.6 modem. > So turn this into content ... 33.6 kbit/s = practically maybe 2 kbyte/s allowing for some communications lag. So you appear to think 60k is an upper limit on content? > > Interestingly the Blender web site looks, from the layout, like it's > > built in PHP-nuke or something very similar. Such > frameworks do make it > > remarkably easy to manage content. Is creosote so heavily loaded we > > couldn't consider generating pages per-view? > > That's not the issue. The issue is creating the setup. > OK. > > Absolutely. And Trevor's main point, which is that we need to take a > > more conventional marketing approach, is well made. It's all right > > saying "if they web site has to be flashy to make them > download Python > > then let them stay away", but this is cutting our noses off to spite > > our faces. > > But making a flashy web site *will* drive some people away. > That's very > different from saying that we need an attractive web site. I > also don't > agree that a "conventional" marketing approach is necessarily > what will > work best for us. There are many ways of getting attention that > conventional marketing doesn't cover. The way I see it, the > purpose of > the web site is to *support* our other marketing efforts. > So maybe flashy was a bad choice of word: how about "professional"? All I'm saying is that I'd prefer something that looks like it was designed, not just thrown together by a bunch of techies. > > We have some terrific skills at our disposal. The present > site shows how > > sadly they are being underutilized. I think it's time to > ask for a BDFL > > pronouncement on how the webmasters make decisions and > who's in charge > > of the site! > > That seems reasonable to me. But the big question from my > POV is how the > web site gets maintained, and until some people step forward to show > their commitment, the people currently doing the work to > maintain the web > site should get a collective veto over any changes. > Currently, IIRC (and > with a little memory help by skimming the pydotorg archives), > the people > doing most of the website work are: > > * Aahz > * Skip Montanaro > * AMK > * Fred Drake > * Steve Holden > * Mats Wichmann > > with > > * Barry Warsaw > * Greg Ward > * Thomas Wouters > > doing most of the sysadmin work. > Yup. And most of my contributions recently have just been handling low-level email and getting involved in this discussion. > > You might be, but it could stand to be said again. There's > a LOT that > > could be done to improve the present design even in the > framework of the > > existing content-generation methods. > > Yup. > > > I'm also hoping that we can provide the webmasters with a few simple > > scripts for tasks like "Add a job posting", "Put a news > item in" and so > > on, but that's another discussion. > > That would be delightful, and I certainly don't consider it another > discussion -- that's at the root of much of my opposition to > some of the > ideas that have come up. I don't have the experience or the mental > bandwidth to make such improvements, but I'm not willing to let the > currently minimal level of website maintenance get uprooted > unless it's > for something demonstrably better for keeping the website updated. Well, we can probably all agree that we don't want to increase our webmaster workload. By the same token, I don't want to limit the content to what we can produce using our existing methods. I think the idea of mapping a portion of the site to a separate Zope/Plone server maintained by "the marketing crew" (whoever they turn out to be) might be the best solution. If they evolve certain ideas that can be reflected in the overall site (such as changes in look which can be reflected in the template) or if they can take over more of the existing site's content over time then that would be to everyone's advantage. Let's not turn away volunteers just because they're less comfortable with the command line than we are! regards -- Steve Holden http://www.holdenweb.com/ Python Web Programming http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/ From sholden at holdenweb.com Sat Aug 9 11:33:34 2003 From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden) Date: Sat Aug 9 10:35:22 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Experimenting with subdomains In-Reply-To: <20030809002350.GD2856@panix.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org > [mailto:pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org]On Behalf Of Aahz > Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 8:24 PM > To: pydotorg-redesign@python.org > Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Experimenting with subdomains > > > On Fri, Aug 08, 2003, Dylan Reinhardt wrote: > > > > As one example, it would be easy enough to create a > subdomain that is > > managed by Zope and leave everything else as it is. You could use a > > CMS to provide a howto/whitepaper library. If that sucks, nothing's > > lost... the existing site still works. If the file library > takes off, > > maybe we'll have other ideas of what we should be doing in > a CMS. Or > > maybe we'll be happy with what we have. Seems win-win to me. > > This raises another issue that has stalled some work in the past: CNRI > still owns python.org as a domain, restricting our ability to create > subdomains. Until that changes (and the PSF *is* working on > this), our > ability to experiment is somewhat limited. Couldn't we map a subdirectory to either redirect it to another server or have our server apply to another server for the content? -- Steve Holden http://www.holdenweb.com/ Python Web Programming http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/ From aahz at pythoncraft.com Sat Aug 9 11:42:46 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Aug 9 10:42:49 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Experimenting with subdomains In-Reply-To: References: <20030809002350.GD2856@panix.com> Message-ID: <20030809144246.GA9519@panix.com> On Sat, Aug 09, 2003, Steve Holden wrote: > > Couldn't we map a subdirectory to either redirect it to another server > or have our server apply to another server for the content? In theory, yes; in practice, I'm not thrilled because of the mirror issue. For strictly experimental work, I think it'd be fine to use an HTML refresh. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From python at dylanreinhardt.com Sat Aug 9 16:34:56 2003 From: python at dylanreinhardt.com (Dylan Reinhardt) Date: Sat Aug 9 11:34:57 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] a modest proposal In-Reply-To: <20030809002939.GF2856@panix.com> References: <000601c35c6a$485c4080$0200a8c0@b> <20030806150931.GA5777@vail.asti-usa.com> <003001c35de7$54dffda0$0200a8c0@b> <1060359818.19893.53.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16179.54064.303795.566879@montanaro.dyndns.org> <1060364697.19893.135.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16180.5176.173047.112003@montanaro.dyndns.org> <20030809002939.GF2856@panix.com> Message-ID: <1060443268.19893.1552.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> I tossed around an idea in the bottom of a couple posts that probably should have gotten its own thread. So here it is. Would this group be willing to evaluate a demo of a Zope-based CMS that could *supplement* the current offerings at python.org? If y'all are willing to look at it, I'd be willing to assemble a small team to do it. I propose to create a system that could serve as the definitive repository of howtos, white papers and other user-created content relating to Python usage (both in general and in specific problem domains). It could catalog recipes and howtos found on other sites as well, reducing duplication and ensuring an authoritative collection. This is well within my level of experience to organize and execute. Truth be told, I was thinking of doing something like this anyway, but it'll get done a lot faster if this group shows any interest in evaluating it. A system like this could have inestimably greater value as an "official" Python resource than it would as yet another small community web portal. If this could be done such that it required no additional inputs from current maintainers, would you be willing to take a look? Dylan From altis at semi-retired.com Sat Aug 9 10:13:39 2003 From: altis at semi-retired.com (Kevin Altis) Date: Sat Aug 9 12:06:39 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] RE: [marketing-python] Zope and python.org re-design In-Reply-To: <84909BD2-CA7A-11D7-95FC-0050E405C35A@panix.com> Message-ID: > From: Roy Smith > > As a totally unscientific survey, I just looked at a few > language-specific web sites and evaluated them according to my own > personal aesthetic opinions: > > TCL (http://www.tcl.tk/). I like it. Looks professional without being > too glitzy. This is way too busy for me. > Ruby (http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/). Neat and clean, but sort of ugly. > Too monochromatic. Yep, trying to use "Ruby red" everywhere is a bad idea. Worse even than our Blue on blue ;-) > Java (http://java.com/en/index.jsp). Ugly. Overdone and > information-free. Interesting, I never go there. The real Java home page has always been: http://java.sun.com/ which is a completely different experience. I wonder if Sun thinks the only people that will go to java.com are people hearing about Java for the first time and expect a "brochure"? You might also want to look at: http://www.php.net/ http://www.mysql.com/ http://www.postgresql.org/ http://www.blender3d.org/ (the sell) http://www.blender.org/ http://www.microsoft.com/net/ http://www.microsoft.com/net/technical/ http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/ http://msdn.microsoft.com/ http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/ http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/flash/ http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/ http://developer.apple.com/ Notice that like Sun has done with Java, there is a clear difference between what is presented for potential customers and existing customers with .NET, Flash MX, and Blender. Once you've bought into .NET you go to MSDN, with Flash you go to the dev center. Once you're a customer you have a different bookmark that you're going to keep and/or it is basically one click to get from the home page or in the case of .NET it actually requires two or three because they just need to "sell" a lot more and the real MS developer already knows to just go right to MSDN. Personally, I think the home page should have a lot more "sell" with convenient links to the "meat" for existing developers including search on the home page. There can be a lot of sub-pages with more of the success stories, white papers, case-studies, audio, video, etc. but www.python.org is the URL you're always going to give to someone that doesn't already use Python, so we have no choice to make a good impression on the home page. I guess I'm in favor in the long-term of treating presentation of the Python product more like Java, Flash MX, and .NET. However, a mysql.com or php.net site is better in the short-term. php.net probably strikes the best balance for a single site that has good sell qualities on the home page while still having an extremely clean design and lots of one-click links and search to the useful stuff for existing users. Note that the whole issue of users being able to contribute comments to pages is a separate discussion but certainly one of the more unique aspects of php.net. Something for us to consider in the long-run, but probably not now. ka From zope at toenjes.com Sat Aug 9 13:00:38 2003 From: zope at toenjes.com (Trevor Toenjes) Date: Sat Aug 9 12:19:53 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Experimenting with subdomains In-Reply-To: <20030809144246.GA9519@panix.com> Message-ID: > In theory, yes; in practice, I'm not thrilled because of the mirror > issue. For strictly experimental work, I think it'd be fine to use an > HTML refresh. how is the mirror handled? is there some type of python/backend-synch, XML, or are we simply talking about a static HTML copy? if the latter, then mod_rewrite Apache to redirect directory requests to the appropriate areas on the file system. Setup the legacy content in one area, which should continue to be the repository for documentation and be fast. And setup a CMS(zope) to operate the homepage and spawn new subpages from there. Any mirror would be completely unaffected, because it's the generated HTML it wants. It doesnt care how we generate it. shoot. you could even setup up subdomains. www.python.org as the pretty face for python support.python.org for docs and the community and command line stuff. You could manage them completely differently if you choose. and then mirror those, too. I am not a great sysadmin, but even I could do this. The benefit is you can now choose the best(or preferred) tool for the job. And hopefully achieve end objectives of marketing python better while attracting more content volunteers. -Trevor From zope at toenjes.com Sat Aug 9 13:01:56 2003 From: zope at toenjes.com (Trevor Toenjes) Date: Sat Aug 9 12:19:54 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] why the delay with transferring python.org In-Reply-To: <20030809144246.GA9519@panix.com> Message-ID: So what is the hold up with the PSF becoming the owner of python.org? This is a matter of a signed form and waiting a couple days for the domain records to refelect the changes. I have seen this issue float since I have been on the list. Someone needs to knock this out ASAP, before we can move on. -Trevor From aahz at pythoncraft.com Sat Aug 9 13:25:24 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Aug 9 12:25:28 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] why the delay with transferring python.org In-Reply-To: References: <20030809144246.GA9519@panix.com> Message-ID: <20030809162523.GA11986@panix.com> On Sat, Aug 09, 2003, Trevor Toenjes wrote: > > So what is the hold up with the PSF becoming the owner of python.org? It's a political issue. I'm not involved enough to say more. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From skip at pobox.com Sat Aug 9 12:31:13 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Sat Aug 9 12:31:22 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] What do the other guys do? Message-ID: <16181.8657.508595.81437@montanaro.dyndns.org> (changing subject) Dylan> It doesn't scale well. This topic of how well the process scales keeps being raised. Does anyone have round number type figures for how many people are involved (and how involved) building and maintaining similar sites (php.net, perl.org, tcl.tk, etc)? If those sites all have a group of maintainers in the < 50 range, we'd probably be deluding ourselves to think we're going to have many more. Skip From aahz at pythoncraft.com Sat Aug 9 13:43:24 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Aug 9 12:43:27 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Simplify and prioritize (fwd) In-Reply-To: References: <20030809001548.GB2856@panix.com> Message-ID: <20030809164324.GA14962@panix.com> On Sat, Aug 09, 2003, Steve Holden wrote: > Aahz: >>>> From: Trevor Toenjes >>>>> >>>>> python.org's primary purpose is to attract others to the language. >>>>> That is what everyone on this list is most concerned about. >> >> I'm not sure I agree with this, in the sense that python.org is >> intended to grab people who've never heard of Python. I believe that >> python.org is used *after* people have already heard about Python, >> in order to learn more about Python and to justify using it. That's >> quite a different marketing perspective. > > Possibly so, but I don't see a more relevant vehicle than > www.python.org for the purpose. Are you suggesting that other existing > channels do the job? Your question doesn't make sense; I don't think there's anything we can do on the web site to drag people in who haven't already heard about Python from somewhere else. It's irrelevant whether other channels are "doing the job" -- if we want people to come to the web site, we have to *make* them do the job. >> "Consumer friendly" does not directly correlate with graphics and >> photos. Particularly if my belief is correct, people going to >> python.org will place their emphasis on finding information. There's >> also the issue that lots of web research shows that any slow-loading >> page drives people away. > > Sorry, you are just plain wrong here. A *modest* amount of graphical > content makes even technical material more likely to be read. I'd be > perfectly happy to accept an overhead of (say) 20k per page just to > see some visual interest in the pages. When people say "graphics and photos", I rarely find the result adds up to 20K. That level is perfectly fine with me, but it's also confusing from my POV to label that "graphics and photos". > So turn this into content ... 33.6 kbit/s = practically maybe 2 kbyte/s > allowing for some communications lag. So you appear to think 60k is an > upper limit on content? That's about right for any page that isn't intentionally clicked through as a "large" page (such as a FAQ). And that's total: HTML page, style sheets, and graphics. I'd personally want the front page even smaller, but I'm not going to argue about it. > So maybe flashy was a bad choice of word: how about "professional"? All > I'm saying is that I'd prefer something that looks like it was designed, > not just thrown together by a bunch of techies. Works for me. > Well, we can probably all agree that we don't want to increase our > webmaster workload. By the same token, I don't want to limit the > content to what we can produce using our existing methods. I think > the idea of mapping a portion of the site to a separate Zope/Plone > server maintained by "the marketing crew" (whoever they turn out to > be) might be the best solution. If they evolve certain ideas that can > be reflected in the overall site (such as changes in look which can > be reflected in the template) or if they can take over more of the > existing site's content over time then that would be to everyone's > advantage. > > Let's not turn away volunteers just because they're less comfortable > with the command line than we are! Again, works for me. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From aahz at pythoncraft.com Sat Aug 9 13:46:54 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Aug 9 12:46:58 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] What do the other guys do? In-Reply-To: <16181.8657.508595.81437@montanaro.dyndns.org> References: <16181.8657.508595.81437@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <20030809164654.GB14962@panix.com> On Sat, Aug 09, 2003, Skip Montanaro wrote: > > (changing subject) > > Dylan> It doesn't scale well. > > This topic of how well the process scales keeps being raised. Does > anyone have round number type figures for how many people are > involved (and how involved) building and maintaining similar sites > (php.net, perl.org, tcl.tk, etc)? If those sites all have a group of > maintainers in the < 50 range, we'd probably be deluding ourselves to > think we're going to have many more. Depends whether you add "contributers" to the pool. I don't know if we can actually do it, but in theory if we're using a real CMS, we can allow many more people to add content directly to the web site -- it just doesn't go live until a maintainer approves it. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From skip at pobox.com Sat Aug 9 12:51:35 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Sat Aug 9 12:51:43 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Domain-specific content Message-ID: <16181.9879.584229.287622@montanaro.dyndns.org> I suspect actually coming up with domain-specific content will be the biggest barrier to contribution, even for domain experts. Picking a person and domain at random, if we asked Andrew Dalke to write a white paper on Python and Bioinformatics, I suspect the major effort on his part would be writing the paper, not stuffing it into the web site. Sure, massaging that content and making it available to others to edit would be more difficult with ht2html than Zope, but at the moment we have no content to manage. The issue of how we manage the content is probably a secondary concern. I think we'll be very lucky if content management as opposed to content creation becomes the primary barrier to a better site. I think there are several of us who agree that adding domain-specific content to the Python website would be worthwhile, at least from a marketing standpoint. Can we spend some time on that? I'd like to flesh that out a little to see if we can identify a structure for such content, what domains we want to go after first, and maybe sound out some people for potential submissions. Once we're drowning in content we can see how hard it is to maintain. I'll toss out some thoughts about what I think such pages should/might contain: * brief overview of the domain (just a paragraph or two, with perhaps a couple links to other introductory material) * applications in the domain which are written in Python * core and third-party modules and packages in Python which support the domain * references to domain-specific websites which support the use of Python in the domain Back in April I (probably prematurely) came up with a possible starter list of domains and domain experts: Scientific Computing Eric Jones XML Uche Ogbuji Data Visualization/3D Graphics Prabhu Ramachandran or Michel Sanner Web Services Mark Pilgrim Relational Databases Andy Dustman or Federico di Gregorio Here are a couple more: Web Application Servers Paul Everett, Andrew Kuchling, Geoffrey Talvola, many others Bioinformatics Andrew Dalke There are obviously many other people who could contribute in these areas. The names above are just those that popped into my head. I don't know how many domain-specific pages or sections we want on the site. I think the above would be a good start. If we can get content for four or five areas I think that would encourage other people to contribute. Skip From sholden at holdenweb.com Sat Aug 9 13:59:20 2003 From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden) Date: Sat Aug 9 13:01:12 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] why the delay with transferring python.org In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Trevor: The problem is that the owner of the domain has to take action to transfer it and CNRI, as the current owner, appears to be (shall we say...) busy with other priorities. It's not a purely technical problem. FWIW, in a recent interview (soon to be published by O'Reilly) Guido said: """ Q: What's the situation with the python.org domain ownership, and do you anticipate any changes any time soon? A: As you might know, CNRI still owns that domain, and has let the PSF use it without much restriction, although they did ask us to keep the 1.6 release on there despite the fact that nobody much uses it. They have finally approached me, having found the time to address the question, with a contract to handle the transfer of the domain name, which is probably the most important thing, a number of trademarks, and the copyright to the content of the python.org website - the CNRI position has been that they own that copyright because the web site was started when we were all at CNRI. """ I really think it's best to leave the ex-CNRI Pythonistas to handle this, since they know the personalities and the issues involved. Looks like it won't be too much longer. regards -- Steve Holden http://www.holdenweb.com/ Python Web Programming http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/ > -----Original Message----- > From: pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org > [mailto:pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org]On Behalf Of > Trevor Toenjes > Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 12:02 PM > To: pydotorg-redesign@python.org > Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] why the delay with transferring > python.org > > > So what is the hold up with the PSF becoming the owner of python.org? > > This is a matter of a signed form and waiting a couple days > for the domain > records to refelect the changes. I have seen this issue > float since I have > been on the list. > > Someone needs to knock this out ASAP, before we can move on. > > -Trevor > > > _______________________________________________ > Pydotorg-redesign mailing list > Pydotorg-redesign@python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pydotorg-redesign > From aahz at pythoncraft.com Sat Aug 9 14:01:41 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Aug 9 13:01:44 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Experimenting with subdomains In-Reply-To: References: <20030809144246.GA9519@panix.com> Message-ID: <20030809170141.GA22151@panix.com> On Sat, Aug 09, 2003, Trevor Toenjes wrote: >Aahz: >> >> In theory, yes; in practice, I'm not thrilled because of the mirror >> issue. For strictly experimental work, I think it'd be fine to use an >> HTML refresh. > > how is the mirror handled? > is there some type of python/backend-synch, XML, > or are we simply talking about a static HTML copy? The latter, using rsync. > if the latter, then mod_rewrite Apache to redirect directory requests > to the appropriate areas on the file system. Setup the legacy > content in one area, which should continue to be the repository for > documentation and be fast. And setup a CMS(zope) to operate the > homepage and spawn new subpages from there. I'm not opposed to this, but I'm wary about a mixed setup. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From skip at pobox.com Sat Aug 9 13:03:56 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Sat Aug 9 13:04:15 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] Can Python compete with Visual Basic? In-Reply-To: <1060381574.19893.567.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> References: <000601c35c6a$485c4080$0200a8c0@b> <20030806150931.GA5777@vail.asti-usa.com> <003001c35de7$54dffda0$0200a8c0@b> <1060359818.19893.53.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16179.54064.303795.566879@montanaro.dyndns.org> <1060364697.19893.135.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16180.5176.173047.112003@montanaro.dyndns.org> <1060381574.19893.567.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> Message-ID: <16181.10620.684450.829571@montanaro.dyndns.org> >> There are many other Python-based content management tools out there >> and most, if not all of them are newer than Zope. Dylan> But are they newer *and* more useful than Zope? I should have expanded on my statement. I suspect one reason there are other tools out there which came after Zope was because there was some itch Zope didn't scratch for them. That itch may have been something as simple as missing functionality or something not casually obvious, like not being about to wrap one's head around all that is Zope. (There's that Zen thing again.) >> If Zope was a true one-size-fits-all content management system I >> doubt these other options would have popped up. Dylan> I wonder. Hanging out on c.l.python, I sense a real reluctance Dylan> to support Zope. I don't know what the history is there, but Dylan> something seems to be muddying the waters besides technical Dylan> considerations. Dylan> Products like Twisted may overlap (some) with Zope, but serve an Dylan> obviously different set of needs. It makes sense that both Dylan> Twisted and Zope exist. I'm not sure at makes sense that we have Dylan> so many different templating systems. :-) Ask the authors. I suspect Zope's sheer size is very off putting. Zope is roughly half the size of Python (comparing Python 2.3 and Zope 2.6.0), and much of Python's heft is because of its excellent documentation, while the Zope distribution contains very little standalone documentation. That can be a very big barrier. Skip From roy at panix.com Sat Aug 9 14:18:35 2003 From: roy at panix.com (Roy Smith) Date: Sat Aug 9 13:14:39 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Simplify and prioritize (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20030809164324.GA14962@panix.com> Message-ID: <82573085-CA8D-11D7-95FC-0050E405C35A@panix.com> >> So turn this into content ... 33.6 kbit/s = practically maybe 2 >> kbyte/s >> allowing for some communications lag. So you appear to think 60k is an >> upper limit on content? Is 33.6k dialup really a valid yardstick to measure by? I know POTS modem is still what 90% of the general population uses, but we're aiming at a technical audience, not the general population. My guess is most of our audience has DSL or Cable at home and/or T1 or better in the office. In any case, I'd certainly use 56k as the number for dial bandwidth (line noise knocks you down a bit, compression buys you a bit more, figure the two are a wash overall). I'm certainly not a fan of bloated web pages that take forever to load, but at least we should be realistic about what bandwidth we've got available. From roy at panix.com Sat Aug 9 14:20:11 2003 From: roy at panix.com (Roy Smith) Date: Sat Aug 9 13:16:21 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Domain-specific content In-Reply-To: <16181.9879.584229.287622@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: On Saturday, August 9, 2003, at 12:51 PM, Skip Montanaro wrote: > I suspect actually coming up with domain-specific content will be the > biggest barrier to contribution, even for domain experts. Bingo. Having been involved in a few web projects, it's painfully obvious that the technical issues of building a web site are the easy stuff. Content is the hard part. From skip at pobox.com Sat Aug 9 13:28:04 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Sat Aug 9 13:28:10 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] python.org content management In-Reply-To: <20030809002939.GF2856@panix.com> References: <000601c35c6a$485c4080$0200a8c0@b> <20030806150931.GA5777@vail.asti-usa.com> <003001c35de7$54dffda0$0200a8c0@b> <1060359818.19893.53.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16179.54064.303795.566879@montanaro.dyndns.org> <1060364697.19893.135.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16180.5176.173047.112003@montanaro.dyndns.org> <20030809002939.GF2856@panix.com> Message-ID: <16181.12068.197309.581405@montanaro.dyndns.org> aahz> Are there? Non-Zope CMS solutions? I've seen a lot of web aahz> frameworks, but damn few that appear to address CMS in particular. aahz> Am I missing something? Nah, probably it was me. Skip From aahz at pythoncraft.com Sat Aug 9 14:28:23 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Aug 9 13:28:25 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Simplify and prioritize (fwd) In-Reply-To: <82573085-CA8D-11D7-95FC-0050E405C35A@panix.com> References: <20030809164324.GA14962@panix.com> <82573085-CA8D-11D7-95FC-0050E405C35A@panix.com> Message-ID: <20030809172822.GA817@panix.com> On Sat, Aug 09, 2003, Roy Smith wrote: >> Steve: >>> >>>So turn this into content ... 33.6 kbit/s = practically maybe 2 >>>kbyte/s allowing for some communications lag. So you appear to think >>>60k is an upper limit on content? > > Is 33.6k dialup really a valid yardstick to measure by? I know POTS > modem is still what 90% of the general population uses, but we're > aiming at a technical audience, not the general population. My guess > is most of our audience has DSL or Cable at home and/or T1 or better > in the office. In any case, I'd certainly use 56k as the number for > dial bandwidth (line noise knocks you down a bit, compression buys you > a bit more, figure the two are a wash overall). There are several reasons why I picked those numbers out of thin air: * Python is a world-wide community, and even with mirrors, I bet most people go to www.python.org. Network connectivity is still not something to take for granted, and that's true even with a T1 -- never know when the next SQL Server worm will start slamming. While I use a modem, my shell server is 3000 miles away, and I'm painfully aware of how often the network laggies hit. * Many of the non-WiFi wireless schemes still top out around 19k. * There's a fair bit of research that indicates that people start losing interest in web sites at the ten-second mark. Put it all together, and I think my numbers are a reasonable compromise. There's plenty of room to stick graphics-intensive material away from the main pages. I'm simply picking a relatively simple metric to judge with. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From oktaysafak at ixir.com Sat Aug 9 21:24:32 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Sat Aug 9 13:36:36 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] Zope and python.org re-design References: Message-ID: <004b01c35e9b$4206f580$0c00a8c0@net04> ----- Original Message ----- From: Kevin Altis > > From: Roy Smith > > > > As a totally unscientific survey, I just looked at a few > > language-specific web sites and evaluated them according to my own > > personal aesthetic opinions: > > > > TCL (http://www.tcl.tk/). I like it. Looks professional without being > > too glitzy. > > This is way too busy for me. > > It's amusing that www.perl.org isn't in your list of links :-) I wasn't particularly impressed by the "look-and-feel" of php or perl sites, but I like the way both pages have a "What's ***" section in a very prominent place on the first page. Their answers to this question suck from their own marketing POV but that's their problem :-) www.python.org also has this question but it's way down in the first page and the answer is behind the link. I think we too should feature this question in a very prominent part of the first page, with the answer immediately visible. And it has to be a much better one that has good selling/capturing qualities. After Aahz's advice to subscribe to pyotorg-redesign, I skimmed through the archives to see what has been said before. One thing people seem to have agreed is that the new design should address the newcomers rather than the veterans. That prompted me too look at the existing design from that POV. Here is what I observed: The current www.python.org page has no hints for a newcomer in a visible place that Python is actually a programming language, except a vague one on the last line of the Google quote. A newcomer needs to scroll down below the "Announcements" section to get his first hint that Python is a programming language. Observing this, I think this makes it evident that the current design is actually aimed towards people already using Python -- "Announcements" surely are for people who already know and use it. The only element on the first page that is immediately visible and has a "selling to newcomers" idea behind it is the Google quote but sadly, it is left alone there. Its message is correct and powerful but it needs backup from other page elements. It would be very nice if the "What's Python" section I described above and this Google quote were a single unit, standing out from other elements on the page by means of a different background or some other stylistic difference (like the Announcements section's background). Now I'm heading to pydotorg-redesign to read more posts and to subscribe. Regards, Oktay From aahz at pythoncraft.com Sat Aug 9 14:40:09 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Aug 9 13:40:12 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] FW: PQR 2.2 going to move to Simon's page? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20030809174009.GA4069@panix.com> On Sat, Aug 09, 2003, Kevin Altis wrote: > > Just an idea for the python.org documentation page. THE PQR can be pretty > handy. I've added to python.org/doc/ -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From jlgijsbers at planet.nl Sun Aug 10 02:21:51 2003 From: jlgijsbers at planet.nl (Johannes Gijsbers) Date: Sat Aug 9 19:26:29 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: References: <1060381574.19893.567.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> Message-ID: <20030809232150.GA6079@luetin> > I don't believe switching to Zope will magically result in a flood of > command-line fearful people suddenly appearing and offering to maintain > extensive documentation collections. > The Wiki seems to be used mostly for pages of links, not extensive > text; we could implement a little link-tree-editing application and get > much of the same effect as the Wiki. I think it would be easier to solve the problems with the Wiki by integrating it into the rest of the site. Addressing the separate navigation/layout style is easy by using CSS and the HTML used for the navigation bar. I don't know whether Ultraseek could also crawl through the Wiki. > Stray thought: are there a few people who do a majority of the Wiki > maintenance? If yes, we should invite them to get commit access for > pydotorg. I could name a few: Daniel Dittmar (daniel@dittmar.net) - WebProgramming editor Mike Rovner - BoostPython editor Juergen Hermann - general cleaning and I try to keep the PythonEditors and PythonHosting pages clean. Johannes Gijsbers From python at dylanreinhardt.com Sun Aug 10 04:23:00 2003 From: python at dylanreinhardt.com (Dylan Reinhardt) Date: Sat Aug 9 23:23:00 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: What do the other guys do? In-Reply-To: <16181.8657.508595.81437@montanaro.dyndns.org> References: <16181.8657.508595.81437@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <1060485749.2625.25.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> On Sat, 2003-08-09 at 09:31, Skip Montanaro wrote: > (changing subject) > > Dylan> It doesn't scale well. > > This topic of how well the process scales keeps being raised. It seems obvious. Of course, it's often the case that the obvious answer is dead wrong. :-) It would be interesting to discover whether that intuition is supported by facts. > Does anyone > have round number type figures for how many people are involved (and how > involved) building and maintaining similar sites (php.net, perl.org, tcl.tk, > etc)? I'll try to find out those figures for zope.org. I think that's a good point of comparison for us. Might take a bit, I'll have to get help. > If those sites all have a group of maintainers in the < 50 range, > we'd probably be deluding ourselves to think we're going to have many more. In a CMS, the real question is how many *contributors* you have. The number of maintainers is your measure of how *efficiently* contributors are supported. Put another way, what is the total number of *participants*? Currently, at www.python.org, participants and admins are the same people. The advantage of a CMS is that it lowers the requirements for participation and (hopefully) raises the incentive to participate. This is interesting to put in contrast with a wiki, which (IMO) lowers the requirements too far. Because wikis don't require (or, IMO, value) a high quality of participation, many potential contributors avoid them. I'm not arguing against having wikis... if it does the job for you, use it. But don't look to our wiki usage as any indication of what participation a CMS would get. I regularly contribute to zope.org's CMS and the Zope list but wouldn't dream of writing in (or consulting) a wiki. I know I'm not alone on that. Dylan From python at dylanreinhardt.com Sun Aug 10 05:24:05 2003 From: python at dylanreinhardt.com (Dylan Reinhardt) Date: Sun Aug 10 00:24:07 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Domain-specific content In-Reply-To: <16181.9879.584229.287622@montanaro.dyndns.org> References: <16181.9879.584229.287622@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <1060489410.2621.88.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> On Sat, 2003-08-09 at 09:51, Skip Montanaro wrote: > I suspect the major effort on his part would be > writing the paper, not stuffing it into the web site [...] > at the moment we have no content to manage. An astute observation. Also fairly circular. As is stands, there is no *broad* invitation to submit content, so it's not surprising that little content is contributed. Low amounts of content suggest that there is no need for content management. The key is that a CMS encourages submissions of a quality that falls somewhere between Barely Useful and Highly Decent. When the author stops getting negative feedback about the content, it is Good Enough. With a higher barrier to contributions, it's hard to imagine running something that's only Good Enough. If it's a big deal to have something published, you'll *treat* it like a big deal. At least 9 out of 10 times that means it won't get finished. End result? No content. It's a bit like e-mail. If you keep re-writing your e-mail until it's good enough to carve in granite, you'll never send any. But it's got your name on it, so you'll expend enough effort to avoid looking like an idiot. That's the same general quality proposition of a CMS. I can already hear you wondering where the high barrier for contributing content to python.org comes from. After all *you* are actually *encouraging* people to write stuff. Look a the site. Most of what content it presents is authored by the undisputed luminaries of the language. Like it or not, that sets the bar pretty high. Let's say I have a moderately clever 10-line recipe for solving an uncommon but difficult problem. It's nothing brilliant, but other people might benefit from seeing it. You would never think to ask me if I had something to submit to www.python.org because you don't know me and couldn't possibly be familiar with what I'm working on (though by now, you are no doubt beginning to suspect it has something to do with Zope). :-) If most of the content on the site is Guido's high-level philosophy of language design, it's pretty obvious to me that www.python.org isn't the place for my trivial little limited-audience hack. I'll just post it to the list and within a couple weeks, nobody will ever find it again. What if there were a place where small (but useful) things could be stored and actually *found*? Well, I'd put my recipe *there* instead, wouldn't I? So would other people who had recipes, tips, links, book reviews, opinions, and other things that are useful but not important or weighty enough (individually) to work into the current site. Let's say I'm not a person who can (or would) write a white paper on bioinformatics. What if I have a couple good algorithms I'm willing to share? Wouldn't it be great if my small contributions could be included in the total body of information collected for that domain? Wouldn't that make our case for using Python in bioinformatics stronger? Looked at another way, what if 5% of the energy put toward c.l.python were directed toward making the same information available in a manner that was better organized and more usefully searched? Wow. There's a heck of a lot of genius on that list... it's a shame how short-lived most of the contributions really are. Whew! That was more than I intended to write. :-) Dylan From aahz at pythoncraft.com Sun Aug 10 02:25:04 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sun Aug 10 01:25:08 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Domain-specific content In-Reply-To: <1060489410.2621.88.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> References: <16181.9879.584229.287622@montanaro.dyndns.org> <1060489410.2621.88.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> Message-ID: <20030810052504.GA7695@panix.com> On Sat, Aug 09, 2003, Dylan Reinhardt wrote: > > Let's say I have a moderately clever 10-line recipe for solving an > uncommon but difficult problem. It's nothing brilliant, but other > people might benefit from seeing it. > > You would never think to ask me if I had something to submit to > www.python.org because you don't know me and couldn't possibly be > familiar with what I'm working on (though by now, you are no doubt > beginning to suspect it has something to do with Zope). :-) > > What if there were a place where small (but useful) things could be > stored and actually *found*? Well, I'd put my recipe *there* instead, > wouldn't I? So would other people who had recipes, tips, links, book > reviews, opinions, and other things that are useful but not important or > weighty enough (individually) to work into the current site. Just in case there's anyone on this list who doesn't know the correct answer to this example: http://pythoncookbook.activestate.com/ (Yes, I agree that we should move python.org in this direction.) -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From python at dylanreinhardt.com Sun Aug 10 17:31:25 2003 From: python at dylanreinhardt.com (Dylan Reinhardt) Date: Sun Aug 10 12:31:27 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Domain-specific content In-Reply-To: <20030810052504.GA7695@panix.com> References: <16181.9879.584229.287622@montanaro.dyndns.org> <1060489410.2621.88.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <20030810052504.GA7695@panix.com> Message-ID: <1060533056.3402.40.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> On Sat, 2003-08-09 at 22:25, Aahz wrote: > On Sat, Aug 09, 2003, Dylan Reinhardt wrote: > > What if there were a place where small (but useful) things could be > > stored and actually *found*? Well, I'd put my recipe *there* instead, > > wouldn't I? So would other people who had recipes, tips, links, book > > reviews, opinions, and other things that are useful but not important or > > weighty enough (individually) to work into the current site. > > Just in case there's anyone on this list who doesn't know the correct > answer to this example: > http://pythoncookbook.activestate.com/ Just to be clear, I'm well aware of the cookbook and frequently thankful it exists. The recipes I've gotten there have been top notch. The cookbook site was a great tool for what it was designed to do (fill a book) and still has significant enduring value. It's barely scratching the surface of what's possible in the CMS space. > > (Yes, I agree that we should move python.org in this direction.) Cool. Dylan From oktaysafak at ixir.com Mon Aug 11 01:24:27 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Sun Aug 10 17:25:42 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some quick observations and ideas about the current site References: <004b01c35e9b$4206f580$0c00a8c0@net04> Message-ID: <002901c35f85$d781c140$0c00a8c0@net04> I continued my tour on the current site and made some observations. I'll try to itemize these observations and ideas that followed them in a minimum number of words. Feel free to bug me: - Serif fonts (like Arial, Verdana etc.) are easier to read on screen and look more modern and elegant. A switch to serif fonts would be nice. - The "python" image at the center is *too* big, ugly and also unnecessary IMHO - Alignment of the Google quote is also ugly, should be centered or justified - Text in the content area is flushed to the right border. (I always seem to reach the horizontal scrollbar) A small amount of right-indent would be useful. - It would be nice to have tool-tips on the top and left links. Not needed by every link but some do (i.e. SIGs) Also, it might be a good way to add some professional/designed look in a bandwidth-savvy way. - http://www.python.org/topics/learn/ page's "Looking for a particular Python module or application?" section recommends PyPI as the first choice but it's not very crowded there yet (188 packages), so a message on the PyPI page like "the index is still new, there are many many packages not listed here yet etc." would be good from a marketing POV. A newcomer going there and saying "only 188 packages?" is *bad* marketing. - PyPI "tree of packages" page is looks very crowded and ugly. Needs better style. - There are many multiple entries in that 188. (i.e. ZODB has 8) Can the different versions be shown on a new page after a click on the ZODB link? - The Wiki and the FAQ links should be in either the "Special Topics" on the left nav-bar or among the top-links. - http://www.python.org/topics/learn/overview.html has to be improved. And yes, the invert dictionary example is not very good (trying not to be impolite here) - I like the way *private* mailing-lists are hidden in SIGs page and the public ones are exposed under Community->Mailing Lists and NGs - I like that the left nav-bar is dynamic while the top nav-bar is static - Announcements section should be moved into a box on the right, perhaps with just the most recent one highlighted right below the top nav-bar. - bread-crumbs would be very nice (I've seen the prototypes by Tim and Walter) - The main text area should feature the question "What's Python?" and our answer and the Google quote. (I know I said this before) OK, that's enough brainstorming for now. Regards, Oktay From sholden at holdenweb.com Sun Aug 10 18:50:59 2003 From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden) Date: Sun Aug 10 17:53:15 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some quick observations and ideas about thecurrent site In-Reply-To: <002901c35f85$d781c140$0c00a8c0@net04> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org > [mailto:pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org]On Behalf Of Oktay Safak > Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2003 5:24 PM > To: Pydotorg-Redesign > Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some quick observations and ideas about > thecurrent site > > [...] > > - Serif fonts (like Arial, Verdana etc.) are easier to read > on screen and > look more modern and elegant. A switch to serif fonts would be nice. > [...] The fonts you mentions are *sans-serif* fonts (i.e. fonts without decoration on the letter stems). I agree that Verdana is a good general-purpose web font. Arial less so, but an acceptable substitute when Verdana isn't available. regards -- Steve Holden http://www.holdenweb.com/ Python Web Programming http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/ From aahz at pythoncraft.com Sun Aug 10 20:00:15 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sun Aug 10 19:00:20 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some quick observations and ideas about the current site In-Reply-To: <002901c35f85$d781c140$0c00a8c0@net04> References: <004b01c35e9b$4206f580$0c00a8c0@net04> <002901c35f85$d781c140$0c00a8c0@net04> Message-ID: <20030810230015.GA1654@panix.com> On Mon, Aug 11, 2003, Oktay Safak wrote: > > - Serif fonts (like Arial, Verdana etc.) are easier to read on screen and > look more modern and elegant. A switch to serif fonts would be nice. I'm opposed to using the web as a substitute for PDF. All browsers have the ability to specify fonts of the user's choice; it's not our place to muck with that. Similarly, I *always* use to do relative font size changes instead of absolute. > - The main text area should feature the question "What's Python?" and our > answer and the Google quote. (I know I said this before) Haven't had a chance to mention this yet, but I think the set of links in the top navbar should be: * Home * Why Python? * Getting Started * Documentation * Community * Sitemap * Developers The reason I say "Why" instead of "What" is that I think most people going to www.python.org already have a vague idea what Python is, and we can still make "What is Python?" fairly prominent, just not part of the navbar. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From skip at pobox.com Sun Aug 10 19:56:24 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Sun Aug 10 19:56:29 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Domain-specific content In-Reply-To: <1060489410.2621.88.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> References: <16181.9879.584229.287622@montanaro.dyndns.org> <1060489410.2621.88.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> Message-ID: <16182.56232.952947.328146@montanaro.dyndns.org> Dylan> Let's say I have a moderately clever 10-line recipe for solving Dylan> an uncommon but difficult problem. It's nothing brilliant, but Dylan> other people might benefit from seeing it. ... Dylan> If most of the content on the site is Guido's high-level Dylan> philosophy of language design, it's pretty obvious to me that Dylan> www.python.org isn't the place for my trivial little Dylan> limited-audience hack. I'll just post it to the list and within Dylan> a couple weeks, nobody will ever find it again. Dylan> What if there were a place where small (but useful) things could Dylan> be stored and actually *found*? Well, I'd put my recipe *there* Dylan> instead, wouldn't I? So would other people who had recipes, Dylan> tips, links, book reviews, opinions, and other things that are Dylan> useful but not important or weighty enough (individually) to work Dylan> into the current site. The correct place for that would be ActiveState's Python Cookbook: http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Python/Cookbook/ Lot's of people contribute to it. A large collection of the early ones were even bound up into an excellent book by the esteemed Mr. Martelli. Dylan> Let's say I'm not a person who can (or would) write a white paper Dylan> on bioinformatics. What if I have a couple good algorithms I'm Dylan> willing to share? Wouldn't it be great if my small contributions Dylan> could be included in the total body of information collected for Dylan> that domain? Wouldn't that make our case for using Python in Dylan> bioinformatics stronger? Sure. But at the moment we have no hook for you to hang that stuff on. I want to talk about what we need in the way of contributions to get things started. Let's see if we even need a content management system. It may turn out that ReST is good enough. Skip From richard at mechanicalcat.net Mon Aug 11 12:35:04 2003 From: richard at mechanicalcat.net (Richard Jones) Date: Sun Aug 10 21:35:15 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Download pages Message-ID: <200308111135.08829.richard@mechanicalcat.net> I just skimmed through amk's revised beginner's guide, great stuff! The download pages seem a little confused though - the one linked from the beginner's guide mentions python 2.2. Could we maybe simplify the main download page so it's more friendly to beginners and do away with the duplicated page? Also, I believe the source downloading text could be improved. Currently it says "download Python-2.3.tgz, the source tarball, and do the usual 'gunzip; tar; ./configure; make" dance.' Perhaps more explicit, useful instructions could be given, like 'download the source archive Python-2.3.tgz, unpack and build. Typically "tar zxf Python-2.3.tgz" will unpack, and then in the Python-2.3 directory type "./configure && make install" to build.' Or something similar? Richard -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: signature Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pydotorg-redesign/attachments/20030811/b0930877/attachment.bin From python at dylanreinhardt.com Mon Aug 11 02:40:06 2003 From: python at dylanreinhardt.com (Dylan Reinhardt) Date: Sun Aug 10 21:40:08 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some quick observations and ideas about the current site In-Reply-To: <20030810230015.GA1654@panix.com> References: <004b01c35e9b$4206f580$0c00a8c0@net04> <002901c35f85$d781c140$0c00a8c0@net04> <20030810230015.GA1654@panix.com> Message-ID: <1060565971.4105.12.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> On Sun, 2003-08-10 at 16:00, Aahz wrote: > On Mon, Aug 11, 2003, Oktay Safak wrote: > > > > - Serif fonts (like Arial, Verdana etc.) are easier to read on screen and > > look more modern and elegant. A switch to serif fonts would be nice. > > I'm opposed to using the web as a substitute for PDF. All browsers have > the ability to specify fonts of the user's choice; it's not our place to > muck with that. Using CSS to specify a font (and gracefully degrading to a font family) isn't much of an imposition... really, it's just a recommendation. Users who choose to specify their own fonts can easily override CSS recommendations, particularly if we stick to common tags like

. Font specification seems justified if it provides an enhanced experience for most visitors and an undiminished experience for all others. $.02, Dylan From skip at pobox.com Sun Aug 10 21:52:04 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Sun Aug 10 21:52:08 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Download pages In-Reply-To: <200308111135.08829.richard@mechanicalcat.net> References: <200308111135.08829.richard@mechanicalcat.net> Message-ID: <16182.63172.587377.799807@montanaro.dyndns.org> Richard> The download pages seem a little confused though - the one Richard> linked from the beginner's guide mentions python 2.2. Could we Richard> maybe simplify the main download page so it's more friendly to Richard> beginners and do away with the duplicated page? I think that would be great. I made some suggestions here: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pydotorg-redesign/2003-August/000189.html but the followups talked to other content in that note. In short, I think it would be great of the main feature of the download page was a table of download links. Much as we like to gripe about SourceForge, presenting the key download options in a single table makes it easy to find what you're looking for and what all the options are. I'm sure most people know what I mean. Unfortunately, SF is down at the moment so I can't provide a link to an example, so those of you who maybe don't will have to scrounge around for something visual. Skip From richard at mechanicalcat.net Mon Aug 11 13:03:00 2003 From: richard at mechanicalcat.net (Richard Jones) Date: Sun Aug 10 22:03:14 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Download pages In-Reply-To: <16182.63172.587377.799807@montanaro.dyndns.org> References: <200308111135.08829.richard@mechanicalcat.net> <16182.63172.587377.799807@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <200308111203.00691.richard@mechanicalcat.net> On Mon, 11 Aug 2003 11:52 am, Skip Montanaro wrote: > Richard> The download pages seem a little confused though - the one > Richard> linked from the beginner's guide mentions python 2.2. Could we > Richard> maybe simplify the main download page so it's more friendly to > Richard> beginners and do away with the duplicated page? > > I think that would be great. I made some suggestions here: > > http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pydotorg-redesign/2003-August/000189.html Excellent suggestions, I'm all for them. I just can't offer any help implementing them at the moment :( Richard -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: signature Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pydotorg-redesign/attachments/20030811/3530646e/attachment.bin From skip at pobox.com Sun Aug 10 22:26:50 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Sun Aug 10 22:26:57 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Download pages In-Reply-To: <200308111135.08829.richard@mechanicalcat.net> References: <200308111135.08829.richard@mechanicalcat.net> Message-ID: <16182.65258.481092.466382@montanaro.dyndns.org> Attached is a quick knock-off of the one-table-for-all-sizes idea. It's obviously rough and incomplete (no actual links and it's missing most older versions). It does give something to throw darts at though. Obvious issues that occur to me: * Sean Reifschneider's got a helluva lot of different RPMs. I only included about half of the 2.2.3 RPMs in the example table. His "three versions to rule them all" suggests that maybe the table needs another level of hierarchy. * I included an empty Notes column. This should probably be numbered links to a set of footnotes below the table (or on another page). I think there will probably be too many notes to embed their text directly in the table. Skip -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pydotorg-redesign/attachments/20030810/ac915e33/index-0001.html From richard at mechanicalcat.net Mon Aug 11 13:39:36 2003 From: richard at mechanicalcat.net (Richard Jones) Date: Sun Aug 10 22:39:50 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Download pages In-Reply-To: <16182.65258.481092.466382@montanaro.dyndns.org> References: <200308111135.08829.richard@mechanicalcat.net> <16182.65258.481092.466382@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <200308111239.39861.richard@mechanicalcat.net> On Mon, 11 Aug 2003 12:26 pm, Skip Montanaro wrote: > Attached is a quick knock-off of the one-table-for-all-sizes idea. Might I suggest "built" instead of "binary". Just thinking about the non-programmer newbie types we'll probably be directing at/near this table. > * Sean Reifschneider's got a helluva lot of different RPMs. I only > included about half of the 2.2.3 RPMs in the example table. His > "three versions to rule them all" suggests that maybe the table needs > another level of hierarchy. Yeah... maybe link to a separate table further down the page? > * I included an empty Notes column. This should probably be numbered > links to a set of footnotes below the table (or on another page). I > think there will probably be too many notes to embed their text > directly in the table. That would definitely be much cleaner, yes. Richard -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: signature Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pydotorg-redesign/attachments/20030811/9666ef8a/attachment.bin From guido at python.org Sun Aug 10 21:21:55 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Sun Aug 10 23:22:16 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Download pages In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 11 Aug 2003 11:35:04 +1000." <200308111135.08829.richard@mechanicalcat.net> References: <200308111135.08829.richard@mechanicalcat.net> Message-ID: <200308110321.h7B3LtR29040@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > Also, I believe the source downloading text could be > improved. Currently it > says "download Python-2.3.tgz, the source tarball, and do the usual 'gunzip; > tar; ./configure; make" dance.' > > Perhaps more explicit, useful instructions could be given, like > 'download the source archive Python-2.3.tgz, unpack and > build. Typically "tar zxf Python-2.3.tgz" will unpack, and then in > the Python-2.3 directory type "./configure && make install" to > build.' Or something similar? I doubt this would make much of a difference. People who don't already know what the gunzip/tar/configure/make dance is are unlikely to get it right even with more elaborate instructions. They should probably use the Windows installer anyway. :-) (Or for Linux, the RPMs.) --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From richardjones at optushome.com.au Mon Aug 11 10:50:40 2003 From: richardjones at optushome.com.au (Richard Jones) Date: Mon Aug 11 02:55:52 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some quick observations and ideas about the current site In-Reply-To: <002901c35f85$d781c140$0c00a8c0@net04> References: <004b01c35e9b$4206f580$0c00a8c0@net04> <002901c35f85$d781c140$0c00a8c0@net04> Message-ID: <200308110950.40341.richardjones@optushome.com.au> On Mon, 11 Aug 2003 07:24 am, Oktay Safak wrote: > - http://www.python.org/topics/learn/ page's "Looking for a particular > Python module or application?" section recommends PyPI as the first choice > but it's not very crowded there yet (188 packages), so a message on the > PyPI page like "the index is still new, there are many many packages not > listed here yet etc." would be good from a marketing POV. A newcomer going > there and saying "only 188 packages?" is *bad* marketing. Wow, there's 188 packages already! Python 2.3 (the first python with built-in PyPI support :) was only just released... > - PyPI "tree of packages" page is looks very crowded and ugly. Needs better > style. Quite open to suggestions here... The code is at http://pypi.sf.net/ if you wish to play with it (I can provide the current package database for testing). > - There are many multiple entries in that 188. (i.e. ZODB has 8) Can the > different versions be shown on a new page after a click on the ZODB link? The problem here is that package authors are free to apply any bizzare version numbering scheme they wish to their packages, so figuring out the most recent entry can be .. fun :) Also, some package authors (myself included) wish to have several versions appear in the index at once - a stable version and a development version (or three as the case may be). To this end, I opted to use the sourceforge approach of retaining all versions, but allowing the package maintainer to hide older versions. Those don't appear in any browsing or searching, but it requires that the package maintainer hide them. So far, I'm getting a mixed level of buy-in on this. I've been considering sending out emails to people who have more than four or five visible versions... Richard -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: signature Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pydotorg-redesign/attachments/20030811/f3f64e9f/attachment.bin From oktaysafak at ixir.com Mon Aug 11 11:05:46 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Mon Aug 11 03:03:37 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some quick observations and ideas about the current site References: Message-ID: <000c01c3602a$cecde9c0$0200a8c0@b> Oops, you are right. Sorry, late night posting. And I agree with you about Verdana and Arial. Regards, Oktay ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Holden" To: "Oktay Safak" ; "Pydotorg-Redesign" Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2003 2:50 PM Subject: RE: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some quick observations and ideas about thecurrent site > > -----Original Message----- > > From: pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org > > [mailto:pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org]On Behalf Of Oktay Safak > > Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2003 5:24 PM > > To: Pydotorg-Redesign > > Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some quick observations and ideas about > > thecurrent site > > > > > [...] > > > > - Serif fonts (like Arial, Verdana etc.) are easier to read > > on screen and > > look more modern and elegant. A switch to serif fonts would be nice. > > > [...] > The fonts you mentions are *sans-serif* fonts (i.e. fonts without > decoration on the letter stems). I agree that Verdana is a good > general-purpose web font. Arial less so, but an acceptable substitute > when Verdana isn't available. > > regards > -- > Steve Holden http://www.holdenweb.com/ > Python Web Programming http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/ > > > > > > From oktaysafak at ixir.com Mon Aug 11 11:16:58 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Mon Aug 11 03:34:59 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some quick observations and ideas about thecurrent site References: <004b01c35e9b$4206f580$0c00a8c0@net04><002901c35f85$d781c140$0c00a8c0@net04> <20030810230015.GA1654@panix.com> Message-ID: <001401c3602c$60d4eb60$0200a8c0@b> Aahz wrote: > > - Serif fonts (like Arial, Verdana etc.) are easier to read on screen and > > look more modern and elegant. A switch to serif fonts would be nice. > > I'm opposed to using the web as a substitute for PDF. I'm not proposing that. Just a change of the font-family, no big deal. > All browsers have > the ability to specify fonts of the user's choice; In theory. I don't know where that choice is on IE. And if it's there I bet 99% of the population wouldn't know either. > it's not our place to > muck with that. I don't understand what's bad with providing with a better default font. > > - The main text area should feature the question "What's Python?" and our > > answer and the Google quote. (I know I said this before) > > Haven't had a chance to mention this yet, but I think the set of links in > the top navbar should be: > > * Home > * Why Python? > * Getting Started > * Documentation > * Community > * Sitemap > * Developers > > The reason I say "Why" instead of "What" is that I think most people > going to www.python.org already have a vague idea what Python is, Yep. > and we can still make "What is Python?" fairly prominent, This is what I'm suggesting. > just not part of the navbar. I didn't say anything like that. Regards, Oktay From amk at amk.ca Mon Aug 11 07:44:39 2003 From: amk at amk.ca (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Mon Aug 11 07:02:02 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some quick observations and ideas about the current site In-Reply-To: <20030810230015.GA1654@panix.com> Message-ID: On Sunday, August 10, 2003, at 07:00 PM, Aahz wrote: > Haven't had a chance to mention this yet, but I think the set of links > in > the top navbar should be: > > * Home > * Why Python? > * Getting Started > * Documentation > * Community > * Sitemap > * Developers Assuming "Getting Started" goes to /topics/learn/, the only one of those links we don't already have is "Why Python?". Would that point to the existing /doc/Intros.html, or do we need to make a new advocacy/marketing section? If the latter, we need someone to step up and volunteer to actually write it. (That person won't be me; my plan is to revise the FAQs and then go off and work on a Quixote web site.) --amk From aahz at pythoncraft.com Mon Aug 11 10:51:43 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Mon Aug 11 09:51:47 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg] RE: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <2mvft4pi9z.fsf@starship.python.net> References: <2mvft4pi9z.fsf@starship.python.net> Message-ID: <20030811135143.GA2570@panix.com> [note followup to pydotorg-redesign] On Mon, Aug 11, 2003, Michael Hudson wrote: > > I'm not on pydotorg-redesign. You should be, if you want to discuss the future of the web site. Given that we're currently having a lot of traffic on pydotorg due to current work, I really don't want to flood the list any further. > Is there an army of people we trust to do content for the website who > don't have the necessary technical-fu to deal with today's system? That's not the question. The question is whether there are people who have content who we don't trust to have direct access to creosote. Simple example: I'd like a submission system for jobs that requires *them* to format the entries, but doesn't let it get posted until it's reviewed by a moderator. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From Jack.Jansen at cwi.nl Mon Aug 11 17:17:56 2003 From: Jack.Jansen at cwi.nl (Jack Jansen) Date: Mon Aug 11 10:15:24 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some quick observations and ideas about the current site In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <9AA3B432-CC06-11D7-B8C8-0030655234CE@cwi.nl> On Monday, Aug 11, 2003, at 12:44 Europe/Amsterdam, A.M. Kuchling wrote: > On Sunday, August 10, 2003, at 07:00 PM, Aahz wrote: >> Haven't had a chance to mention this yet, but I think the set of >> links in >> the top navbar should be: >> >> * Home >> * Why Python? >> * Getting Started >> * Documentation >> * Community >> * Sitemap >> * Developers > > Assuming "Getting Started" goes to /topics/learn/, Well, there's more to getting started, such as finding out whether you have Python installed already (RH, OSX), and how to install it if you haven't. > -- Jack Jansen, , http://www.cwi.nl/~jack If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma Goldman From aahz at pythoncraft.com Mon Aug 11 11:35:41 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Mon Aug 11 10:35:44 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some quick observations and ideas about the current site In-Reply-To: References: <20030810230015.GA1654@panix.com> Message-ID: <20030811143541.GB18428@panix.com> On Mon, Aug 11, 2003, A. M. Kuchling wrote: > On Sunday, August 10, 2003, at 07:00 PM, Aahz wrote: >> >>Haven't had a chance to mention this yet, but I think the set of links >>in the top navbar should be: >> >>* Home >>* Why Python? >>* Getting Started >>* Documentation >>* Community >>* Sitemap >>* Developers > > Assuming "Getting Started" goes to /topics/learn/, the only one of > those links we don't already have is "Why Python?". Would that point > to the existing /doc/Intros.html, or do we need to make a new > advocacy/marketing section? If the latter, we need someone to step up > and volunteer to actually write it. (That person won't be me; my plan > is to revise the FAQs and then go off and work on a Quixote web site.) It'd be a new advocacy section; I think we have most of the material to assemble one. I certainly don't expect you to do it -- you've been doing a wonderful job recently, but it was a *lot* of intense work. I just wanted to get agreement that this was a good direction. We could point at Intros.html if we wanted to change the navbar now, but that's not a long-term solution Do you agree that "Getting Started" is a good name for the link? -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From mwh at python.net Mon Aug 11 12:59:24 2003 From: mwh at python.net (Michael Hudson) Date: Mon Aug 11 11:59:55 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg] RE: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <1060385437.19893.649.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> (Dylan Reinhardt's message of "08 Aug 2003 16:30:39 -0700") References: <1060385437.19893.649.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> Message-ID: <2my8y0piib.fsf@starship.python.net> Dylan Reinhardt writes: > As one example, it would be easy enough to create a subdomain that is > managed by Zope and leave everything else as it is. ... except that AFAIK, the python.org domain is still controlled by CNRI ... Cheers, mwh -- Just point your web browser at http://www.python.org/search/ and look for "program", "doesn't", "work", or "my". Whenever you find someone else whose program didn't work, don't do what they did. Repeat as needed. -- Tim Peters, on python-help, 16 Jun 1998 From mwh at python.net Mon Aug 11 13:04:24 2003 From: mwh at python.net (Michael Hudson) Date: Mon Aug 11 11:59:57 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg] RE: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: ("Kevin Altis"'s message of "Fri, 8 Aug 2003 16:04:20 -0700") References: Message-ID: <2mvft4pi9z.fsf@starship.python.net> "Kevin Altis" writes: > I'll go ahead and say that I think it would be a nice goal to be able to > have python.org content managed by those kinds of folks and not the > programmers who would rather be doing something else with their time. I'm not on pydotorg-redesign. Is there an army of people we trust to do content for the website who don't have the necessary technical-fu to deal with today's system? Cheers, mwh -- If your telephone company installs a system in the woods with no one around to see them, do they still get it wrong? -- Robert Moir, alt.sysadmin.recovery From barry at python.org Mon Aug 11 14:00:05 2003 From: barry at python.org (Barry Warsaw) Date: Mon Aug 11 12:00:00 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg] RE: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <2my8y0piib.fsf@starship.python.net> References: <1060385437.19893.649.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <2my8y0piib.fsf@starship.python.net> Message-ID: <1060606749.12191.2.camel@anthem> On Mon, 2003-08-11 at 06:59, Michael Hudson wrote: > Dylan Reinhardt writes: > > > As one example, it would be easy enough to create a subdomain that is > > managed by Zope and leave everything else as it is. > > ... except that AFAIK, the python.org domain is still controlled by > CNRI ... But not for long... -Barry From skip at pobox.com Mon Aug 11 12:34:13 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Mon Aug 11 12:34:29 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Download pages In-Reply-To: <20030811161110.GA18546@luetin> References: <200308111135.08829.richard@mechanicalcat.net> <16182.65258.481092.466382@montanaro.dyndns.org> <20030811161110.GA18546@luetin> Message-ID: <16183.50565.494846.560545@montanaro.dyndns.org> (Did you send this to pydotorg-redesign as well? It appears not. We need more inputs, now fewer, at this point. ;-) Johannes> On Sun, Aug 10, 2003 at 09:26:50PM -0500, Skip Montanaro wrote: >> * Sean Reifschneider's got a helluva lot of different RPMs. I only >> included about half of the 2.2.3 RPMs in the example table. His >> "three versions to rule them all" suggests that maybe the table needs >> another level of hierarchy. Johannes> See my mockup (attached): further options on a different page. >> * I included an empty Notes column. This should probably be numbered >> links to a set of footnotes below the table (or on another page). I >> think there will probably be too many notes to embed their text >> directly in the table. Johannes> What kind of notes are you thinking of? I think notes Johannes> pertaining to a specific releases should be on that releases Johannes> page. I'd also like to have notes for a specific platform on a Johannes> different page. I was thinking of a note explaining why UNWISE.EXE was necessary, or one to distinguish the three categories of Sean's RPMs. The problem I see with your suggested layout is that you ask the user to select the version twice. For example, all your Windows links point to windows.htm. Presumably they've already told you which version they want by clicking on a specific Windows link. Johannes> I see the /download/ page as an *entry point* where a user Johannes> should be able to download the most popular packages right Johannes> away. When a user has different needs, he/she can go to one of Johannes> the more specific pages. I see three possible organizations: * A single download page containing just about everything people would need, with an occasional jump to another page or to some text farther down on the download page. This is what I'm proposing. * A platform-centered download page - first click takes you to Windows or Linux or Source or whatever page, from which you select the version you're interested in. This has the disadvantage that version info is scattered around and maybe duplicated. * A version-centered download page - first click the version you're interested in and then select the platform. This is similar to the current setup. Aside from not being able to easily identify the precise file(s) you want to download, it scatters (and maybe duplicates) the platform information across several pages. Most FTP setups are more-or-less like the third option: they tend to be organized hierarchically by version, but there is no immediate platform information available when you are staring at the various files. You have to dive into a README file if the authors provided one. Skip From aahz at pythoncraft.com Mon Aug 11 13:50:21 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Mon Aug 11 12:50:26 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Download pages In-Reply-To: <16183.50565.494846.560545@montanaro.dyndns.org> References: <200308111135.08829.richard@mechanicalcat.net> <16182.65258.481092.466382@montanaro.dyndns.org> <20030811161110.GA18546@luetin> <16183.50565.494846.560545@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <20030811165021.GA8119@panix.com> On Mon, Aug 11, 2003, Skip Montanaro wrote: > > Johannes> I see the /download/ page as an *entry point* where a user > Johannes> should be able to download the most popular packages right > Johannes> away. When a user has different needs, he/she can go to one of > Johannes> the more specific pages. > > I see three possible organizations: > > * A single download page containing just about everything people would > need, with an occasional jump to another page or to some text farther > down on the download page. This is what I'm proposing. > > * A platform-centered download page - first click takes you to Windows > or Linux or Source or whatever page, from which you select the version > you're interested in. This has the disadvantage that version info is > scattered around and maybe duplicated. > > * A version-centered download page - first click the version you're > interested in and then select the platform. This is similar to the > current setup. Aside from not being able to easily identify the > precise file(s) you want to download, it scatters (and maybe > duplicates) the platform information across several pages. Depending on what you mean by "everything", there's at least a fourth option that I suggested on pydotorg this morning: keep the current setup (more or less), but add a set of "quickie" download links on /download/index.html for only the current version. That would be source, Windows, and Mac. Note that the current setup sort-of combines options two and three. I don't object to switching to option one, but I think I'd prefer it be a separate page and still have the quickie links on index.html. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From amk at asti-usa.com Mon Aug 11 14:11:55 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Mon Aug 11 13:12:33 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Style guide Message-ID: <20030811171155.GA16765@vail.asti-usa.com> The style guide for python.org is at http://www.python.org/dev/pydotorg/StyleGuide.html . Despite a few minor revisions I just made, it's still slightly out-of-date. I can't recall having seen it before and just stumbled across it looking at in the site map. Changes to it will probably provide good ideas for a redesign. (And it's interesting that the current site breaks some of the rules, such as avoiding

and not putting links inside paragraphs of flowing text.) --amk (www.amk.ca) I ought to have given myself more warning. -- The Doctor, in "Battlefield" From jlgijsbers at planet.nl Mon Aug 11 20:40:23 2003 From: jlgijsbers at planet.nl (Johannes Gijsbers) Date: Mon Aug 11 13:45:04 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Download pages In-Reply-To: <16183.50565.494846.560545@montanaro.dyndns.org> References: <200308111135.08829.richard@mechanicalcat.net> <16182.65258.481092.466382@montanaro.dyndns.org> <20030811161110.GA18546@luetin> <16183.50565.494846.560545@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <20030811174023.GA18852@luetin> On Mon, Aug 11, 2003 at 11:34:13AM -0500, Skip Montanaro wrote: > > (Did you send this to pydotorg-redesign as well? It appears not. We need > more inputs, now fewer, at this point. ;-) Sorry, just switched to a different MUA and pushed the wrong button. :) > The problem I see with your suggested layout is that you ask the user to > select the version twice. For example, all your Windows links point to > windows.htm. Presumably they've already told you which version they want by > clicking on a specific Windows link. No, they've told me they want more information about other versions available for the selected platform. At least, that's what I was thinking, but it seems that is confusing. Maybe Aahz' approach would be better then: a combination of quickies (like in my table) and a list of links to more information for other platforms (like on the current page). Johannes From guido at python.org Mon Aug 11 13:09:43 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Mon Aug 11 15:10:08 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg] RE: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 11 Aug 2003 11:59:24 BST." <2my8y0piib.fsf@starship.python.net> References: <1060385437.19893.649.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <2my8y0piib.fsf@starship.python.net> Message-ID: <200308111909.h7BJ9h730317@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > ... except that AFAIK, the python.org domain is still controlled by > CNRI ... Not for much longer. I've got the document signed by CNRI saying they are transferring the domain to the PSF; all we've got to do is implement the transfer (for which we have 30 days). --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From aahz at pythoncraft.com Mon Aug 11 16:15:26 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Mon Aug 11 15:15:29 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg] RE: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <200308111909.h7BJ9h730317@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> References: <1060385437.19893.649.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <2my8y0piib.fsf@starship.python.net> <200308111909.h7BJ9h730317@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> Message-ID: <20030811191525.GB20640@panix.com> On Mon, Aug 11, 2003, Guido van Rossum wrote: >Michael Hudson: >> >> ... except that AFAIK, the python.org domain is still controlled by >> CNRI ... > > Not for much longer. I've got the document signed by CNRI saying they > are transferring the domain to the PSF; all we've got to do is > implement the transfer (for which we have 30 days). Woo-hoo! Three cheers! -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From barry at python.org Mon Aug 11 20:26:40 2003 From: barry at python.org (Barry Warsaw) Date: Mon Aug 11 16:00:40 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg] RE: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <200308111909.h7BJ9h730317@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> References: <1060385437.19893.649.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <2my8y0piib.fsf@starship.python.net> <200308111909.h7BJ9h730317@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> Message-ID: <1060629967.16389.53.camel@yyz> On Mon, 2003-08-11 at 15:09, Guido van Rossum wrote: > > ... except that AFAIK, the python.org domain is still controlled by > > CNRI ... > > Not for much longer. I've got the document signed by CNRI saying they > are transferring the domain to the PSF; all we've got to do is > implement the transfer (for which we have 30 days). Yee haw! I assume there's paperwork to fill out with the registrar and then we need to set up some nameservers some place. Can XS4ALL do this, and will we have the ability to make updates ourselves? -Barry From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Mon Aug 11 22:20:47 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Mon Aug 11 16:20:56 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg] RE: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <200308111909.h7BJ9h730317@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> Message-ID: <007601c36046$13b7b690$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Guido Hailed!! >> ... except that AFAIK, the python.org domain is still controlled by >> CNRI ... >Not for much longer. I've got the document signed by CNRI saying they >are transferring the domain to the PSF; all we've got to do is >implement the transfer (for which we have 30 days). And congratulations from both of us at Pollenation... :-) Tim and Matt From thomas at xs4all.net Mon Aug 11 23:29:06 2003 From: thomas at xs4all.net (Thomas Wouters) Date: Mon Aug 11 16:53:15 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg] RE: [Pydotorg-redesign] The Zope question In-Reply-To: <1060629967.16389.53.camel@yyz> References: <1060385437.19893.649.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <2my8y0piib.fsf@starship.python.net> <200308111909.h7BJ9h730317@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> <1060629967.16389.53.camel@yyz> Message-ID: <20030811202906.GK1615@xs4all.nl> On Mon, Aug 11, 2003 at 03:26:08PM -0400, Barry Warsaw wrote: > Can XS4ALL do this, XS4ALL can, yes. It's up to the PSF board (which will be meeting tomorrow.) > and will we have the ability to make updates ourselves? If XS4ALL hosts it, yes, through our web-interface... although it's currently only in Dutch :-S Hopefully soon it'll be in English, too :) -- Thomas Wouters Hi! I'm a .signature virus! copy me into your .signature file to help me spread! From amk at amk.ca Mon Aug 11 18:06:05 2003 From: amk at amk.ca (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Mon Aug 11 17:23:00 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) Message-ID: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> This round of web site revisions started a few weeks ago when I suggested cleaning up the left-hand links on the very top page of python.org. Despite all the changes since then, the sidebar has undergone no changes. The problem with the current sidebar is that it's too long and the links are too jumbled. My current draft is at http://www.amk.ca/python.org.html, but it still needs work. Issues: * Popular links is too vague a section title. Can someone suggest a better title, or a rearrangement that makes the choice of title clear? * The "Exits" section is a jumble of stuff. Why link to PyGame, not NumPy or PIL or Reportlab or any number of worthy packages? Why link to the particular topic of web hosting? I'd suggest just dropping the entire "Exits" section, because it's not clear what it's for. * "Commercial Exits" is also really long, yet it's still incomplete. As M.-A. Lemburg pointed out a little while ago, his company, eGenix, isn't listed. We lack a criterion for adding companies to this list. IMHO this isn't important enough to consume space on the top page; the section should be removed and the companies listed somewhere else (in a marketing section?). --amk From bac at OCF.Berkeley.EDU Mon Aug 11 15:43:00 2003 From: bac at OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Brett C.) Date: Mon Aug 11 17:48:17 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> Message-ID: <3F380DE4.8050403@ocf.berkeley.edu> A.M. Kuchling wrote: > This round of web site revisions started a few weeks ago when I > suggested cleaning up the left-hand links on the very top page of > python.org. Despite all the changes since then, the sidebar has > undergone no changes. > Just a quick thanks for all the work, Andrew. > The problem with the current sidebar is that it's too long and the links > are too jumbled. > My current draft is at http://www.amk.ca/python.org.html, but it still > needs work. Issues: > > * Popular links is too vague a section title. Can someone suggest a > better title, or a rearrangement that makes the choice of title clear? > "Points of Interest"? > * The "Exits" section is a jumble of stuff. Why link to PyGame, not > NumPy or PIL or Reportlab or any number of worthy packages? Why link to > the particular topic of web hosting? I'd suggest just dropping the > entire "Exits" section, because it's not clear what it's for. > Works for me. We really shouldn't try to play favorites so I say either ditch it or have a separate page that is linked to that lists major packages. As for the explicit linking to PyGame, I bet that has to do with getting new programmers by realizing they can use Python to make a game; doing fast matrix math just doesn't strike me as something with a lot of pull for most new programmers. =) > * "Commercial Exits" is also really long, yet it's still incomplete. As > M.-A. Lemburg pointed out a little while ago, his company, eGenix, isn't > listed. We lack a criterion for adding companies to this list. IMHO > this isn't important enough to consume space on the top page; the > section should be removed and the companies listed somewhere else (in a > marketing section?). > Or have it on its own page that is linked off the currently named "Popular Exits" page? And once again we should try to play favorites so we should have a basic requirement to get on there (company promotes its use of Python in a visible way?). Now I have a question about acronyms. Currently there is a link to IDLE and PEPs. Newbies will have no clue what either are. IDLE unfortunately looks like an acronym. Perhaps we can change the link to "IDLE editor" or something to make it more obvious what IDLE is? And as for PEPs, we should just spell it out and put the acronym in parentheses like the PSF is done on. -Brett From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Mon Aug 11 23:51:43 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Mon Aug 11 17:51:50 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> Message-ID: <000601c36052$c73c04d0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> AMK said: >The problem with the current sidebar is that it's too long and the >links are too jumbled. >My current draft is at http://www.amk.ca/python.org.html, but it still >needs work. I think the sidebar suffers from the 'it all needs to go on the front page' disease. Just as there is usually a case to have most things on the front page, there is an equal case that says there only need be a handful of direct links. The real answer lies in what is best perceived by the user and that is a result of a few factors i) speed in which they know they 'are on the right path'. This doesn't mean they have found where they are going, as long as you know you are on your way and it looks acheivable this is sufficient. Conversely it can be written, don't leave them hunting for ages for the exact solution when a suitable milestone can be found quickly. ii) above the fold exposure of all 'paths'. Everything doesn't have to be above the fold (in the web this typically means the 550 pixels give or take 50. People will scroll past this but they shouldn't have to for major items. iii) the typical user can keep a max of 9-12 items in their heads, any more becomes a jumble. This can be used to focus in to achive more items (ie choose on of the first 9 or so and then see another group of up to 9 choose from. iv) Any room left over should be used for exceptionall common usage items, prioritising those at the top These obviously aren't 'rules' but can help avoid pitfalls. Myself and my colleague Matt went through an analysis of the site content and performed quick 'new user' test and our notes are at http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/redesign-notes.txt These resulted in the grouping shown at http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/design2.gif (for HTML http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded.html, still a couple of browser bugs) [ While I'm mentioning these and there are a few more people here, could I solicit more feedback on the designs, cheers ] The sidebar is as follows for those without browser access ABOUT> For Beginners For Developers For Business DOWNLOAD> Python Stable (2.2.3) Python Beta (2.3b2) more ... DOCUMENTATION> Tutorials Library Reference Standard Modules Language Reference more ... COMMUNITY> Mailing Lists Events User Groups more ... DEVELOPERS> Project Page PEPs FAQ Daily Snapshot more ... LINKS> Vaults of Parnassus Python Success Stories Python Starship Zope Python User Group Python books more ... >* Popular links is too vague a section title. Can someone suggest a >better title, or a rearrangement that makes the choice of title clear? >* The "Exits" section is a jumble of stuff. Why link to PyGame, not >NumPy or PIL or Reportlab or any number of worthy packages? Why link >to the particular topic of web hosting? I'd suggest just dropping the >entire "Exits" section, because it's not clear what it's for. Just group links into a 'links' section. These can be detailed and grouped on the interior page >* "Commercial Exits" is also really long, yet it's still incomplete. >As M.-A. Lemburg pointed out a little while ago, his company, eGenix, >isn't listed. We lack a criterion for adding companies to this list. >IMHO this isn't important enough to consume space on the top page; the >section should be removed and the companies listed somewhere else (in a >marketing section?). Agreed Tim Parkin Pollenation From aahz at pythoncraft.com Mon Aug 11 18:55:16 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Mon Aug 11 17:55:21 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> Message-ID: <20030811215516.GA1133@panix.com> On Mon, Aug 11, 2003, A. M. Kuchling wrote: > > * "Commercial Exits" is also really long, yet it's still incomplete. > As M.-A. Lemburg pointed out a little while ago, his company, eGenix, > isn't listed. We lack a criterion for adding companies to this list. > IMHO this isn't important enough to consume space on the top page; the > section should be removed and the companies listed somewhere else (in a > marketing section?). It's on my ToDo list to move that to a separate page, but anyone who wants to go ahead and do it, feel free. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From skip at pobox.com Mon Aug 11 18:45:50 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Mon Aug 11 18:46:04 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> Message-ID: <16184.7326.400782.101498@montanaro.dyndns.org> amk> The problem with the current sidebar is that it's too long and the amk> links are too jumbled. My current draft is at amk> http://www.amk.ca/python.org.html, but it still needs work. amk> Issues: amk> * Popular links is too vague a section title. Can someone suggest amk> a better title, or a rearrangement that makes the choice of title amk> clear? I think it's too vague a title because what's underneath it doesn't really fit together well. It's not obvious what "Python Wiki" has to do with either the PSF or the PBF. It's also not obvious why you need both "Events" and "PyCon 2004" there. I'd split what's there into something like: Popular Pages Python Job Board Events Python Wiki Python-Related Organizations Python Software Foundation Python Business Forum Python User Groups ("Organizations" as opposed to "Companies".) PyCon is important and popular, but for the time being it should get enough attention in the Announcements page. By the time it falls off the bottom of that bullet list I'm sure some other milestone will have been crossed which will warrant Aahz recycling it to the top of the list. ;-) amk> * The "Exits" section is a jumble of stuff. Why link to PyGame, amk> not NumPy or PIL or Reportlab or any number of worthy packages? amk> Why link to the particular topic of web hosting? I'd suggest amk> just dropping the entire "Exits" section, because it's not clear amk> what it's for. Lack of firm criteria I think, plus this isn't really the place for this stuff. amk> * "Commercial Exits" is also really long, yet it's still amk> incomplete. As M.-A. Lemburg pointed out a little while ago, his amk> company, eGenix, isn't listed. We lack a criterion for adding amk> companies to this list. IMHO this isn't important enough to amk> consume space on the top page; the section should be removed and amk> the companies listed somewhere else (in a marketing section?). Ditto, I think. I would argue that there is no need for the Exits section at all. There are both PyPI and the Vaults of Parnassus, not to mention the Python forum on SourceForge. Commercial Exits clearly needs some criteria so we don't wind up with 200 companies listed. Maybe that stuff should be moved to a Wiki page just like PythonHosting. The companies who wish to be listed can manage their own turf. Skip From amk at amk.ca Mon Aug 11 20:12:38 2003 From: amk at amk.ca (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Mon Aug 11 19:29:29 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <20030811215516.GA1133@panix.com> Message-ID: <4CDDF735-CC51-11D7-B10B-0003931BF218@amk.ca> On Monday, August 11, 2003, at 05:55 PM, Aahz wrote: > It's on my ToDo list to move that to a separate page, but anyone who > wants to go ahead and do it, feel free. Where would the Commercial Exits go? Should they become the new community/users page? --amk From aahz at pythoncraft.com Mon Aug 11 20:30:50 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Mon Aug 11 19:30:53 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <4CDDF735-CC51-11D7-B10B-0003931BF218@amk.ca> References: <20030811215516.GA1133@panix.com> <4CDDF735-CC51-11D7-B10B-0003931BF218@amk.ca> Message-ID: <20030811233050.GA5227@panix.com> On Mon, Aug 11, 2003, A. M. Kuchling wrote: > On Monday, August 11, 2003, at 05:55 PM, Aahz wrote: >> >>It's on my ToDo list to move that to a separate page, but anyone who >>wants to go ahead and do it, feel free. > > Where would the Commercial Exits go? Should they become the new > community/users page? It'd be a subpage off community (or possibly marketing). -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From amk at amk.ca Mon Aug 11 21:57:24 2003 From: amk at amk.ca (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Mon Aug 11 21:14:15 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <16184.7326.400782.101498@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: On Monday, August 11, 2003, at 06:45 PM, Skip Montanaro wrote: > amk> just dropping the entire "Exits" section, because it's not > clear > amk> what it's for. General opinion seemed to be in favor of dropping Exits and Commercial Exits, so I've done that in the draft at amk.ca. The sidebar is now only slightly taller than my screen; if we shrank the font used, it might all fit. --amk From oktaysafak at ixir.com Tue Aug 12 13:23:11 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Tue Aug 12 05:21:10 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F380DE4.8050403@ocf.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <000b01c36107$2c7d9980$0200a8c0@b> "Brett C." wrote: > > Now I have a question about acronyms. Currently there is a link to IDLE > and PEPs. Newbies will have no clue what either are. IDLE > unfortunately looks like an acronym. Perhaps we can change the link to > "IDLE editor" or something to make it more obvious what IDLE is? And as > for PEPs, we should just spell it out and put the acronym in parentheses > like the PSF is done on. Tool-tips might be a good option here. Regards, Oktay From matt at pollenation.net Tue Aug 12 11:56:54 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Tue Aug 12 05:45:00 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <000b01c36107$2c7d9980$0200a8c0@b> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F380DE4.8050403@ocf.berkeley.edu> <000b01c36107$2c7d9980$0200a8c0@b> Message-ID: <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> Oktay Safak wrote: >"Brett C." wrote: > > >>Now I have a question about acronyms. Currently there is a link to IDLE >>and PEPs. Newbies will have no clue what either are. IDLE >>unfortunately looks like an acronym. Perhaps we can change the link to >>"IDLE editor" or something to make it more obvious what IDLE is? And as >>for PEPs, we should just spell it out and put the acronym in parentheses >>like the PSF is done on. >> >> > >Tool-tips might be a good option here. > > We tend to scan web pages very quickly with our eyes so I doubt tooltips will help much here. Tooltips are great for providing additional information about a link the reader has already seen but are not so good for catching their attention in the first place. What about "Builtin IDE (IDLE)" and "Enhancement Proposals"? Perhaps with tooltips to describe them in more detail if that is useful. I'm not even sure these links should be so prominent anyway. IDLE should be mentioned in the tutorials, in a bullet point list of Python strengths/features and in the list of editors. PEPs are only really of interest to more advanced users so they'll already know exactly where to find them. As an aside, I really think that the top-left part of the nav needs to be **completely** set aside for finding out about Python, particularly for welcoming beginners. - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenationinternet.com e: matt@pollenation.net From amk at amk.ca Tue Aug 12 08:55:52 2003 From: amk at amk.ca (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Tue Aug 12 08:13:16 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> Message-ID: On Tuesday, August 12, 2003, at 05:56 AM, Matt Goodall wrote: > What about "Builtin IDE (IDLE)" and "Enhancement Proposals"? Perhaps > with tooltips to describe them in more detail if that is useful. This is a good point. I've been dropping "Python" from link titles because you *know* the site is about Python, so the Job Board is likely about Python jobs, but I'm not sure about dropping it from PEPs, where the word "Python" is part of the acronym. (Similarly, the PSF and PBF titles have to remain unchanged.) There's already a "Developers" link in the top bar, so I'll just drop that section from the sidebar. IDE is another acronym, so it's not clear that it'll be any more understandable for a newbie. However, /idle/ doesn't really contain a lot of material, so maybe dropping the IDLE link is OK; I've done that in my current draft. I've also shortened the content on the main page a bit. The draft is as always at www.amk.ca/python.org.html. > As an aside, I really think that the top-left part of the nav needs to > be **completely** set aside for finding out about Python, particularly > for welcoming beginners. Suggest a set of beginner's links and we can try it. (But Kevin reported that many users go to python.org for documentation; the current link arrangement therefore has version and documentation links in the upper left corner.) Incidentally, I received an anecdotal report from one of my SO's co-workers that it's really annoying when the 'Python' icon in the upper left-hand corner is actually unreadable. (e.g. one is in the Wingdings fonts, so it's just a bunch of symbols.) Anyone want to go through the icons and discard the offending ones? --amk From matt at pollenation.net Tue Aug 12 14:46:42 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Tue Aug 12 08:35:14 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3F38E1B2.9080009@pollenation.net> A.M. Kuchling wrote: > IDE is another acronym, so it's not clear that it'll be any more > understandable for a newbie. I would imagine all newbies will know IDE, in fact it's probably **all** they know ;-). Besides, if they don't know what an IDE is then they probably wouldn't know what an Integrated Development Environment was either. > However, /idle/ doesn't really contain a lot of material, so maybe > dropping the IDLE link is OK; I've done that in my current draft. > I've also shortened the content on the main page a bit. If IDLE is not listed with other features features already then it should be. The interactive shell and IDLE are very useful tools. >> As an aside, I really think that the top-left part of the nav needs >> to be **completely** set aside for finding out about Python, >> particularly for welcoming beginners. > > > Suggest a set of beginner's links and we can try it. (But Kevin > reported that many users go to python.org for documentation; the > current link arrangement therefore has version and documentation links > in the upper left corner.) See the "About" group in http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded.html or http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/design2.gif. Yes, it's the menu is quite different but just getting some of that navigation into the current design would be good. > Incidentally, I received an anecdotal report from one of my SO's > co-workers that it's really annoying when the 'Python' icon in the > upper left-hand corner is actually unreadable. (e.g. one is in the > Wingdings fonts, so it's just a bunch of symbols.) Anyone want to go > through the icons and discard the offending ones? Whoever decided to have rotating images, please put on your flameproof clothing now ;-) ... I have always thought having changing images was a terrible idea, never mind the fact that some are unreadable. Python needs a bit more branding and that means _one_ nice looking logo in the same place on every page. The same image should appear in all the documentation and any HTML press releases too. - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenationinternet.com e: matt@pollenation.net From sholden at holdenweb.com Tue Aug 12 09:46:41 2003 From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden) Date: Tue Aug 12 08:48:24 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <3F38E1B2.9080009@pollenation.net> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org > [mailto:pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org]On Behalf Of Matt Goodall > Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 8:47 AM > To: A.M. Kuchling [...] > > I have always thought having changing images was a terrible > idea, never > mind the fact that some are unreadable. Python needs a bit > more branding > and that means _one_ nice looking logo in the same place on > every page. > The same image should appear in all the documentation and any > HTML press > releases too. > Hear, hear! Now all we have to do is settle on which logo to use ... regards -- Steve Holden http://www.holdenweb.com/ Python Web Programming http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/ From oktaysafak at ixir.com Tue Aug 12 15:26:39 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Tue Aug 12 08:50:13 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F380DE4.8050403@ocf.berkeley.edu><000b01c36107$2c7d9980$0200a8c0@b> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> Message-ID: <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> "Matt Goodall" wrote: > Oktay Safak wrote: > >Tool-tips might be a good option here. > We tend to scan web pages very quickly with our eyes so I doubt tooltips > will help much here. Agreed. > Tooltips are great for providing additional > information about a link the reader has already seen but are not so good > for catching their attention in the first place. Well, the three major links that are acronyms are IDLE, SIGs and PEPs, I guess. SIGs and PEPs aren't likely to be of interest to a newcomer so tool-tips would provide enough explanation for them. IDLE is the one that we need to make more prominent here. A tool-tip (even a somewhat long one) would help but I agree that it should catch attention during a visual scan. "IDLE: Python IDE" or your suggestion would be nice but I think a link should be short enough to fit in one line on the left nav-bar. So, I think, in addition to the above mentioned methods and better placement, we should be using stylistic difference for links that we want to stand out from the rest while making sure that this doesn't impact the page design negatively. Exactly what those would be up to the visual designer. If that can be done properly, this will even result in a richer visual experience. > > What about "Builtin IDE (IDLE)" and "Enhancement Proposals"? Perhaps > with tooltips to describe them in more detail if that is useful. Yep. See above. Regards, Oktay From roy at panix.com Tue Aug 12 09:57:58 2003 From: roy at panix.com (Roy Smith) Date: Tue Aug 12 08:52:48 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <98F25A06-CCC4-11D7-BF5D-0050E405C35A@panix.com> On Tuesday, August 12, 2003, at 07:55 AM, A.M.Kuchling wrote: > The draft is as always at www.amk.ca/python.org.html. A few random comments; The "ANNOUNCEMENTS" headline is in a different font and style (center vs. flush left) from all the other headlines ("Top documentation links", etc). I find this visually jarring. The "Welcome to the official website for the Python programming language" line really doesn't add anything to the page. See this week's AlertBox colum for more on this (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030811.html). Does "www.python.org website hosted by XS4ALL" have to get the prominent place it has now? I don't know who XS4ALL is, but I'm assuming from the acknowledgement that they're donating web services. This is nice, and deserve acknowledgement, but is it really the most important thing on the page that it needs to be where it it, taking up the most valuable visual real-estate on the page? Could it be moved to the bottom somewhere? The "Documentation" section in the sidebar parallels the "Top documentation links section in the main part of the page. But not quite. Many of the items are the same, but it's not clear how it was decided to promote certain items to the sidebar. Neither is a proper subset of the other. Overall, it's confusing. Where do I find documentation? Well, some stuff is in one place, some stuff is in the other? It's difficult to build a mental picture of how to navigate these pages. Why do we have a "Developers" link on the nav bar? The target audience for this is the group of people who maintain the language itself. This is a very small group of people. Important, but small. They are also the most tuned-in and sophisticated. Do we really need to devote some of the most expensive real estate on every page in the entire site to telling the developers how to find SourceForge? Perhaps just a "how to get involved" link somewhere on the home page would be enough? I've come into the conversation somewhat late. Forgive me if some of the above comments have been brought up before. From matt at pollenation.net Tue Aug 12 15:11:41 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Tue Aug 12 08:59:48 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3F38E78D.5090904@pollenation.net> Steve Holden wrote: >Hear, hear! Now all we have to do is settle on which logo to use ... > Phew! Thanks Steve, at least someone else agrees with me ;-). - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenationinternet.com e: matt@pollenation.net t: +44 (0)113 2252500 From oktaysafak at ixir.com Tue Aug 12 17:21:41 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Tue Aug 12 09:23:27 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) References: Message-ID: <001301c36128$7ee79c40$0200a8c0@b> "Steve Holden" wrote: > Hear, hear! Now all we have to do is settle on which logo to use ... Gentlemen, logo submissions start, NOW! ;) Regards, Oktay From oktaysafak at ixir.com Tue Aug 12 17:17:09 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Tue Aug 12 09:23:30 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) References: <3F38E1B2.9080009@pollenation.net> Message-ID: <001001c36127$dd1d2740$0200a8c0@b> ----- Original Message ----- "Matt Goodall" wrote: > > Whoever decided to have rotating images, please put on your flameproof > clothing now ;-) ... > > I have always thought having changing images was a terrible idea, never > mind the fact that some are unreadable. Python needs a bit more branding > and that means _one_ nice looking logo in the same place on every page. > The same image should appear in all the documentation and any HTML press > releases too. Very good point. +3 ;) We are talking "design" and "marketing" here, after all. Regards, Oktay From matt at pollenation.net Tue Aug 12 15:39:38 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Tue Aug 12 09:27:53 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F380DE4.8050403@ocf.berkeley.edu><000b01c36107$2c7d9980$0200a8c0@b> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> Message-ID: <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> Oktay Safak wrote: >"Matt Goodall" wrote: > > > >>Tooltips are great for providing additional >>information about a link the reader has already seen but are not so good >>for catching their attention in the first place. >> >> > >Well, the three major links that are acronyms are IDLE, SIGs and PEPs, I >guess. SIGs and PEPs aren't likely to be of interest to a newcomer so >tool-tips would provide enough explanation for them. > Actually, SIGS are *extremely* important right now for the sole reason that it's where the DB-API is documented. That specification should be more prominent although I haven't got any suggestions. >So, I think, in addition to the above mentioned methods and better >placement, we should be using stylistic difference for links that we want to >stand out from the rest while making sure that this doesn't impact the page >design negatively. Exactly what those would be up to the visual designer. If >that can be done properly, this will even result in a richer visual >experience. > I would say that any links that need to stand out should simply be placed toward the top of the menu or , if they're **really** important, should exist in the nav area at the top of the page (to the right of the logo). However, using stylistic differences to help readers scan the page looking for relevant information or links is a good idea. Group headers in large menus are one example of this - looks different so gives the eye something to focus in on and contains some text to tell the reader that they're on the right path. - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenationinternet.com e: matt@pollenation.net From sholden at holdenweb.com Tue Aug 12 10:40:21 2003 From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden) Date: Tue Aug 12 09:42:08 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org > [mailto:pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org]On Behalf Of > A.M. Kuchling > Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 7:56 AM > To: Pydotorg-Redesign > Subject: Re: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar > (again!) > > > On Tuesday, August 12, 2003, at 05:56 AM, Matt Goodall wrote: > > What about "Builtin IDE (IDLE)" and "Enhancement > Proposals"? Perhaps > > with tooltips to describe them in more detail if that is useful. > > This is a good point. I've been dropping "Python" from link titles > because you *know* > the site is about Python, so the Job Board is likely about > Python jobs, > but I'm not sure > about dropping it from PEPs, where the word "Python" is part of the > acronym. (Similarly, the PSF and PBF titles have to remain > unchanged.) > > There's already a "Developers" link in the top bar, so I'll just drop > that section from the sidebar. > > IDE is another acronym, so it's not clear that it'll be any more > understandable for a newbie. > However, /idle/ doesn't really contain a lot of material, so maybe > dropping the IDLE link is OK; I've done that in my current > draft. I've > also shortened the content on the main page a bit. > > The draft is as always at www.amk.ca/python.org.html. > > > As an aside, I really think that the top-left part of the > nav needs to > > be **completely** set aside for finding out about Python, > particularly > > for welcoming beginners. > I certainly agree that "Python Versions" is a waste of space - we already have a "Downloads" lin k in the top nav section, and going there shows you everything that "Python Versions" has in it. I'd just lose that navbar section altogether. Also, while "mirror sites" and "site map" are both useful links I thing they are too far up. Instead of heading what would become the first section as "Documentation" (confusing, since there's also a "Documentation" link in the top nav bar ...) could we have it read "Python: an Agile Programming Language"? That way we have explained to complete newbies at the top left of the page what Python is, and the introductory links have the necessary prominence. > Suggest a set of beginner's links and we can try it. (But Kevin > reported that many users go to python.org for documentation; the > current link arrangement therefore has version and > documentation links > in the upper left corner.) > As I just explained, I don't think we need any other special "beginners" links. However, on the "What is Python" page I'd like to see a change from "Python is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language" to "Python is an agile, open source, object-oriented programming language". Also (from a marketing point of view) that page focuses far too much on features (What is Python) and nowhere near enough on benefits (How will Python help me). We should look at a marketing-assisted rewrite. > Incidentally, I received an anecdotal report from one of my SO's > co-workers that it's really annoying when the 'Python' icon in the > upper left-hand corner is actually unreadable. (e.g. one is in the > Wingdings fonts, so it's just a bunch of symbols.) Anyone want to go > through the icons and discard the offending ones? > We should adopt a common visual style for all pages. Which reminds me, links like "Editing Python Code" and "Python Books" go to the Wiki. We should try to ensure that Wiki pages have a look consistent with the rest of the site to avoid confusing the new reader. Overall, however, I appreciate what you're doing - this is an excellent set of changes which will lead to a more useful site for many visitors. regards -- Steve Holden http://www.holdenweb.com/ Python Web Programming http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/ From guido at python.org Tue Aug 12 07:49:16 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Tue Aug 12 09:50:01 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 12 Aug 2003 07:55:52 EDT." References: Message-ID: <200308121349.h7CDnGI32073@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > This is a good point. I've been dropping "Python" from link titles > because you *know* the site is about Python, OTOH the tiele is what is shown in your bookmarks, and people for whom Python is not (yet) a way of life might mix bookmarks on multiple languages. At the very least the home page's title should include the word Python, probably "Python Home". --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From guido at python.org Tue Aug 12 07:56:13 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Tue Aug 12 09:56:39 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 12 Aug 2003 08:57:58 EDT." <98F25A06-CCC4-11D7-BF5D-0050E405C35A@panix.com> References: <98F25A06-CCC4-11D7-BF5D-0050E405C35A@panix.com> Message-ID: <200308121356.h7CDuDl32098@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > The "Welcome to the official website for the Python programming > language" line really doesn't add anything to the page. See this > week's AlertBox colum for more on this > (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030811.html). I'm in strong agreement with the sentiment expressed at that URL, but IMO *some* indication that this is (a) about a *programming language* and (b) the *official* Python website is needed. Some people end up here after here searching Google for solutions to their reptile problems; others are looking for authorized Python info. (Quick: which of the many Perl and Tcl sites is the official one?) --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From guido at python.org Tue Aug 12 07:57:36 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Tue Aug 12 10:00:54 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 12 Aug 2003 16:17:09 PDT." <001001c36127$dd1d2740$0200a8c0@b> References: <3F38E1B2.9080009@pollenation.net> <001001c36127$dd1d2740$0200a8c0@b> Message-ID: <200308121357.h7CDva932126@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > > Whoever decided to have rotating images, please put on your flameproof > > clothing now ;-) ... Have you guys lost all of your sense of humor? --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 12 11:02:32 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Tue Aug 12 10:02:36 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> Message-ID: <20030812140232.GB17982@panix.com> On Tue, Aug 12, 2003, Matt Goodall wrote: > > Actually, SIGS are *extremely* important right now for the sole reason > that it's where the DB-API is documented. That specification should be > more prominent although I haven't got any suggestions. But it's not something someone going to the home page needs. I think that having it on the Community page is probably enough, and can be expanded there with more detail. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 12 11:03:36 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Tue Aug 12 10:03:39 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <200308121357.h7CDva932126@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> References: <3F38E1B2.9080009@pollenation.net> <001001c36127$dd1d2740$0200a8c0@b> <200308121357.h7CDva932126@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> Message-ID: <20030812140336.GC17982@panix.com> On Tue, Aug 12, 2003, Guido van Rossum wrote: > > Have you guys lost all of your sense of humor? Yes. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ There may or may not be a smiley above. From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 12 11:06:04 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Tue Aug 12 10:06:07 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <98F25A06-CCC4-11D7-BF5D-0050E405C35A@panix.com> References: <98F25A06-CCC4-11D7-BF5D-0050E405C35A@panix.com> Message-ID: <20030812140604.GD17982@panix.com> On Tue, Aug 12, 2003, Roy Smith wrote: > > Why do we have a "Developers" link on the nav bar? The target audience > for this is the group of people who maintain the language itself. This > is a very small group of people. Important, but small. They are also > the most tuned-in and sophisticated. Do we really need to devote some > of the most expensive real estate on every page in the entire site to > telling the developers how to find SourceForge? Perhaps just a "how to > get involved" link somewhere on the home page would be enough? The home page should IMO be welcoming of a diverse group of people. While I'm willing to remove the Developers link from the top navbar, I'll want to keep its prominence on the side navbar ("Python Project"). -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 12 11:09:28 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Tue Aug 12 10:09:30 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20030812140928.GE17982@panix.com> On Tue, Aug 12, 2003, Steve Holden wrote: > > I certainly agree that "Python Versions" is a waste of space - we > already have a "Downloads" lin k in the top nav section, and going there > shows you everything that "Python Versions" has in it. I'd just lose > that navbar section altogether. The problem is that currently if we remove Python Versions, you have to click through at least two pages to make a download; until that's fixed, it needs to stay. > Also, while "mirror sites" and "site map" are both useful links I thing > they are too far up. Agreed about mirrors; disagree about site map. Many people go almost immediately to site map (or search) if they don't see something obviously related to what they're looking for, because looking at the whole site structure helps to figure what's located where. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 12 10:57:10 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Tue Aug 12 10:14:32 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Advocacy directory Message-ID: <20030812135709.GA17982@panix.com> I'm about to set up a directory for placing marketing material, to go with a new top-level link called "Why Python?". I'm currently leaning toward making the directory name /why/; other good options would probably be /marketing/ or /advocacy/ . Comments? -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From amk at asti-usa.com Tue Aug 12 11:17:02 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Tue Aug 12 10:19:28 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <200308121349.h7CDnGI32073@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> References: <200308121349.h7CDnGI32073@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> Message-ID: <20030812141702.GB25825@vail.asti-usa.com> On Tue, Aug 12, 2003 at 06:49:16AM -0700, Guido van Rossum wrote: > > This is a good point. I've been dropping "Python" from link titles > > because you *know* the site is about Python, > > OTOH the title is what is shown in your bookmarks ... I should have been clearer; "link titles" should have been "link text", e.g. instead of "Python Job Board", use just "Job Board" as the link text. Page titles (that go inside the element) should always give as many details as possible. (It's nice to see you weighing on this discussion, BTW.) --amk (www.amk.ca) "One's ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature." -- Sherlock Holmes, in "A Study in Scarlet" From sholden at holdenweb.com Tue Aug 12 11:23:34 2003 From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden) Date: Tue Aug 12 10:25:22 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <20030812140928.GE17982@panix.com> Message-ID: <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMAAELJEPAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org > [mailto:pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org]On Behalf Of Aahz > Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 10:09 AM > To: Pydotorg-Redesign > Subject: Re: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar > (again!) > > > On Tue, Aug 12, 2003, Steve Holden wrote: > > > > I certainly agree that "Python Versions" is a waste of space - we > > already have a "Downloads" lin k in the top nav section, > and going there > > shows you everything that "Python Versions" has in it. I'd just lose > > that navbar section altogether. > > The problem is that currently if we remove Python Versions, > you have to > click through at least two pages to make a download; until > that's fixed, > it needs to stay. > Disagree. Clearly the downloads page will improve, but even before that the current download is one click away, and only older versions require two. That's placing a disincentive on the use of older versions which would be a good thing. > > Also, while "mirror sites" and "site map" are both useful > links I thing > > they are too far up. > > Agreed about mirrors; disagree about site map. Many people go almost > immediately to site map (or search) if they don't see something > obviously related to what they're looking for, because looking at the > whole site structure helps to figure what's located where. OK, "site map" could stay at the top of the nav bar, right under the "search" box (we are going to put "search" on all pages, right?) regards -- Steve Holden http://www.holdenweb.com/ Python Web Programming http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/ From amk at asti-usa.com Tue Aug 12 11:28:05 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Tue Aug 12 10:28:38 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <3F38E1B2.9080009@pollenation.net> References: <EC4B47DD-CCBB-11D7-B10B-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38E1B2.9080009@pollenation.net> Message-ID: <20030812142805.GC25825@vail.asti-usa.com> On Tue, Aug 12, 2003 at 01:46:42PM +0100, Matt Goodall wrote: > I have always thought having changing images was a terrible idea, never > mind the fact that some are unreadable. Python needs a bit more branding I don't really care much about branding, and many of the various fonts are quite attractive, so I'm happy to keep the rotating logos; my suggestion is just to winnow out a few of them. After writing a little script to put them all on one HTML page (didn't Steve Holden post a link for such a page?), I'd point the finger at the following ones: 014: greatly fattened letters make it hard to read 019: the Wingdings one: it's button, square, diamond, light bulb, clock, star. 040: zebra stripes; if you squint very hard, you can actually make out the word, but it's difficult. 053: fattened, pointillist rendering I'm unsure of 002, 023, and 030; the letters are eroded away, making the lines very thin and possibly hard to read. I like the pointillist versions much less than the outline font renderings. Ones I really liked, BTW: 029 (a nice clean-looking sans-serif), 031 (a calligraphic version), 009 (the famous X-Files font). I find I prefer ones that slope upward (the right side is higher), and like the downward-sloping ones less. --amk (www.amk.ca) Right, freeze! I mean, don't freeze, I mean stand still! -- Ace, in "Dragonfire" From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 12 11:37:01 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Tue Aug 12 10:37:04 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMAAELJEPAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> References: <20030812140928.GE17982@panix.com> <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMAAELJEPAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> Message-ID: <20030812143701.GB22764@panix.com> BTW, Steve, it would be really handy in these long discussion threads if you'd use standard quoting. On Tue, Aug 12, 2003, Steve Holden wrote: >Aahz: >> >> The problem is that currently if we remove Python Versions, you have >> to click through at least two pages to make a download; until that's >> fixed, it needs to stay. > > Disagree. Clearly the downloads page will improve, but even before > that the current download is one click away, and only older versions > require two. That's placing a disincentive on the use of older > versions which would be a good thing. Unless you're talking about the Announcements section (which isn't IMO useful), where's the one click? >> Agreed about mirrors; disagree about site map. Many people go almost >> immediately to site map (or search) if they don't see something >> obviously related to what they're looking for, because looking at the >> whole site structure helps to figure what's located where. > > OK, "site map" could stay at the top of the nav bar, right under the > "search" box (we are going to put "search" on all pages, right?) But of course. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From amk at asti-usa.com Tue Aug 12 11:39:05 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Tue Aug 12 10:39:39 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> Message-ID: <20030812143905.GD25825@vail.asti-usa.com> On Tue, Aug 12, 2003 at 02:39:38PM +0100, Matt Goodall wrote: > Actually, SIGS are *extremely* important right now for the sole reason > that it's where the DB-API is documented. That specification should be > more prominent although I haven't got any suggestions. The DB-API is also available as PEPs #, err, 248 and 249 I think (DB-API 1.0/2.0). --amk From matt at pollenation.net Tue Aug 12 17:11:04 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Tue Aug 12 10:59:18 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <20030812140232.GB17982@panix.com> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> <20030812140232.GB17982@panix.com> Message-ID: <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> Aahz wrote: >On Tue, Aug 12, 2003, Matt Goodall wrote: > > >>Actually, SIGS are *extremely* important right now for the sole reason >>that it's where the DB-API is documented. That specification should be >>more prominent although I haven't got any suggestions. >> >> > >But it's not something someone going to the home page needs. I think >that having it on the Community page is probably enough, and can be >expanded there with more detail. > > Very true, although I was really just raising the issue before I forgot again ;-). Having said that, support for database access is probably one of the key things people will look for when evaluating the language. For me, and probably lots of other people, it's a very important part of Python. I know the DB-API isn't core Python but it would be great to get a link to it on the main documentation page. - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenationinternet.com e: matt@pollenation.net From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 12 12:00:10 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:00:15 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> <20030812140232.GB17982@panix.com> <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> Message-ID: <20030812150009.GA25613@panix.com> On Tue, Aug 12, 2003, Matt Goodall wrote: > > Having said that, support for database access is probably one of the key > things people will look for when evaluating the language. For me, and > probably lots of other people, it's a very important part of Python. I > know the DB-API isn't core Python but it would be great to get a link to > it on the main documentation page. How about the Why Python? pages? -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From matt at pollenation.net Tue Aug 12 17:14:15 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:02:21 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Advocacy directory In-Reply-To: <20030812135709.GA17982@panix.com> References: <20030812135709.GA17982@panix.com> Message-ID: <3F390447.3020006@pollenation.net> Aahz wrote: >I'm about to set up a directory for placing marketing material, to go >with a new top-level link called "Why Python?". I'm currently leaning >toward making the directory name /why/; other good options would >probably be /marketing/ or /advocacy/ . Comments? > > Not marketing, why and advocacy are ok, although it's just taken me three attempts to spell advocacy correctly ;-). - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenationinternet.com e: matt@pollenation.net From fdrake at acm.org Tue Aug 12 12:07:57 2003 From: fdrake at acm.org (Fred L. Drake, Jr.) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:08:37 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Advocacy directory In-Reply-To: <3F390447.3020006@pollenation.net> References: <20030812135709.GA17982@panix.com> <3F390447.3020006@pollenation.net> Message-ID: <16185.717.830080.884228@grendel.zope.com> Matt Goodall writes: > Not marketing, why and advocacy are ok, although it's just taken me > three attempts to spell advocacy correctly ;-). I think "why" is better than "advocacy": - it's less of a turn-off for; the connotation for "why" doesn't indicate any inherent bias - it's shorter -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org> PythonLabs at Zope Corporation From matt at pollenation.net Tue Aug 12 17:21:01 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:09:09 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <20030812140928.GE17982@panix.com> References: <EC4B47DD-CCBB-11D7-B10B-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMACELDEPAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> <20030812140928.GE17982@panix.com> Message-ID: <3F3905DD.2090609@pollenation.net> > > >Agreed about mirrors; disagree about site map. Many people go almost >immediately to site map (or search) if they don't see something >obviously related to what they're looking for, because looking at the >whole site structure helps to figure what's located where. > > Interesting, do people go straight to the site map or do they trawl around the site first and then use it a last resort? Perhaps the use of the site map is a symptom of other problems? I only say this because I can't think of a time that I've ever used one myself. - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenationinternet.com e: matt@pollenation.net From fdrake at acm.org Tue Aug 12 12:13:51 2003 From: fdrake at acm.org (Fred L. Drake, Jr.) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:14:34 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> <20030812140232.GB17982@panix.com> <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> <20030812150009.GA25613@panix.com> Message-ID: <16185.1071.815699.636251@grendel.zope.com> Matt Goodall writes: > Having said that, support for database access is probably one of the key > things people will look for when evaluating the language. For me, and > probably lots of other people, it's a very important part of Python. I Definately. > know the DB-API isn't core Python but it would be great to get a link to > it on the main documentation page. I've added a link on the left navigation bar, next to the regular expressions link. Aahz writes: > How about the Why Python? pages? The existance of a common database API is a good reason why, so do include a link there, along with a short explanation as to why it's interesting. -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org> PythonLabs at Zope Corporation From matt at pollenation.net Tue Aug 12 17:29:51 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:17:59 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <20030812150009.GA25613@panix.com> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> <20030812140232.GB17982@panix.com> <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> <20030812150009.GA25613@panix.com> Message-ID: <3F3907EF.3000701@pollenation.net> Aahz wrote: >On Tue, Aug 12, 2003, Matt Goodall wrote: > > >>Having said that, support for database access is probably one of the key >>things people will look for when evaluating the language. For me, and >>probably lots of other people, it's a very important part of Python. I >>know the DB-API isn't core Python but it would be great to get a link to >>it on the main documentation page. >> >> > >How about the Why Python? pages? > It should certainly say "has great database support" on the "Why Python?" pages but I was talking about the actual API: connect(), cursor(), commit() and rollback() etc. - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenationinternet.com e: matt@pollenation.net From amk at asti-usa.com Tue Aug 12 12:17:33 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:18:06 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> <20030812140232.GB17982@panix.com> <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> Message-ID: <20030812151733.GA31600@vail.asti-usa.com> On Tue, Aug 12, 2003 at 04:11:04PM +0100, Matt Goodall wrote: > probably lots of other people, it's a very important part of Python. I > know the DB-API isn't core Python but it would be great to get a link to > it on the main documentation page. A link to /topics/database might be better, since the topic guide also links to the various database modules. --amk From fdrake at acm.org Tue Aug 12 12:19:59 2003 From: fdrake at acm.org (Fred L. Drake, Jr.) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:20:34 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <20030812151733.GA31600@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> <20030812140232.GB17982@panix.com> <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> <20030812151733.GA31600@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <16185.1439.444493.45936@grendel.zope.com> A.M. Kuchling writes: > A link to /topics/database might be better, since the topic guide also > links to the various database modules. That's what I used, since it contains prominent links to both versions of the API and the list of implementations. -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org> PythonLabs at Zope Corporation From matt at pollenation.net Tue Aug 12 17:36:19 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:24:30 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <20030812142805.GC25825@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <EC4B47DD-CCBB-11D7-B10B-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38E1B2.9080009@pollenation.net> <20030812142805.GC25825@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <3F390973.3050308@pollenation.net> A.M. Kuchling wrote: >On Tue, Aug 12, 2003 at 01:46:42PM +0100, Matt Goodall wrote: > > >>I have always thought having changing images was a terrible idea, never >>mind the fact that some are unreadable. Python needs a bit more branding >> >> > >I don't really care much about branding, > OK, branding was a bad word to use (far too many connotations), I'll let guys in python-marketing use those sorts of words from now on ;-). The idea is still important though - a consistent image lets the reader know they're back at python.org and/or haven't been sent off to another site. - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenationinternet.com e: matt@pollenation.net From oktaysafak at ixir.com Tue Aug 12 19:00:34 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:25:26 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] A brilliant quote Message-ID: <003201c36136$4f9ca4e0$0200a8c0@b> QOTW (Quote of the week): "What can I do with Python that I can't do with C#? You can go home on time at the end of the day." -- Daniel Klein (via Dr. Dobb's Python-URL) From matt at pollenation.net Tue Aug 12 17:40:48 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:29:04 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <16185.1439.444493.45936@grendel.zope.com> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> <20030812140232.GB17982@panix.com> <3F390388.4020703@pollenation.net> <20030812151733.GA31600@vail.asti-usa.com> <16185.1439.444493.45936@grendel.zope.com> Message-ID: <3F390A80.1010505@pollenation.net> Fred L. Drake, Jr. wrote: >A.M. Kuchling writes: > > A link to /topics/database might be better, since the topic guide also > > links to the various database modules. > >That's what I used, since it contains prominent links to both versions >of the API and the list of implementations. > Oh yeah, I hadn't noticed that before but then I know where the APIs are now ;-). Perhaps "Topic Guides" could simply be expanded to "Topic Guides - Database, XML, blah", i.e. pull out the more obvious topics to give readers more of an idea about what's behind the link. - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenationinternet.com e: matt@pollenation.net t: +44 (0)113 2252500 From guido at python.org Tue Aug 12 09:39:04 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:39:32 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 12 Aug 2003 10:28:05 EDT." <20030812142805.GC25825@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <EC4B47DD-CCBB-11D7-B10B-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38E1B2.9080009@pollenation.net> <20030812142805.GC25825@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <200308121539.h7CFd4m32382@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > 009 (the famous X-Files font) Which I hope everyone remembers was designed by the same Erik van Blokland who (with Just van Rossum) did the original python.org design. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From guido at python.org Tue Aug 12 09:42:28 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:42:53 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 12 Aug 2003 16:21:01 BST." <3F3905DD.2090609@pollenation.net> References: <EC4B47DD-CCBB-11D7-B10B-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMACELDEPAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> <20030812140928.GE17982@panix.com> <3F3905DD.2090609@pollenation.net> Message-ID: <200308121542.h7CFgSD32419@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > Interesting, do people go straight to the site map or do they trawl > around the site first and then use it a last resort? The site map is there as a last resort. > Perhaps the use of the site map is a symptom of other problems? I > only say this because I can't think of a time that I've ever used > one myself. On a new site, I usually try browsing first, then searching, then the site map. A good site map acts as the table of contents of a book: it shows you the overall structure. Depending on what you're looking for, this is redundant, unhelpful, or exactly what you need. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 12 12:52:41 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:52:48 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Advocacy directory In-Reply-To: <003a01c360e6$f68e2080$0a00a8c0@JASPER> References: <20030812135709.GA17982@panix.com> <003a01c360e6$f68e2080$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <20030812155241.GA7110@panix.com> [I'm assuming this was intended to be public, so I'm responding publicly and quoting the whole thing, reformatting for easier reading.] On Tue, Aug 12, 2003, Tim Parkin wrote: > Aahz said >> >>I'm about to set up a directory for placing marketing material, to go >>with a new top-level link called "Why Python?". I'm currently leaning >>toward making the directory name /why/; other good options would >>probably be /marketing/ or /advocacy/ . Comments? > > I'm not sure what sort of marketing material is intended to be > stored there. If it's promotional material then it could be a press > section. If it's case studies the a case studies section. > > "Why Python?" seems too generic as in 'Why do we use python', 'Why > should you use python', 'Why does python exist', or it could be an > "About.." item. It may be better to name the links corresponding to > the reason why people are at the site,i.e. assuming that they wish to > answer a questions or solve a problem. I'm concentrating on the first level first. As I've said earlier, I think most newcomers to www.python.org are probably people who've heard about Python from somewhere else. I think a prominent link named "Why Python?" will attract their attention. Once there, there should be links to additional information depending on what they're looking for. > It seems there would be three possible reasons why people would want > this material > > i) convince other people that Python is the right choice > ii) convince themselves that it's the right choice > iii) write articles for magazines, newspapers etc > > The first two are very dependant on the audience as the pitch would > be very different to a developer than to a manager (and for different > skill/experience levels). The last is a more niche section and would > consists of promotional material, press releases and pictures. OTOH, the overall information is similar for the first two. Let's not waste time micro-managing the message at this point. > My suggestion would be > > About > - For beginners > - For developers > - For business > > And possibly > > - Press This can all go into "Why Python?" quite easily. "About" doesn't attract attention the same way, IMO, and I don't think the "For..." links belong on the front page. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Tue Aug 12 17:54:51 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:55:00 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <20030812150009.GA25613@panix.com> Message-ID: <003b01c360ea$18b673d0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Aahz said >I'm about to set up a directory for placing marketing material, to go >with a new top-level link called "Why Python?". I'm currently leaning >toward making the directory name /why/; other good options would >probably be /marketing/ or /advocacy/ . Comments? I'm not sure what sort of marketing material is intended to be stored there. If it's promotional material then it could be a press section. If it's case studies the a case studies section. Otherwise ? "Why Python?" seems too generic as in 'Why do we use python', 'Why should you use python', 'Why does python exist', or it could be an "About.." item. It may be better to name the links corresponding to the reason why people are at the site,i.e. assuming that they wish to answer a questions or solve a problem. It seems there would be three possible reasons why people would want this material i) convince other people that Python is the right choice ii) convince themselves that it's the right choice iii) write articles for magazines, newspapers etc The first two are very dependant on the audience as the pitch would be very different to a developer than to a manager (and for different skill/experience levels). The last is a more niche section and would consists of promotional material, press releases and pictures. My suggestion would be About - For beginners - For developers - For business And possibly - Press My 2c Tim Parkin Pollenation From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 12 12:56:12 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Tue Aug 12 11:56:15 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] FWD: <no subject> Message-ID: <20030812155612.GB7110@panix.com> FYI -- despite all the complaining and planning we're doing here, this kind of comment is what we usually see on webmaster. I'm not suggesting we should slow down or anything, but let's recognize that lots of people *are* happy, and we want to be very careful not to lose that happiness. (And, yes, all too often we do get blank Subject: lines. <sigh>) ----- Forwarded message from "Dana B." <dana@momerath.us> ----- > Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2003 08:44:47 -0700 (PDT) > From: "Dana B." <dana@momerath.us> > Reply-To: dana@momerath.us > To: webmaster@python.org > > The link to "Scripting course by Hans Petter > Langtangen" on > http://www.python.org/topics/learn/prog.html in > broken. I did a quick google search and found the > course or something very similar at > http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~hpl/VitSimScripting/. > > Dana Baguley > > P.S. I'm trying to learn Python as sort of a first and > a halfth language (I have exposure but no real > competence in a handful of languages) and I've found > your site very helpful so far. Thank you. ----- End forwarded message ----- From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Tue Aug 12 18:21:05 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Tue Aug 12 12:21:12 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Advocacy directory In-Reply-To: <20030812155241.GA7110@panix.com> Message-ID: <004301c360ed$c14276e0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> >> My suggestion would be >> >> About >> - For beginners >> - For developers >> - For business >> >> And possibly >> >> - Press >This can all go into "Why Python?" quite easily. "About" doesn't >attract attention the same way, IMO, and I don't think the "For..." >links belong on the front page. Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. I think maybe an idea of what percentage of the home page links we think should be aimed at what audience. At the moment the percentages are (very) roughly. Beginners 6% Docs 10% Downloads/Modules 12% Developers 14% Community 12% Links 46% Is this what we want? And if not what sort of distribution/priorities do we have? As a further suggestion, I think there is a lot of cross talk on this list between people who are making incremental changes to the current site and people who wish to plan for a more thorough re-appraisal. I don't know what could be done about this but it seems the conversations are getting mixed and some intentions perhaps being misunderstood. Obviously I have an interest in the bigger reorganisation and have committed myself to helping in this to best of my abilities. I also realise this will be a long process and would like to gather as many 'requirements' as possible to set a foundation. Anyway.. 5.30pm here so it's time to stop before the evening shift begins. Tim From skip at pobox.com Tue Aug 12 12:28:05 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Tue Aug 12 12:28:17 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <3F38E78D.5090904@pollenation.net> References: <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMACELAEPAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> <3F38E78D.5090904@pollenation.net> Message-ID: <16185.5525.965491.386691@montanaro.dyndns.org> Steve> Hear, hear! Now all we have to do is settle on which logo to use Steve> ... Matt> Phew! Thanks Steve, at least someone else agrees with me ;-). You should be able to do it incrementally. Start by removing those which are most problematic, then converge on a set of "finalists". I forgot the banners are in CVS. You will probably have to cvs remove them and let people know so they can cvs up their pics directory. Otherwise, people will continue to generate pages which reference them. On the other hand, I rather like the different corner images. Skip From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 12 13:28:58 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Tue Aug 12 12:29:04 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] a modest proposal In-Reply-To: <1060443268.19893.1552.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> References: <000601c35c6a$485c4080$0200a8c0@b> <20030806150931.GA5777@vail.asti-usa.com> <003001c35de7$54dffda0$0200a8c0@b> <1060359818.19893.53.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16179.54064.303795.566879@montanaro.dyndns.org> <1060364697.19893.135.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16180.5176.173047.112003@montanaro.dyndns.org> <20030809002939.GF2856@panix.com> <1060443268.19893.1552.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> Message-ID: <20030812162858.GA16795@panix.com> On Sat, Aug 09, 2003, Dylan Reinhardt wrote: > > Would this group be willing to evaluate a demo of a Zope-based CMS that > could *supplement* the current offerings at python.org? If y'all are > willing to look at it, I'd be willing to assemble a small team to do it. Why don't you hold that thought until about two or three weeks after the formal transfer of python.org to the PSF? (I suggest waiting because there are probably some long-standing DNS changes that have been held pending the transfer that will get higher priority.) -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From skip at pobox.com Tue Aug 12 12:29:32 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Tue Aug 12 12:29:41 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <001001c36127$dd1d2740$0200a8c0@b> References: <EC4B47DD-CCBB-11D7-B10B-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F38E1B2.9080009@pollenation.net> <001001c36127$dd1d2740$0200a8c0@b> Message-ID: <16185.5613.634.298562@montanaro.dyndns.org> Matt> I have always thought having changing images was a terrible idea, Matt> never mind the fact that some are unreadable. Getting rid of unreadable images I can see. I don't understand the aversion to a little variety. Skip From skip at pobox.com Tue Aug 12 12:30:45 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Tue Aug 12 12:30:55 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Rearranging the python.org sidebar (again!) In-Reply-To: <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> References: <9F2F4298-CC3F-11D7-A943-0003931BF218@amk.ca> <3F380DE4.8050403@ocf.berkeley.edu> <000b01c36107$2c7d9980$0200a8c0@b> <3F38B9E6.1040003@pollenation.net> <003301c36118$6d2a3d60$0200a8c0@b> <3F38EE1A.5060707@pollenation.net> Message-ID: <16185.5685.869886.109299@montanaro.dyndns.org> Matt> Actually, SIGS are *extremely* important right now for the sole Matt> reason that it's where the DB-API is documented. That Matt> specification should be more prominent although I haven't got any Matt> suggestions. PEP 248 is DB API v1. PEP 249 is DB API v2. Skip From python at dylanreinhardt.com Tue Aug 12 18:18:19 2003 From: python at dylanreinhardt.com (Dylan Reinhardt) Date: Tue Aug 12 13:18:20 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] a modest proposal In-Reply-To: <20030812162858.GA16795@panix.com> References: <000601c35c6a$485c4080$0200a8c0@b> <20030806150931.GA5777@vail.asti-usa.com> <003001c35de7$54dffda0$0200a8c0@b> <1060359818.19893.53.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16179.54064.303795.566879@montanaro.dyndns.org> <1060364697.19893.135.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <16180.5176.173047.112003@montanaro.dyndns.org> <20030809002939.GF2856@panix.com> <1060443268.19893.1552.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> <20030812162858.GA16795@panix.com> Message-ID: <1060708662.6429.17.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> On Tue, 2003-08-12 at 09:28, Aahz wrote: > On Sat, Aug 09, 2003, Dylan Reinhardt wrote: > > > > Would this group be willing to evaluate a demo of a Zope-based CMS that > > could *supplement* the current offerings at python.org? If y'all are > > willing to look at it, I'd be willing to assemble a small team to do it. > > Why don't you hold that thought until about two or three weeks after the > formal transfer of python.org to the PSF? (I suggest waiting because > there are probably some long-standing DNS changes that have been held > pending the transfer that will get higher priority.) I'm happy to hold this thought for a few weeks. Obviously there are a number of pressing things to attend to. Good news about the domain transferring. Coordinating DNS with another organization can be a PITA even under the best of circumstances. Dylan From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 12 17:19:44 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Tue Aug 12 16:19:47 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: Moving python.org to Zope In-Reply-To: <NEBBLDPBKLOKNHPAEECGKEEFKFAA.zope@toenjes.com> References: <20030807173955.GB1918@panix.com> <NEBBLDPBKLOKNHPAEECGKEEFKFAA.zope@toenjes.com> Message-ID: <20030812201943.GA3410@panix.com> [switching to pydotorg-redesign] On Thu, Aug 07, 2003, Trevor Toenjes wrote: > Aahz: >> >> In addition, it's my belief (based on conversations with a number of >> expert Zope people, including my cousin (Michael Bernstein, co-author of >> _The Zope Bible_)) > > no Way! Michael-webmaven Bernstein is your cousin? I guess you got all the > good looks in the family. :) <smirk> Don't let him hear that -- he's the vain one. >> that Zope3 represents an quantum leap forward in >> Zope's power *and* usability over Zope2. But I'm adamantly against >> converting to Zope3 until it goes production, and I think the pain of >> doing a double conversion to Zope2 followed by Zope3 just isn't worth it. >> >> Can you provide any convincing arguments against my position? > > hmmm. I agree with your concerns and the opinions you stated. > I agree that Zope3 will be a quantum leap. But it is a ways off. > > But the final release of Zope3 is expected to have a reasonable > migration path for up to date Zope2 code. I dont think python.org is > going to have any challenging objects that would break, which I think > is the technical concern. It's mostly text/HTML based documentation > which will be trivial to convert. My understanding is the conversion > issues with Zope2 to Zope3 are about deeper custom-Zope objects > called Products and External methods in Zope2, which I dont suspect > are really needed for python.org. I think if we stay with stock Zope > objects, we would be ok. I could be wrong.... That's what I'm concerned about. The only iron-clad reason for using Zope as opposed to some other system is Zope's support for full-blown CMS. I've been assuming that this will require extensive customization to use appropriately, and that migrating Zope2 to Zope3 will require a fair amount of work. Less work than the original Zope2 converstion, probably, and even likely less work than going directly to Zope3 from the current site. But I'm still wondering just how much work the double conversion is likely to be, given that the initial Zope2 conversion almost certainly will take more work than going straight to Zope3. > AND Zope.org is finalizing a long painful migration, and they went > with Zope2/CMF+Plone. If it's good enough for the Zope community, I > think that says something. Not really. After all, these are people who already know and love Zope. Perhaps you're right that some form of test/case-study would be appropriate, but evaluating it is going to take a lot of work, too. > I only suggested it to make python.org easier to maintain, which it > would once you got over the hump. So convert it now, and get 2 years > of making life easier, and then look at Zope3 which might have its > first maintenance release by then. As I think I've said before, unless it's clear that we can reach the crossover point in productivity in less than a month, I don't think we can afford it. > And a zope generated site can still be mirrored, because it can be > designed as is...very static. It's just that now you will have easier > publishing and delegation of maintenance responsibilities. That I know about. Essentially, we'd have a separate server that runs Zope and it'd push to the current server. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From amk at amk.ca Tue Aug 12 22:26:35 2003 From: amk at amk.ca (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Tue Aug 12 21:43:26 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] PSF press releases Message-ID: <2DD8E8B7-CD2D-11D7-9DD2-0003931BF218@amk.ca> The psf/ directory contains a bunch of press releases, and a press-release/ directory that contains just one press release. I've just copied the press releases down a level, but haven't removed the old copies. Question: currently the press releases are listed at /psf/press.html, and /psf/press-release/ contains no index.html file. Should press.html move down a level to press-release/index.html, or is it OK if accessing press-release/ gets a directory listing? The downside is that press-release/index.ht no longer has the same sidebar links as the rest of the psf/*.ht pages. My inclination is to move it down; objections? --amk From fdrake at acm.org Tue Aug 12 23:08:51 2003 From: fdrake at acm.org (Fred L. Drake, Jr.) Date: Tue Aug 12 22:09:31 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] PSF press releases In-Reply-To: <2DD8E8B7-CD2D-11D7-9DD2-0003931BF218@amk.ca> References: <2DD8E8B7-CD2D-11D7-9DD2-0003931BF218@amk.ca> Message-ID: <16185.40371.70609.490350@grendel.zope.com> A.M. Kuchling writes: > My inclination is to move it down; objections? I think that makes more sense than leaving it. If there's a real issue with 3rd-party links to psf/press.html we can add a redirect to psf/press-release/. -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org> PythonLabs at Zope Corporation From just at letterror.com Wed Aug 13 12:18:35 2003 From: just at letterror.com (Just van Rossum) Date: Wed Aug 13 05:18:34 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images Message-ID: <r01050400-1026-2150A268CD6F11D78612003065D5E7E4@[10.0.0.23]> I've been lurking here for a while and I must say I'm quite happy people are still mostly concentrating on the contents and organization of the site. I'd be happy to contribute some time working on the actual design and I'm sure I can convince my LettError buddy Erik to do the same. There's no reason to stick with anything (typo)graphically that's currently on the site, so it's rather silly to argue about those "rotating logos". I still think they are cute (btw they're created randomly by a Python script, some of the *fonts* used are created with Python scripts; they've never been meant as logos, they're just decoration, symbolizing Python's dynamics if you will). The pixeled Python logo I also still find cute. But I also think it's time for something new. But more than anything, (graphic) design by committee sucks. One person or one small group should create a new design (I'm talking about the site as a whole, not the just logo), and the community will have to live with the fact that it will not be to everyone's taste (for example I'm sure we wouldn't be able to agree what it means for a site to look "professional"). There can be competing proposals, but the final choice will either have to made by Guido, or a (very) small group of people that he assigns. It seems that an earlier attempt (from us) at a new Python logo has been mostly forgotten. It's still on line here: http://just.letterror.com/pythonlogo/ Perhaps we'll revive it for the new site, or abandon it altogether and create something new. But the site is most important, and how it's organized should indeed be priority number one. Just From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Wed Aug 13 14:18:43 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Wed Aug 13 08:18:53 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <r01050400-1026-2150A268CD6F11D78612003065D5E7E4@[10.0.0.23]> Message-ID: <007401c36195$1195fed0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Just said: > I've been lurking here for a while and I must say I'm quite happy > people are still mostly concentrating on the contents and organization > of the site. I'd be happy to contribute some time working on the actual > design and I'm sure I can convince my LettError buddy Erik to do the > same. It's cool that the design can have a group of people discussing it. Would you mind taking a look at the designs on the wiki at the moment and making a couple of comments? Heres the main links to save time http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded.html http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index.html http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org-converted/ > But I also think it's time for something new. But more than anything, > (graphic) design by committee sucks. One person or one small group > should create a new design (I'm talking about the site as a whole, not > the just logo), and the community will have to live with the fact that > it will not be to everyone's taste (for example I'm sure we wouldn't be > able to agree what it means for a site to look "professional"). There > can be competing proposals, but the final choice will either have to > made by Guido, or a (very) small group of people that he assigns. I totally agree, having worked for various graphic design agencies (albeit not in a direct design role) the worst results have always been when all of the customer board of directors want a part of the design and all the best ones where a small group has had a free hand in producing the designs and the committee has made decisions on favourites where this is appropriate and advisable. > It seems that an earlier attempt (from us) at a new Python logo has > been mostly forgotten. I'd seen the logo and wondered what it was for, I like it but but not certain if the colours are what people want. It's also quite playful but I'm not sure if that's typical of the space in which Python should be positioned. I've put together a few logos of other companies/langauges in a similar space here and straight after a sample of logos that offer a similar image. http://pollenation.net/assets/public/samples.gif http://pollenation.net/assets/public/similar.gif While we're batting things about, what do you think of these possibles? http://pollenation.net/assets/public/pydotorg-redesign/python-logo-test. gif And here is one of them on a website http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded_logo3.html Thanks in advance for any feedback. Tim Pollenation From amk at asti-usa.com Wed Aug 13 09:58:30 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Wed Aug 13 08:59:12 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Announcing the FAQ: how? Message-ID: <20030813125830.GA6576@vail.asti-usa.com> The first part of the broken-up FAQ, the General FAQ, is now complete enough that it can be announced more widely in order to collect suggestions. Question: how to do this? I could post it on c.l.py, but it's 59K; that will put a lot of strain on mail.python.org when the posting is gatewayed and sent out. I could post it to c.l.py.announce, which probably goes to fewer people, but it presents the same problem for mail.python.org. I could post just the link to it, but expect that this will result in fewer comments than if the entire document was posted. Any suggestions for what to do? Also, when should I begin changing URLs to point to /doc/faq/ ? How much of the FAQ needs to be complete at that point? --amk (www.amk.ca) CLAUDIUS: Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go. -- _Hamlet_, III, i From skip at pobox.com Wed Aug 13 09:31:58 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Wed Aug 13 09:32:05 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <007401c36195$1195fed0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> References: <r01050400-1026-2150A268CD6F11D78612003065D5E7E4@[10.0.0.23]> <007401c36195$1195fed0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <16186.15822.225156.903290@montanaro.dyndns.org> Tim> I've put together a few logos of other companies/langauges in a Tim> similar space here and straight after a sample of logos that offer Tim> a similar image. Tim> http://pollenation.net/assets/public/samples.gif Tim> http://pollenation.net/assets/public/similar.gif Tim> While we're batting things about, what do you think of these Tim> possibles? I kind of like the infinity idea - "infinite possibilities". How about less of a sideways "8"? Maybe a constant width path with an arrowhead along the path somewhere? I can't draw worth a damn, so I can only describe what I'm thinking of. maybe-i'll-write-a-little-postscript-ly, y'rs, Skip From oktaysafak at ixir.com Wed Aug 13 17:59:05 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Wed Aug 13 10:07:26 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images References: <007401c36195$1195fed0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <000a01c361f6$e364f7c0$0200a8c0@b> "Tim Parkin" <tim.parkin@pollenationinternet.com> wrote: > It's cool that the design can have a group of people discussing it. Yes, and graphic (or visual) design is orthogonal to other issues, so we can brainstorm on this in parallel to arcitechural/technical matters. > > But I also think it's time for something new. But more than anything, > > (graphic) design by committee sucks. One person or one small group > > should create a new design (I'm talking about the site as a whole, not > > the just logo), and the community will have to live with the fact that > > it will not be to everyone's taste (for example I'm sure we wouldn't > > be able to agree what it means for a site to look "professional"). There > > can be competing proposals, but the final choice will either have to > > made by Guido, or a (very) small group of people that he assigns. > I totally agree, having worked for various graphic design agencies > (albeit not in a direct design role) the worst results have always been > when all of the customer board of directors want a part of the design > and all the best ones where a small group has had a free hand in > producing the designs and the committee has made decisions on favourites > where this is appropriate and advisable. That's my experience too (as a somewhat semi-professional or hobbyist). I totally agree with both of you, but before we are there, it's good to brainstorm and collect feedback. > While we're batting things about, what do you think of these possibles? > > http://pollenation.net/assets/public/pydotorg-redesign/python-logo-test. > gif The idea of the intifinity symbol is neat, but I can't say, err, your logos hit me right on the spot ;) > Thanks in advance for any feedback. You're welcome, thanks for your efforts. Regards, Oktay From sholden at holdenweb.com Wed Aug 13 11:05:27 2003 From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden) Date: Wed Aug 13 10:07:34 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <007401c36195$1195fed0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMAEEAIFAAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> [tim parkin] > Just said: > > I've been lurking here for a while and I must say I'm quite happy > > people are still mostly concentrating on the contents and > organization > > > of the site. I'd be happy to contribute some time working on the > actual > > design and I'm sure I can convince my LettError buddy Erik > to do the > > same. > > It's cool that the design can have a group of people discussing it. > Would you mind taking a look at the designs on the wiki at the moment > and making a couple of comments? > > Heres the main links to save time > > http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded.html > http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index.html > http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org-converted/ > I still like index-rounded.html Overall the look is a little bit "PHP-nuke"-ish, but it works. The second pollenation page is second favorite. The third page appears to me rather "heavy" on the left, so the links distract form the main content. > > > But I also think it's time for something new. But more than > anything, > > (graphic) design by committee sucks. One person or one small group > > should create a new design (I'm talking about the site as a > whole, not > > > the just logo), and the community will have to live with > the fact that > > > it will not be to everyone's taste (for example I'm sure we wouldn't > be > > able to agree what it means for a site to look > "professional"). There > > can be competing proposals, but the final choice will > either have to > > made by Guido, or a (very) small group of people that he assigns. > > I totally agree, having worked for various graphic design agencies > (albeit not in a direct design role) the worst results have > always been > when all of the customer board of directors want a part of the design > and all the best ones where a small group has had a free hand in > producing the designs and the committee has made decisions on > favourites > where this is appropriate and advisable. > Yes, I recently suggested that Guido should decree what the process was going to be, he's far too busy with security matters for this (though it 's nice to see he's reading the list). Guido? > > It seems that an earlier attempt (from us) at a new Python logo has > > been mostly forgotten. > > I'd seen the logo and wondered what it was for, I like it but but not > certain if the colours are what people want. It's also quite > playful but > I'm not sure if that's typical of the space in which Python should be > positioned. I've put together a few logos of other companies/langauges > in a similar space here and straight after a sample of logos > that offer > a similar image. > > http://pollenation.net/assets/public/samples.gif > http://pollenation.net/assets/public/similar.gif > > While we're batting things about, what do you think of these > possibles? > > http://pollenation.net/assets/public/pydotorg-redesign/python- logo-test. gif And here is one of them on a website http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded_logo3.html Thanks in advance for any feedback. FWIW, I like the fifth one down in logo-test.gif. The color is Pythonic and the font is clean and (dare I say) "professional"-looking. Rather than the current loop, however, could we try a snake eating its own tail, Ouroboros-like, but in a figure-of-eight shape (not sure how a blue snake is going to look, but my color judgment is nil anyway). Tim, I think almost any of the suggested changes would represent a great increase in the site's attractiveness and readability, and I hope that you are allowed to proceed with a visual redesign with all possible speed. regards -- Steve Holden http://www.holdenweb.com/ Python Web Programming http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/ From skip at pobox.com Wed Aug 13 10:09:56 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Wed Aug 13 10:10:12 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Announcing the FAQ: how? In-Reply-To: <20030813125830.GA6576@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <20030813125830.GA6576@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <16186.18100.176102.649297@montanaro.dyndns.org> Great work, Andrew! amk> Question: how to do this? Post links to c.l.py and c.l.py.a. If people don't take the time to click the link, you probably didn't want their feedback anway. :-) amk> Also, when should I begin changing URLs to point to /doc/faq/ ? amk> How much of the FAQ needs to be complete at that point? All I see at /doc/faq/ right now is a link to the general FAQ. Can you list all the sections so we can review all of them? If possible, it would be nice if the section numbering could be set up so when the sections are concatenated they have the same numbers as when viewed separately. Thx, Skip From guido at python.org Wed Aug 13 08:14:35 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Wed Aug 13 10:15:08 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Announcing the FAQ: how? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 13 Aug 2003 08:58:30 EDT." <20030813125830.GA6576@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <20030813125830.GA6576@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <200308131414.h7DEEZt01390@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > Question: how to do this? I could post it on c.l.py, but it's 59K; > that will put a lot of strain on mail.python.org when the posting is > gatewayed and sent out. I would not worry about such a puny amount of bandwidth. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From walter at livinglogic.de Wed Aug 13 17:27:57 2003 From: walter at livinglogic.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Walter_D=F6rwald?=) Date: Wed Aug 13 10:28:33 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMAEEAIFAAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> References: <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMAEEAIFAAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> Message-ID: <3F3A4AED.3080001@livinglogic.de> Steve Holden wrote: > [...] >> http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded.html >> http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index.html >> http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org-converted/ > > I still like index-rounded.html Overall the look is a little bit > "PHP-nuke"-ish, but it works. The second pollenation page is second > favorite. The third page appears to me rather "heavy" on the left, so > the links distract form the main content. Sure, but that's because http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org-converted/ has been automatically converted from the current site with it's many links in the sidebar. Take a look at http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org/ with has a handcrafted demo sidebar. > [...] Bye, Walter D?rwald From amk at asti-usa.com Wed Aug 13 11:36:02 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Wed Aug 13 10:36:35 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Announcing the FAQ: how? In-Reply-To: <16186.18100.176102.649297@montanaro.dyndns.org> References: <20030813125830.GA6576@vail.asti-usa.com> <16186.18100.176102.649297@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <20030813143602.GA15900@vail.asti-usa.com> On Wed, Aug 13, 2003 at 09:09:56AM -0500, Skip Montanaro wrote: > All I see at /doc/faq/ right now is a link to the general FAQ. Can you list > all the sections so we can review all of them? The general FAQ is the only one that's ready. I'm still in the middle of revising the programming FAQ; revision is a slow process because so much needs to be updated and rewritten. OTOH, it's so pleasant to come across sentences such as "You can use the new isinstance() built-in in 1.5..." and rip them out or edit them down to match the 2.2/2.3 world. > If possible, it would be nice if the section numbering could be set up so > when the sections are concatenated they have the same numbers as when viewed > separately. I have no plans to concatenate sections; that results in the existing 240K FAQ which does no one any good (slow to load, chews up lots of bandwidth, ...) --amk (www.amk.ca) It will be good to be dead - to be a god. -- The emperor Augustus in SANDMAN #30: "August" From skip at pobox.com Wed Aug 13 11:14:00 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Wed Aug 13 11:14:21 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Announcing the FAQ: how? In-Reply-To: <20030813143602.GA15900@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <20030813125830.GA6576@vail.asti-usa.com> <16186.18100.176102.649297@montanaro.dyndns.org> <20030813143602.GA15900@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <16186.21944.488318.609432@montanaro.dyndns.org> >> If possible, it would be nice if the section numbering could be set >> up so when the sections are concatenated they have the same numbers >> as when viewed separately. amk> I have no plans to concatenate sections; that results in the amk> existing 240K FAQ which does no one any good (slow to load, chews amk> up lots of bandwidth, ...) Sure, but you should be able to convert ReST to LaTeX or other print-friendly formats. Not that that will be the dominate use of the FAQ, but it might appeal to some people. Also, it might be nice to have a full table of contents (good for scanning when you don't quite know what you're looking for) whose numbering matches the individual sections. Skip From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Wed Aug 13 17:55:09 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Wed Aug 13 11:55:11 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <3F3A4AED.3080001@livinglogic.de> Message-ID: <007b01c361b3$49d25ff0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Walter said: >> The third page appears to me rather "heavy" on the left, so >> the links distract form the main content. >Sure, but that's because >http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org-converted/ >has been automatically converted from the current site with >it's many links in the sidebar. Take a look at >http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org/ >with has a handcrafted demo sidebar. Oops .. Sorry I just took the latest one. I didn?t mean to misrepresent. Tim From walter at livinglogic.de Wed Aug 13 19:08:54 2003 From: walter at livinglogic.de (=?windows-1252?Q?Walter_D=F6rwald?=) Date: Wed Aug 13 12:09:30 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <007b01c361b3$49d25ff0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> References: <007b01c361b3$49d25ff0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <3F3A6296.1070902@livinglogic.de> Tim Parkin wrote: > Walter said: > >>>The third page appears to me rather "heavy" on the left, so >>>the links distract form the main content. >> >>Sure, but that's because >>http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org-converted/ >>has been automatically converted from the current site with >>it's many links in the sidebar. Take a look at >>http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/www.python.org/ >>with has a handcrafted demo sidebar. > > > Oops .. Sorry I just took the latest one. I didn?t mean to misrepresent. No problem. I wonder how the navigation would work on your design. On the start page (i.e. level 0 of the navigation) level 1 and 2 of the navigation are unfolded. What happens when you click on a level 1 link? Will all other level 1 links be folded, i.e. would the navigation look like this: > About For Beginners For Developers For Business Download Documentation Community ... (with ">" marking pages in the path to the current one) or should they stay unfolded? What happens on a level 2 page? Will the level 2 siblings of the current page be shown (i.e. like this: > About > For Beginners > For absolute Beginners For advanced Beginners For Developers For Business Download Docuementation Community ... or won't they be shown (like this: > About > For Beginners > For absolute Beginners For advanced Beginners Download Docuementation Community ... What happens on lower levels (if we ever have them)? How should the current page be marked and how should pages in the path to the current page be marked. How about visited/unvisited? Bye, Walter D?rwald From matt at pollenation.net Wed Aug 13 18:01:29 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Wed Aug 13 13:01:30 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <3F3A6296.1070902@livinglogic.de> References: <007b01c361b3$49d25ff0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> <3F3A6296.1070902@livinglogic.de> Message-ID: <1060794071.29798.42.camel@localhost> On Wed, 2003-08-13 at 17:08, Walter D?rwald wrote: > I wonder how the navigation would work on your design. My comments below have nothing to do with one design or the another. It's just a collection of thoughts I had as a read Walter's post. > On the start page > (i.e. level 0 of the navigation) level 1 and 2 of the navigation are > unfolded. What happens when you click on a level 1 link? Will all other > level 1 links be folded, i.e. would the navigation look like this: > > > About > For Beginners > For Developers > For Business > Download > Documentation > Community > ... First, something solid to think about ... If possible, I think we should aim for _no_ folding at all although that depends on just how many links are needed in the menu. ... and now something decidedly wobbly, which is probably best ignored ;) ... Something to *consider*, and I think it's been suggested before, is to have distinct parts of the site dedicated to a certain type of user: subsites if you like. The top nav could contain links to the subsites; left-hand nav is specific to the subsite. I admit that I have no idea what would go in which subsite but some of the more obvious "splits" are end users, advocacy & marketing and core development. Imagine finding out about Python, wandering along to the site and discovering an entire subsite dedicated to learning Python. For repeat users there would be targeted content - interesting news, package releases and heaps of documentation. The core developer subsite could contain bug trackers, cvs info, perhaps viewcvs and ... I'm not sure what else. This might also make it easier to delegate site maintenance to others. It would make it more obvious anyway. Is the site actually big enough for this? Probably not but there's no harm in thinking bigger in anticipation of Python's dominance :). Even if the site is big enough, there be a lot of overlap in content so it may not be terribly realistic anyway. > What happens on a level 2 page? Will the level 2 siblings of the > current page be shown (i.e. like this: I think if the menu gets 2 levels deep then it's too deep. Also, the more levels there are, the shorter the link text can be - the menu needs to be as thin as possible to leave room for the actual content. > What happens on lower levels (if we ever have them)? I don't even want to think about that ;-). - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenation.net e: matt@pollenation.net From aahz at pythoncraft.com Wed Aug 13 14:16:22 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Wed Aug 13 13:16:30 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Announcing the FAQ: how? In-Reply-To: <16186.21944.488318.609432@montanaro.dyndns.org> References: <20030813125830.GA6576@vail.asti-usa.com> <16186.18100.176102.649297@montanaro.dyndns.org> <20030813143602.GA15900@vail.asti-usa.com> <16186.21944.488318.609432@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <20030813171622.GB6250@panix.com> On Wed, Aug 13, 2003, Skip Montanaro wrote: > > amk> I have no plans to concatenate sections; that results in the > amk> existing 240K FAQ which does no one any good (slow to load, chews > amk> up lots of bandwidth, ...) > > Sure, but you should be able to convert ReST to LaTeX or other > print-friendly formats. Not that that will be the dominate use of the FAQ, > but it might appeal to some people. Also, it might be nice to have a full > table of contents (good for scanning when you don't quite know what you're > looking for) whose numbering matches the individual sections. Let's finish the FAQ content first, then we can talk about writing tools to concatenate and rip apart. (I want each FAQ question to also be available as a single file for search engines.) -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From aahz at pythoncraft.com Wed Aug 13 14:18:20 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Wed Aug 13 13:18:23 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <3F3A6296.1070902@livinglogic.de> References: <007b01c361b3$49d25ff0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> <3F3A6296.1070902@livinglogic.de> Message-ID: <20030813171820.GC6250@panix.com> On Wed, Aug 13, 2003, Walter D?rwald wrote: > > or won't they be shown (like this: > > > About > > For Beginners > > For absolute Beginners > For advanced Beginners > Download > Docuementation > Community > ... That's what I'd like to see. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From walter at livinglogic.de Wed Aug 13 20:25:58 2003 From: walter at livinglogic.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Walter_D=F6rwald?=) Date: Wed Aug 13 13:26:34 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <1060794071.29798.42.camel@localhost> References: <007b01c361b3$49d25ff0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> <3F3A6296.1070902@livinglogic.de> <1060794071.29798.42.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <3F3A74A6.3090802@livinglogic.de> Matt Goodall wrote: > On Wed, 2003-08-13 at 17:08, Walter D?rwald wrote: > > [...] >> On the start page >>(i.e. level 0 of the navigation) level 1 and 2 of the navigation are >>unfolded. What happens when you click on a level 1 link? Will all other >>level 1 links be folded, i.e. would the navigation look like this: >> >> > About >> For Beginners >> For Developers >> For Business >> Download >> Documentation >> Community >> ... > > First, something solid to think about ... > > If possible, I think we should aim for _no_ folding at all although that > depends on just how many links are needed in the menu. What does that mean? Will the level 2 pages appear as level 1 links on a level 1 page, i.e. would the navigation bar on the "About page" simply look like this: For Beginners For Developers For Business with the look of the first level links (i.e. brown background, block border)? IMHO this is more confusing that at least keeping the level 1 page that is in the path in the navigation bar. The siblings of the level 1 page could be hidden though: > About For Beginners For Developers For Business > ... and now something decidedly wobbly, which is probably best ignored > ;) ... OK! ;) > [...] > I think if the menu gets 2 levels deep then it's too deep. Also, the > more levels there are, the shorter the link text can be - the menu needs > to be as thin as possible to leave room for the actual content. We already have three levels: The homepage is level 0, "About" is level 1 and "About">"For Beginners" is level 2. Indenting a level 3 page by 10 pixels shouldn't make the navigation too wide. >>What happens on lower levels (if we ever have them)? > > I don't even want to think about that ;-). So "Home">"Documentation">"Library Reference" )or "Home">"Developers">"PEPs") is only one page and doesn't have any subpages? Bye, Walter D?rwald From sholden at holdenweb.com Wed Aug 13 14:52:31 2003 From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden) Date: Wed Aug 13 13:54:35 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <3F3A74A6.3090802@livinglogic.de> Message-ID: <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMACEBGFAAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org > [mailto:pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org]On Behalf Of > Walter D?rwald > Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 1:26 PM > To: Matt Goodall > Cc: 'Pydotorg-Redesign@Python.Org' > Subject: Re: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images > > > Matt Goodall wrote: > > > On Wed, 2003-08-13 at 17:08, Walter D?rwald wrote: > > > > [...] > >> On the start page > >>(i.e. level 0 of the navigation) level 1 and 2 of the navigation are > >>unfolded. What happens when you click on a level 1 link? > Will all other > >>level 1 links be folded, i.e. would the navigation look like this: > >> > >> > About > >> For Beginners > >> For Developers > >> For Business > >> Download > >> Documentation > >> Community > >> ... > > > > First, something solid to think about ... > > > > If possible, I think we should aim for _no_ folding at all > although that > > depends on just how many links are needed in the menu. > > What does that mean? > It means that the navigation features of the site should remain constant rather than attempting to emulate a tree-structured navigation feature. > Will the level 2 pages appear as level 1 links on a level 1 page, i.e. > would the navigation bar on the "About page" simply look like this: > > For Beginners > For Developers > For Business > > with the look of the first level links (i.e. brown background, block > border)? > No. The links you mention should be inside a *second-level* navigation feature, appearing in a position that?s common to all second-level pages. > IMHO this is more confusing that at least keeping the level 1 page > that is in the path in the navigation bar. The siblings of the level 1 > page could be hidden though: > > > About > For Beginners > For Developers > For Business > > > ... and now something decidedly wobbly, which is probably > best ignored > > ;) ... > > OK! ;) > > > [...] > > I think if the menu gets 2 levels deep then it's too deep. Also, the > > more levels there are, the shorter the link text can be - > the menu needs > > to be as thin as possible to leave room for the actual content. > > We already have three levels: The homepage is level 0, "About" is > level 1 and "About">"For Beginners" is level 2. > > Indenting a level 3 page by 10 pixels shouldn't make the navigation > too wide. > > >>What happens on lower levels (if we ever have them)? > > > > I don't even want to think about that ;-). > > So "Home">"Documentation">"Library Reference" )or > "Home">"Developers">"PEPs") is only one page and doesn't have any > subpages? > If you really want to show all intermediate levels of navigation then the most obvious mechanism for that is to put breadcrumb-style links to each level somewhere in the page content. I don?t think it?s a good idea for navigation features to morph themselves as the user interacts with the web - too many users miss the analogy with a tree and find themselves confused as bits of the navigation bar move around - or even seem to disappear when they scroll off the bottom as a result of activating a heavily-populated section. So, for definiteness, please excuse the ASCII art, I?d like to see something more like this: +----------------------------------------------------------------------- ------+ | Site-wide, always-available, every-page links | +-----------+----------------------------------------------------------- ------+ | First | Second-level nav links | | Level +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Nav | Third-level nav links, when required | | Links +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Hey, let?s have some content! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +-----------+----------------------------------------------------------- ------+ I agree it?s not high-tech, but it?s easy to understand, the navigation bars are consistent throughout any given section of the site, and it?s easy to work with. I fear we?re in danger of ignoring the KISS principle here, which would not be good given that we want to attract people who might be coming to programming for the first time and thus not be familiar with the kinds of structures we take for granted in the programming world. regards -- Steve Holden http://www.holdenweb.com/ Python Web Programming http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/ From matt at pollenation.net Wed Aug 13 19:05:38 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Wed Aug 13 14:05:39 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <3F3A74A6.3090802@livinglogic.de> References: <007b01c361b3$49d25ff0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> <3F3A6296.1070902@livinglogic.de> <1060794071.29798.42.camel@localhost> <3F3A74A6.3090802@livinglogic.de> Message-ID: <1060797914.17647.80.camel@localhost> On Wed, 2003-08-13 at 18:25, Walter D?rwald wrote: > Matt Goodall wrote: > > > If possible, I think we should aim for _no_ folding at all although that > > depends on just how many links are needed in the menu. > > What does that mean? That, if possible, the whole menu for the whole site should always be visible, i.e. no magically appearing and disappearing bits. It's a goal that I think would help the site's navigation, nothing more that that. > > I think if the menu gets 2 levels deep then it's too deep. Also, the > > more levels there are, the shorter the link text can be - the menu needs > > to be as thin as possible to leave room for the actual content. > > We already have three levels: The homepage is level 0, "About" is > level 1 and "About">"For Beginners" is level 2. My mistake, I meant _more than_ 2 levels deep. > >>What happens on lower levels (if we ever have them)? > > > > I don't even want to think about that ;-). > > So "Home">"Documentation">"Library Reference" )or > "Home">"Developers">"PEPs") is only one page and doesn't have any > subpages? I hope I haven't misunderstood what you mean but ... Sure they can have subpages but is there any need to clutter the navigation menu up with them? I would have thought it better to have a "proper" table of contents for those particular pages which is what both the Library Reference and PEPs pages have today. There is also the breadcrumb trail to use for deeper navigation and to give the reader that sense of where they are. For instance, if you're deep in the Library Reference documentation then the menu would be: About For beginners ... Download ... > Documentation Tutorials > Library Reference ... ... and the breadcrumb trail would be: Home > Documentation > Library Reference > Built-in Objects > Built-in Exceptions Hope that explains things a bit better. It always seems so obvious when I'm the one doing the typing ;-). - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenation.net e: matt@pollenation.net From matt at pollenation.net Wed Aug 13 19:11:42 2003 From: matt at pollenation.net (Matt Goodall) Date: Wed Aug 13 14:11:52 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Another site ... Message-ID: <1060798300.29798.87.camel@localhost> I've always found the Gentoo site, http://www.gentoo.org/, fairly pleasant to use and I've never had any problems finding info. Probably a few too many graphics for my liking though. It even looks like it's been designed - not bad for a bunch of geeks ;-). - Matt -- Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd w: http://www.pollenation.net e: matt@pollenation.net From walter at livinglogic.de Wed Aug 13 22:03:08 2003 From: walter at livinglogic.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Walter_D=F6rwald?=) Date: Wed Aug 13 15:03:43 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Another site ... In-Reply-To: <1060798300.29798.87.camel@localhost> References: <1060798300.29798.87.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <3F3A8B6C.2050505@livinglogic.de> Matt Goodall wrote: > I've always found the Gentoo site, http://www.gentoo.org/, fairly > pleasant to use and I've never had any problems finding info. Probably a > few too many graphics for my liking though. It even looks like it's been > designed - not bad for a bunch of geeks ;-). It *does* have links that go to the same page. E.g. go to http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/docs.xml and click on the "User Docs" link in the navigation bar. Click on Gentoo Linux/x86 and suddenly the navigation is gone. Bye, Walter D?rwald From guido at python.org Wed Aug 13 17:04:22 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Wed Aug 13 19:05:03 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 13 Aug 2003 10:05:27 EDT." <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMAEEAIFAAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> References: <CGECIJPNNHIFAJKHOLMAEEAIFAAA.sholden@holdenweb.com> Message-ID: <200308132304.h7DN4Mk02303@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > Yes, I recently suggested that Guido should decree what the process was > going to be, he's far too busy with security matters for this (though it > 's nice to see he's reading the list). Guido? The PSF board just formed a committee chaired by Thomas Wouters for this purpose. There's discussion in the board list about a technicality WRT the proper creation of the committee, but IMO this committee should set the process. > http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded_logo3.html > > Thanks in advance for any feedback. I find the font used in that logo hideous. But maybe Just can convince me that it's state of the art. :-) I find the page design itself too bland, it doesn't have enough personality. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Thu Aug 14 11:51:48 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Thu Aug 14 05:52:33 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <200308132304.h7DN4Mk02303@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> Message-ID: <000001c36249$b4ef9280$0a00a8c0@JASPER> > > Yes, I recently suggested that Guido should decree what the process > > was going to be, he's far too busy with security matters for this > > (though it's nice to see he's reading the list). Guido? >The PSF board just formed a committee chaired by Thomas Wouters for >this purpose. There's discussion in the board list about a >technicality WRT the proper creation of the committee, but IMO this >committee should set the process. What is the remit for this commitee (if you don't mind me asking). > > http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded_logo3.html > > > >Thanks in advance for any feedback. > >I find the font used in that logo hideous. But maybe Just can >convince me that it's state of the art. :-) I think in the process of designing a new look, we need to have a direction/brief and feedback plays a big part in approaching the desired solution. I know the logo doesn't seem important at all at this point in the proceedings but it does dictate a lot of the look and feel of the site (or particularly what the look and feel shouldn't be) In this interest, could you say why you think the font was hideous and do you like any of the others in the sample at http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python-logo-test.gif If not can you say why? Or point to a type of font or logo that you like? Theres another rendition at http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded_logo3.html Which you may not like but in a different way e.g. for hideous, read loathsome ;-) >I find the page design itself too bland, it doesn't have enough >personality. I can understand that as I was working towards an 'understated' brief. Do you mean you wish it to be more i) upfront and commercial e.g. http://www.discreet.com/index-nf.html http://www.adobe.com/main.html http://www.macromedia.com/ ii) colourful/playful e.g. http://www.line6.com/ http://mindstorms.lego.com/eng/default.asp http://www.shockwave.com/ iii) Profession but rich e.g. http://www.peoplesoft.com http://www.ibm.com/us/ http://www.sap.com/ http://www.atg.com iv) Minimalist e.g. http://www.whatdoiknow.org/ http://www.reservocation.com/ http://www.textism.com/ V) Minimalish(?) e.g. http://www.37signals.com/dnf/ http://www.clagnut.com/ http://www.stopdesign.com/ Or are there any other sites that you could point at that you want python to look like. We're more than happy to put a lot of effort in to the visual and navigational redesign but would like to feel we're heading in a direction that people are happy with and is likely to be used. We would like to feel that there is a good prospect of the effort being helpful but if not then it would be better spent on other projects. Apart from that, it's good to see lots of people taking part. Tim From walter at livinglogic.de Thu Aug 14 13:43:47 2003 From: walter at livinglogic.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Walter_D=F6rwald?=) Date: Thu Aug 14 06:44:23 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <1060797914.17647.80.camel@localhost> References: <007b01c361b3$49d25ff0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> <3F3A6296.1070902@livinglogic.de> <1060794071.29798.42.camel@localhost> <3F3A74A6.3090802@livinglogic.de> <1060797914.17647.80.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <3F3B67E3.10601@livinglogic.de> Matt Goodall wrote: > [...] >>>>What happens on lower levels (if we ever have them)? >>> >>>I don't even want to think about that ;-). >> >>So "Home">"Documentation">"Library Reference" )or >>"Home">"Developers">"PEPs") is only one page and doesn't have any >>subpages? > > I hope I haven't misunderstood what you mean but ... > > Sure they can have subpages but is there any need to clutter the > navigation menu up with them? I would have thought it better to have a > "proper" table of contents for those particular pages which is what both > the Library Reference and PEPs pages have today. > > There is also the breadcrumb trail to use for deeper navigation and to > give the reader that sense of where they are. For instance, if you're > deep in the Library Reference documentation then the menu would be: > > About > For beginners > ... > Download > ... > >>Documentation > > Tutorials > > Library Reference > ... > ... > > and the breadcrumb trail would be: > > Home > Documentation > Library Reference > Built-in Objects > Built-in > Exceptions > > Hope that explains things a bit better. It always seems so obvious when > I'm the one doing the typing ;-). OK, now I understand. The navigation always shows all pages upto level 2, if we are on a level 3+x page this page won't be visible in the navigation, but only in the breadcrumbs. I guess as long as the pages in the path to this page are marked in the navigation this should be OK. Bye, Walter D?rwald From aahz at pythoncraft.com Thu Aug 14 11:51:53 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Thu Aug 14 10:51:57 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] pydotorg Message-ID: <20030814145153.GA5274@panix.com> A couple of people have requested subscriptions to pydotorg and received access. Other people active on this list are also welcome to subscribe, but I'd like to make clear that pydotorg is not a discussion list, for the most part: it's the line of communication for people actively maintaining the web site. Unless you have something to add to the progress of current work, please consider your pydotorg subscription a view-only courtesy so you can see what's going on. (Side note: we'll probably also add access to the webmaster alias for the purpose of viewing webmaster traffic -- same thing applies.) -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From guido at python.org Thu Aug 14 09:21:34 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Thu Aug 14 11:22:24 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 14 Aug 2003 10:51:48 BST." <000001c36249$b4ef9280$0a00a8c0@JASPER> References: <000001c36249$b4ef9280$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <200308141521.h7EFLYO03700@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > >The PSF board just formed a committee chaired by Thomas Wouters for > >this purpose. There's discussion in the board list about a > >technicality WRT the proper creation of the committee, but IMO this > >committee should set the process. > > What is the remit for this commitee (if you don't mind me asking). Quoting from the (not yet published) meetings of the boar meeting: | It was | | RESOLVED, That a Project Management Committee, designated Python Website | Committee, be formed to be responsible for the content and management of | the Python Website (www.python.org), that its initial members be Thomas | Wouters, Kevin Altis, Just van Rossum, Aahz and Fred L. Drake Jr., that | it follows rules analog to those set for in the PSF bylaws for the PSF | board with respect to voting and meetings, and that Thomas Wouters will | be its initial chairman. > > > http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded_logo3.html > > > > > >Thanks in advance for any feedback. > > > >I find the font used in that logo hideous. But maybe Just can > >convince me that it's state of the art. :-) BTW Just is also on the committee, to make sure the design stands up to professional design standards. > I think in the process of designing a new look, we need to have a > direction/brief and feedback plays a big part in approaching the desired > solution. > > I know the logo doesn't seem important at all at this point in the > proceedings but it does dictate a lot of the look and feel of the site > (or particularly what the look and feel shouldn't be) > > In this interest, could you say why you think the font was hideous and > do you like any of the others in the sample at > > http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python-logo-test.gif I don't like any of them. > If not can you say why? No, my design sensibilities are real but often refuse verbalization (same with my language design sensibilities actually). > Or point to a type of font or logo that you like? I'll leave that to Just. > Theres another rendition at > > http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded_logo3.html > > Which you may not like but in a different way e.g. for hideous, read > loathsome ;-) Doesn't seem any different than the first one I didn't like. :-( > >I find the page design itself too bland, it doesn't have enough > >personality. > > I can understand that as I was working towards an 'understated' brief. > Do you mean you wish it to be more > > i) upfront and commercial e.g. > http://www.discreet.com/index-nf.html OK but hate the Flash. > http://www.adobe.com/main.html OK. > http://www.macromedia.com/ OK in style except the big flash takes up too much space. > ii) colourful/playful e.g. > http://www.line6.com/ Yuck. I hate black backgrounds (actually any non-whit background) and text inside images (hard to select). > http://mindstorms.lego.com/eng/default.asp The colors are fine, but again too much space devoted to animation, and I don't like the font they use for small headings (I think we should stick to default or at least universally aailable fonts). > http://www.shockwave.com/ Looks OK. But our structure is probably not as regular. > iii) Profession but rich e.g. > http://www.peoplesoft.com I like it. I've always wanted the Python home page to use multiple narrow columns to get more information in. > http://www.ibm.com/us/ OK, but reminds me that this page (and many of the others above) seems designed to be viewed at a particular width. I don't like that very much (it's not how HTML was intended). > http://www.sap.com/ A little too bold. > http://www.atg.com Nice. > iv) Minimalist e.g. > http://www.whatdoiknow.org/ Amateurish (in the bad sense of the word). Hate the script font. > http://www.reservocation.com/ Cool, but won't work for the amount of info we want to put on the front page. > http://www.textism.com/ Nah. > V) Minimalish(?) e.g. > http://www.37signals.com/dnf/ Works for me, maybe a little too fragmented. > http://www.clagnut.com/ Hm. There's something broken about the very uneven column lengths. Also don't like the colors. > http://www.stopdesign.com/ So-so. I'm not so keen on wide navigation columns on the right, I realize. > Or are there any other sites that you could point at that you want > python to look like. www.python.org, but better :-) > We're more than happy to put a lot of effort in to the visual and > navigational redesign but would like to feel we're heading in a > direction that people are happy with and is likely to be used. We would > like to feel that there is a good prospect of the effort being helpful > but if not then it would be better spent on other projects. I'd like to separate the site's *structure* and its *visual design*. For visual design, I think one person will have to come up with a look. The structure ought to be worked out collaboratively (after reading Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me *Think*"). > Apart from that, it's good to see lots of people taking part. Definitely. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From oktaysafak at ixir.com Thu Aug 14 19:53:48 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Thu Aug 14 11:55:04 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts Message-ID: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> Hi everybody, I tried to capture some ideas of mine for a new logo. You can see them at: http://www.geocities.com/oktay_safak/python.jpg I had many constraints in mind but to summarize: The new logo needs to convey Python's character and traits: a modern, elegant, simple yet beautiful, lean but powerful programming language.(As Guido pointed out, a design needs character and an appropriate one) The designs are meant to be friendly and eye-catching for newcomers to the language, as well as making a strong professional impression on enterprise software business manager - types (decision makers). Since the logo will have a big influence in dictating other elements of design on the road to designing a new site and finding a matching visual identity for Python, it has to be simple and flexible and it should offer variety. Blah, blah, blah... As you'll see, they are mostly variations on a theme. Lack of time... Different avenues should be explored too. The spiral is a logarithmic spiral but it's there just as an idea and I didn't have the time to work on it or on something else that's better. I hope I'll have some free time in the weekend, then I'll give it another go. It's supposed to represent the above mentioned qualities of Python as well as representing Python's steady growth and accelerating march to excellence :-P if you take it, that's ;-P (reality: It's there because it's a neat symbol) Suggestions and criticisms welcome. Regards, Oktay From sdeibel at wingide.com Thu Aug 14 13:24:20 2003 From: sdeibel at wingide.com (Stephan Deibel) Date: Thu Aug 14 12:18:17 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <E19nKXr-0000Of-00@mail.python.org> References: <E19nKXr-0000Of-00@mail.python.org> Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.50.0308141218390.3094-100000@hedgehog> > > http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded_logo3.html In case it's worth anything, I rather liked the idea of using an infinity in the logo. More than the spiral, tho that's not bad either. Also like the above page in general, tho there are some problems in spacing in the left margin on Mozilla 1.4. > http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python-logo-test.gif While I'm liking everything, I may as well mention I really like the infinity with light coming from within too, although I doubt that will work in small size, and it might look interesting to have the yellow light illuminate the Python text too. - Stephan From amk at asti-usa.com Thu Aug 14 13:57:01 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Thu Aug 14 12:57:35 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> References: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> Message-ID: <20030814165701.GA16162@vail.asti-usa.com> On Thu, Aug 14, 2003 at 06:53:48PM -0700, Oktay Safak wrote: > The spiral is a logarithmic spiral but it's there just as an idea ... I quite like the concept. The grey colour and outlined font also looks quite dignified; sans-serif seems preferable. While I'm at it: someone suggested "Infinite possibilities" as a slogan, and the more I think about, the better it seems. It's short, only two words long, and it captures the wide range of applications Python spans, from teaching kids to program, to writing quick one-off scripts, to building elaborate business-critical systems. It lends itself to logo ideas (infinity symbols, open spirals, infinite lines). Unfortunately there's already a company with the same name (www.ip-wizard.com). --amk From skip at pobox.com Thu Aug 14 13:03:36 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Thu Aug 14 13:03:48 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.50.0308141218390.3094-100000@hedgehog> References: <E19nKXr-0000Of-00@mail.python.org> <Pine.LNX.4.50.0308141218390.3094-100000@hedgehog> Message-ID: <16187.49384.868789.196886@montanaro.dyndns.org> >> > http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/index_rounded_logo3.html Stephan> In case it's worth anything, I rather liked the idea of using Stephan> an infinity in the logo. More than the spiral, tho that's not Stephan> bad either. More on my infinity idea. Take a fat arrow. Now bend it into a figure-8 shape so that the arrow begins and ends at the intersection. (See attached bad art.) Skip -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: infinite-arrow.png Type: image/png Size: 1466 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pydotorg-redesign/attachments/20030814/8ccfd7d1/infinite-arrow.png From fdrake at acm.org Thu Aug 14 14:08:31 2003 From: fdrake at acm.org (Fred L. Drake, Jr.) Date: Thu Aug 14 13:09:20 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: Design, Logo's, Images In-Reply-To: <16187.49384.868789.196886@montanaro.dyndns.org> References: <E19nKXr-0000Of-00@mail.python.org> <Pine.LNX.4.50.0308141218390.3094-100000@hedgehog> <16187.49384.868789.196886@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <16187.49679.387622.320331@grendel.zope.com> Skip Montanaro writes: > More on my infinity idea. Take a fat arrow. Now bend it into a figure-8 > shape so that the arrow begins and ends at the intersection. Cool idea. > (See attached bad art.) Hey, I didn't know you hired my 4-year-old to do artwork for you! ;-) -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org> PythonLabs at Zope Corporation From fdrake at acm.org Thu Aug 14 14:10:32 2003 From: fdrake at acm.org (Fred L. Drake, Jr.) Date: Thu Aug 14 13:11:08 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <20030814165701.GA16162@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> <20030814165701.GA16162@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <16187.49800.356480.922914@grendel.zope.com> A.M. Kuchling writes: > Unfortunately there's already a company with the same name > (www.ip-wizard.com). If that's a real problem (and it might be), we might be able to use "expanding possibilities" and the infinity sign. -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org> PythonLabs at Zope Corporation From todd at slack.net Thu Aug 14 14:12:27 2003 From: todd at slack.net (Todd Grimason) Date: Thu Aug 14 13:12:28 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b>; from oktaysafak@ixir.com on Thu, Aug 14, 2003 at 06:53:48PM -0700 References: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> Message-ID: <20030814131227.A15702@crank.slack.net> * Oktay Safak <oktaysafak@ixir.com> [2003-08-14 11:55]: > The spiral is a logarithmic spiral but it's there just as an idea and I I have to say the first thing that came to my mind is Debian: http://www.debian.org/ Perhaps newcomers to programming, Windows-only users, and CTO types won't confuse them, but chances are anyone with much familiarity with the Linux world will surely call it. (Or worse perhaps, think it's "Debian Python" or some such beast). Umm, sorry I don't have anything better to offer at the moment, just wanted to throw that out there... -- ___________________________ toddgrimason*todd@slack.net From python at dylanreinhardt.com Thu Aug 14 18:22:26 2003 From: python at dylanreinhardt.com (Dylan Reinhardt) Date: Thu Aug 14 13:22:27 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <20030814165701.GA16162@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> <20030814165701.GA16162@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <1060881706.8662.50.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> On Thu, 2003-08-14 at 09:57, A.M. Kuchling wrote: > While I'm at it: someone suggested "Infinite possibilities" as a > slogan, and the more I think about, the better it seems. This is drifting well into the domain of the marketing-python group, which is starting to build some momentum on answering some big-picture strategy questions. It's a bit awkward to have web redesign and marketing strategy span separate lists, but that's the division of labor we gave ourselves. :-) The list is here: http://pythonology.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-python FWIW, Dylan From guido at python.org Thu Aug 14 12:24:03 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Thu Aug 14 14:24:40 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 14 Aug 2003 13:12:27 EDT." <20030814131227.A15702@crank.slack.net> References: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> <20030814131227.A15702@crank.slack.net> Message-ID: <200308141824.h7EIO3Y03990@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > I have to say the first thing that came to my mind is Debian: Agreed, that kills the spiral idea for me. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From oktaysafak at ixir.com Fri Aug 15 00:32:20 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Thu Aug 14 16:33:32 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts References: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> <20030814131227.A15702@crank.slack.net> Message-ID: <00c801c362a3$4457c560$0c00a8c0@net04> Todd Grimason <todd@slack.net> wrote: > * Oktay Safak <oktaysafak@ixir.com> [2003-08-14 11:55]: > > > The spiral is a logarithmic spiral but it's there just as an idea and I > > I have to say the first thing that came to my mind is Debian: > http://www.debian.org/ Oh, of course, I missed it! Thanks for the feedback. Regards, Oktay From oktaysafak at ixir.com Fri Aug 15 00:41:19 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Thu Aug 14 16:41:41 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts References: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> <20030814131227.A15702@crank.slack.net> <200308141824.h7EIO3Y03990@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> Message-ID: <00cf01c362a4$6a54b240$0c00a8c0@net04> Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> wrote: > > I have to say the first thing that came to my mind is Debian: > > Agreed, that kills the spiral idea for me. Hey, I got my first BDFL pronouncement, thanks :-) ...and what about the infinity symbol being the logo of MS Visual Studio? Does it kill that idea too? Best Regards, Oktay From oktaysafak at ixir.com Fri Aug 15 00:51:51 2003 From: oktaysafak at ixir.com (Oktay Safak) Date: Thu Aug 14 16:52:13 2003 Subject: Ynt: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts References: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> <20030814165701.GA16162@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <00da01c362a5$e3253c20$0c00a8c0@net04> A.M. Kuchling <amk@asti-usa.com> wrote: > On Thu, Aug 14, 2003 at 06:53:48PM -0700, Oktay Safak wrote: > > The spiral is a logarithmic spiral but it's there just as an idea ... > > I quite like the concept. The grey colour and outlined font also > looks quite dignified; sans-serif seems preferable. Thanks. > While I'm at it: someone suggested "Infinite possibilities" as a > slogan, and the more I think about, the better it seems. It's short, > only two words long, and it captures the wide range of applications > Python spans, from teaching kids to program, to writing quick one-off > scripts, to building elaborate business-critical systems. It lends > itself to logo ideas (infinity symbols, open spirals, infinite lines). > Unfortunately there's already a company with the same name > (www.ip-wizard.com). What about "Endless possibilities"? It doesn't sound as good as your suggestion though. Regards, Oktay From guido at python.org Thu Aug 14 16:01:52 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Thu Aug 14 18:02:36 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 14 Aug 2003 23:41:19 +0300." <00cf01c362a4$6a54b240$0c00a8c0@net04> References: <003301c362d0$148cd780$0200a8c0@b> <20030814131227.A15702@crank.slack.net> <200308141824.h7EIO3Y03990@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> <00cf01c362a4$6a54b240$0c00a8c0@net04> Message-ID: <200308142201.h7EM1q704449@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > ...and what about the infinity symbol being the logo of MS Visual Studio? > Does it kill that idea too? I don't like that much either; infinity symbols have been overused (and not just by MS). BTW, I'd rather not have to review any more logo submissions for a while. I suggest that the webdesign committee set up a procedure for choosing a logo that only gives me the three final choices of some committee. :-) --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Fri Aug 15 01:01:10 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Thu Aug 14 19:03:55 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Marketing or Design? Design or Structure? ... Logos?! In-Reply-To: <1060881706.8662.50.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> Message-ID: <000001c362b7$fcdec160$0a00a8c0@JASPER> >This is drifting well into the domain of the marketing-python group, >which is starting to build some momentum on answering some big-picture >strategy questions. > >It's a bit awkward to have web redesign and marketing strategy span >separate lists, but that's the division of labor we gave ourselves. :-) As much as there is a lot of crossover, I think the two have differing remits just as a marketing department and a design work together but address very different issues. In my experience, marketing is about the message, design about the delivery. Also I think the connection between design and site structure is one that is often overlooked. Although it is true that the structure of the information will dictate a lot of the architecture for the site, it is also true that the way in which the site is designed will apply various constraints on how the data *can* be organised/delivered. A simple example is the current site where the navigational groupings allowing global navigation (top), hierarchial list of navigational elements (left menu) and ad-hoc links and doc-contents. If the site were more like the peoplesoft site, there are five or six navigational groupings on the home page alone. Each of these has a different intensity to the user and these can come to mean things such as the bottom left box is announcements and the bottom right box tutorials/forum messages or whatever. It also gives room to push one message very hard (the central image, title and text) this is typically used to show that the site has undergone a major change or that a major event is happening, adding the feeling of how 'dynamic' the site is. Furthermore, the logo is part of this as it dictates a certain amount of the look and feel of the site and hence what message it will portray. This is only true if you actually think a look and feel can influence how people perceive something (although my first impressions tend to last, sometimes unconciously). In this vein it would be very, very beneficial to gain an idea of who are the decision makers and what their opinions/likes/hates are. The feedback from Guido about the list of sites is very useful in a situation where people are contributing to the design but can only say whether they like or dislike something but not why. To this end I propose setting up a few 'polls' to gather opinions on certain issues. I only intend to set up a couple every week and they should only take 2 or 3 minutes to fill in (I'll make them a form with select boxes for scores and an email submission). If people feel this is a dreadful idea then speak up otherwise I'll set the first one up tomorrow. In the meantime heres a couple of logo's (can't resist now) :- http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python1.gif http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python5.gif http://pollenation.net/assets/public/pythonesque.gif Tim From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Fri Aug 15 01:09:57 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Thu Aug 14 19:12:20 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <200308142201.h7EM1q704449@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> Message-ID: <000101c362b9$34576380$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Guido: >BTW, I'd rather not have to review any more logo submissions for a >while. I suggest that the webdesign committee set up a procedure for >choosing a logo that only gives me the three final choices of some >committee. :-) Without contributing it's difficult to know what you might like. As a half way house could you tell us maybe 3 logos that you do like so we can have a guage of both ends of the scale? As I was getting at in my last e-mail, it's difficult to know what direction to head in creating a design without a brief, but even more difficult without any feedback from the decision makers, but if that's the way it has to be then fair enough. Does this apply to web site designs/information architecture also? Finally ;-) ... who else are decision makers as far as the design goes (Just is, I presume) Is there anyone else that we might solicit opinion from / explain possibilities to? Tim Parkin From guido at python.org Thu Aug 14 17:21:34 2003 From: guido at python.org (Guido van Rossum) Date: Thu Aug 14 19:22:26 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 15 Aug 2003 00:09:57 BST." <000101c362b9$34576380$0a00a8c0@JASPER> References: <000101c362b9$34576380$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <200308142321.h7ENLYC04548@12-236-84-31.client.attbi.com> > Without contributing it's difficult to know what you might like. As a > half way house could you tell us maybe 3 logos that you do like so we > can have a guage of both ends of the scale? No. My brother knows what I will like, he's on the committee headed by Thomas. I need to get out of the logo reviewing business NOW. > As I was getting at in my last e-mail, it's difficult to know what > direction to head in creating a design without a brief, but even more > difficult without any feedback from the decision makers, but if that's > the way it has to be then fair enough. Talk to the committee. They may have their own idea on how to get to a design. > Does this apply to web site > designs/information architecture also? Less so; that's an area where you all have done very useful work. > Finally ;-) ... who else are > decision makers as far as the design goes (Just is, I presume) Is there > anyone else that we might solicit opinion from / explain possibilities > to? I posted the names on the committee already. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) From python at dylanreinhardt.com Fri Aug 15 01:59:42 2003 From: python at dylanreinhardt.com (Dylan Reinhardt) Date: Thu Aug 14 20:59:43 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: Marketing or Design? Design or Structure? ... Logos?! In-Reply-To: <000001c362b7$fcdec160$0a00a8c0@JASPER> References: <000001c362b7$fcdec160$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <1060909146.8668.198.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> On Thu, 2003-08-14 at 16:01, Tim Parkin wrote: > In my experience, marketing is about the message, design about the > delivery. True enough. You make a number of fine points about the array of issues that this group can (and should) take on. I made a comment because this list was starting to task itself with developing a *slogan* for Python. That's deep into message territory. The slogan discussion was the only thing I meant to flag and hadn't intended to imply anything beyond that. Just clarifying... :-) Dylan From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Fri Aug 15 10:25:04 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Fri Aug 15 04:29:33 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <16187.49800.356480.922914@grendel.zope.com> Message-ID: <000001c36306$e2ce9990$0a00a8c0@JASPER> >A.M. Kuchling writes: > > Unfortunately there's already a company with the same name > > (www.ip-wizard.com). > >If that's a real problem (and it might be), we might be able to use >"expanding possibilities" and the infinity sign. > > -Fred In that vein http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python8.gif Tim From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Fri Aug 15 10:28:47 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Fri Aug 15 04:32:59 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <16187.49800.356480.922914@grendel.zope.com> Message-ID: <000101c36307$64027770$0a00a8c0@JASPER> >A.M. Kuchling writes: > > Unfortunately there's already a company with the same name > > (www.ip-wizard.com). > >If that's a real problem (and it might be), we might be able to use >"expanding possibilities" and the infinity sign. > > -Fred In that vein http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python8.gif Tim From amk at asti-usa.com Fri Aug 15 16:16:25 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Fri Aug 15 15:16:59 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [Pydotorg] Re: python.org Commercial Exits In-Reply-To: <3F3CE423.1040503@lemburg.com> References: <3F34095D.6030107@lemburg.com> <16180.7186.818089.252768@montanaro.dyndns.org> <3F3CE423.1040503@lemburg.com> Message-ID: <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> On Fri, Aug 15, 2003 at 03:46:11PM +0200, M.-A. Lemburg wrote: > Just wanted to ping in on this again, because I don't see any > changes on python.org web-site. <sigh> The sidebar discussion has yet again exploded off into a zillion subthreads. I want to actually do something about this. Proposal: * Create /community/companies.html. Criterion for listing: companies that either use Python primarily, or have made strong commitments to using it and supporting the community. * Change the top-level sidebar to http://www.amk.ca/python.org.html . Suggestions that haven't been acted on: * Move down the 'Mirror sites' link (this is a good idea) That's it. Last call for suggestions, or vetos from the appropriate people, please. --amk (www.amk.ca) A bad workman always blames his fools. -- The Doctor, in "Time and the Rani" From amk at asti-usa.com Fri Aug 15 16:28:57 2003 From: amk at asti-usa.com (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Fri Aug 15 15:29:34 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Dropping language comparisons Message-ID: <20030815192857.GB19965@vail.asti-usa.com> The material at doc/Comparisons.html is all pretty elderly. I don't think we can devote the effort to keep it up to date, and few of us can claim to be Tcl/Perl/Lisp/whatever experts anyway. If marketing-python wants to someday write something, fine, but for now IMHO this page should simply be dropped. Objections? --amk From skip at pobox.com Fri Aug 15 15:37:09 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Fri Aug 15 15:37:36 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [Pydotorg] Re: python.org Commercial Exits In-Reply-To: <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <3F34095D.6030107@lemburg.com> <16180.7186.818089.252768@montanaro.dyndns.org> <3F3CE423.1040503@lemburg.com> <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <16189.13925.551699.593745@montanaro.dyndns.org> amk> Proposal: amk> * Create /community/companies.html. Criterion for listing: amk> companies that either use Python primarily, or have made strong amk> commitments to using it and supporting the community. amk> * Change the top-level sidebar to http://www.amk.ca/python.org.html . amk> Suggestions that haven't been acted on: amk> * Move down the 'Mirror sites' link (this is a good idea) Go for it. Skip From skip at pobox.com Fri Aug 15 15:39:37 2003 From: skip at pobox.com (Skip Montanaro) Date: Fri Aug 15 15:39:53 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Dropping language comparisons In-Reply-To: <20030815192857.GB19965@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <20030815192857.GB19965@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <16189.14073.59500.515788@montanaro.dyndns.org> amk> If marketing-python wants to someday write something, fine, but for amk> now IMHO this page should simply be dropped. Objections? No particular objections except to note that the issue of language comparisons does come up from time-to-time. (It's a relevant question to ask if you're coming to Python from some other language.) This sounds like Wiki material to me. Perhaps we should solicit a volunteer from c.l.py to create and manage a section of the Wiki devoted to language comparisons. Skip From bac at OCF.Berkeley.EDU Fri Aug 15 14:10:04 2003 From: bac at OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Brett C.) Date: Fri Aug 15 16:10:18 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [Pydotorg] Re: python.org Commercial Exits In-Reply-To: <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <3F34095D.6030107@lemburg.com> <16180.7186.818089.252768@montanaro.dyndns.org> <3F3CE423.1040503@lemburg.com> <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <3F3D3E1C.2030205@ocf.berkeley.edu> A.M. Kuchling wrote: > Proposal: > > * Create /community/companies.html. Criterion for listing: > companies that either use Python primarily, or have made strong commitments > to using it and supporting the community. > > * Change the top-level sidebar to http://www.amk.ca/python.org.html . > Suggestions that haven't been acted on: > * Move down the 'Mirror sites' link (this is a good idea) > All works for me. -Brett From mal at lemburg.com Fri Aug 15 22:28:35 2003 From: mal at lemburg.com (M.-A. Lemburg) Date: Fri Aug 15 16:43:58 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [Pydotorg] Re: python.org Commercial Exits In-Reply-To: <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <3F34095D.6030107@lemburg.com> <16180.7186.818089.252768@montanaro.dyndns.org> <3F3CE423.1040503@lemburg.com> <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <3F3D3463.8050100@lemburg.com> A.M. Kuchling wrote: > On Fri, Aug 15, 2003 at 03:46:11PM +0200, M.-A. Lemburg wrote: > >>Just wanted to ping in on this again, because I don't see any >>changes on python.org web-site. > > <sigh> The sidebar discussion has yet again exploded off into a > zillion subthreads. I want to actually do something about this. Ah, so that's why there was no reaction :-) > Proposal: > > * Create /community/companies.html. Criterion for listing: > companies that either use Python primarily, or have made strong commitments > to using it and supporting the community. > > * Change the top-level sidebar to http://www.amk.ca/python.org.html . > Suggestions that haven't been acted on: > * Move down the 'Mirror sites' link (this is a good idea) > > That's it. Last call for suggestions, or vetos from the appropriate > people, please. Fair enough (the "Companies" link is missing from your sidebar, though). I would also move the "site map" link next to the "search" link. BTW, the "community" link on the top stil points to the PSA; that should probably be a new index page listing all the entries you have in the side-bar. Please don't forget to add the PSF donation button in a prominent place, e.g. on the top right corner. Aahz has the code for the button. -- Marc-Andre Lemburg eGenix.com Professional Python Software directly from the Source (#1, Aug 15 2003) >>> Python/Zope Products & Consulting ... http://www.egenix.com/ >>> mxODBC, mxDateTime, mxTextTools ... http://python.egenix.com/ ________________________________________________________________________ 2003-08-12: Released eGenix mx Extensions for Python 2.3 ::: Try mxODBC.Zope.DA for Windows,Linux,Solaris,FreeBSD for free ! :::: From bac at OCF.Berkeley.EDU Fri Aug 15 14:09:50 2003 From: bac at OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Brett C.) Date: Fri Aug 15 16:44:01 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [Pydotorg] Re: python.org Commercial Exits In-Reply-To: <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <3F34095D.6030107@lemburg.com> <16180.7186.818089.252768@montanaro.dyndns.org> <3F3CE423.1040503@lemburg.com> <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <3F3D3E0E.2070401@ocf.berkeley.edu> A.M. Kuchling wrote: > Proposal: > > * Create /community/companies.html. Criterion for listing: > companies that either use Python primarily, or have made strong commitments > to using it and supporting the community. > > * Change the top-level sidebar to http://www.amk.ca/python.org.html . > Suggestions that haven't been acted on: > * Move down the 'Mirror sites' link (this is a good idea) > All works for me. -Brett From tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com Sat Aug 16 00:00:39 2003 From: tim.parkin at pollenationinternet.com (Tim Parkin) Date: Fri Aug 15 18:03:15 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <16187.49800.356480.922914@grendel.zope.com> Message-ID: <001201c36378$b04827d0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Fred L. Drake write: >A.M. Kuchling writes: > > Unfortunately there's already a company with the same name > > (www.ip-wizard.com). > >If that's a real problem (and it might be), we might be able to use >"expanding possibilities" and the infinity sign. I've mocked a page up with the expanding possibilities strapline... http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python.html Still some work to do to get it how I really want it but I think it's a start. Tim Parkin From fdrake at acm.org Fri Aug 15 19:49:27 2003 From: fdrake at acm.org (Fred L. Drake, Jr.) Date: Fri Aug 15 18:50:05 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <000001c36306$e2ce9990$0a00a8c0@JASPER> References: <16187.49800.356480.922914@grendel.zope.com> <000001c36306$e2ce9990$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <16189.25463.379945.666268@grendel.zope.com> Tim Parkin writes: > In that vein > > http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python8.gif Hey, I like that one! -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org> PythonLabs at Zope Corporation From jlgijsbers at planet.nl Fri Aug 15 17:30:22 2003 From: jlgijsbers at planet.nl (Johannes Gijsbers) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:11 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Wiki integration Message-ID: <20030815212526.GA7128@luetin> The consensus on this list seemed to be that integrating the wiki with the rest of the site was a desirable thing. I've just taken a first shot at implementing it, by partially using ht2html. Basically, there's a index.ht file in the same directory is and moin_config.py gets its page footer and header from the processed index.html. The moin_config.py I used is attached. I also created a new css file for the wiki, based on ui.css from MoinMoin, which imports ht2html.css for consistency with the rest of the site. When I get CVS access, would anyone object when I implement this on python.org? Johannes -------------- next part -------------- """ MoinMoin - Configuration Copyright (c) 2000-2002 by J?rgen Hermann <jh@web.de> All rights reserved, see COPYING for details. Note that there are more config options than you'll find in the version of this file that is installed by default; see the module MoinMoin.config for a full list of names and their default values. Also, the URL http://purl.net/wiki/moin/HelpOnConfiguration has a list of config options. $Id: moin_config.py,v 1.8 2002/11/25 20:23:09 jhermann Exp $ """ __version__ = "$Revision: 1.8 $"[11:-2] # If you run several wikis on one host (commonly called a wiki farm), # uncommenting the following allows you to load global settings for # all your wikis. You will then have to create "farm_config.py" in # the MoinMoin package directory. # # from MoinMoin.farm_config import * # basic options (you normally need to change these) sitename = 'Python Language Website' interwikiname = None data_dir = './data/' url_prefix = '/wiki' logo_url = url_prefix + '/img/moinmoin.gif' # encoding and WikiName char sets # (change only for outside America or Western Europe) charset = 'iso-8859-1' upperletters = "A-Z??????????????????????????????" lowerletters = "0-9a-z?????????????????????????????????" # options people are likely to change due to personal taste show_hosts = 1 # show hostnames? nonexist_qm = 1 # show '?' for nonexistent? backtick_meta = 1 # allow `inline typewriter`? allow_extended_names = 1 # allow ["..."] markup? edit_rows = 20 # editor size max_macro_size = 50 # max size of RecentChanges in KB (0=unlimited) bang_meta = 0 # use ! to escape WikiNames? show_section_numbers = 1 # enumerate headlines? # charting needs "gdchart" installed! # you can remove the test and gain a little speed (i.e. keep only # the chart_options assignment, or remove this code section altogether) try: import gdchart chart_options = {'width': 720, 'height': 400} except ImportError: pass # values that depend on above configuration settings logo_string = '' css_url = url_prefix + '/css/wiki.css' # stylesheet link, or '' html_head = """ <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html;charset=%s"> """ % (charset,) # security critical actions (deactivated by default) if 0: allowed_actions = ['DeletePage', 'AttachFile'] navi_bar = [] ht2html_file = file('index.html') ht_text = ht2html_file.read() ht2html_file.close() def get_text_delimited_by(text, start, end): return text[text.index(start):text.index(end)] title1 = get_text_delimited_by(ht_text, '', '') title1 += '<td valign="top" width="90%" class="body"><br/>' title2 = '' page_footer1 = '' page_footer2 = '</td>' + get_text_delimited_by(ht_text, '', '') -------------- next part -------------- Other-links: <h3>PythonInfo Wiki</h3> <li><a href="FrontPage">Wiki FrontPage</a> <li><a href="RecentChanges">RecentChanges</a> <li><a href="TitleIndex">TitleIndex</a> <li><a href="WordIndex">WordIndex</a> <li><a href="SiteNavigation">SiteNavigation</a> <li><a href="HelpContents">HelpContents</a> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: wiki.css Type: text/css Size: 1482 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pydotorg-redesign/attachments/20030815/af2a25f5/wiki-0168.css From python at dylanreinhardt.com Fri Aug 15 19:46:52 2003 From: python at dylanreinhardt.com (Dylan Reinhardt) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:21 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <001201c36378$b04827d0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> References: <001201c36378$b04827d0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <1060991177.12527.64.camel@ida.dylanreinhardt.com> On Fri, 2003-08-15 at 15:00, Tim Parkin wrote: > Fred L. Drake write: > >A.M. Kuchling writes: > > > Unfortunately there's already a company with the same name > > > (www.ip-wizard.com). > > > >If that's a real problem (and it might be), we might be able to use > >"expanding possibilities" and the infinity sign. > > I've mocked a page up with the expanding possibilities strapline... This is a gorgeous page and very well organized. Huge kudos on that. But once more, *please* don't introduce a slogan. I know that Python *should* have one and you've identified exactly where it should go and what it should probably look like... but don't just make one up. The site can really use a new look, but this is not the proper time or place to be setting our strategic agenda. Dylan From aahz at pythoncraft.com Fri Aug 15 23:43:20 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:24 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [Pydotorg] Re: python.org Commercial Exits In-Reply-To: <3F3D3463.8050100@lemburg.com> References: <3F34095D.6030107@lemburg.com> <16180.7186.818089.252768@montanaro.dyndns.org> <3F3CE423.1040503@lemburg.com> <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> <3F3D3463.8050100@lemburg.com> Message-ID: <20030816034305.GB20080@panix.com> On Fri, Aug 15, 2003, M.-A. Lemburg wrote: > > Please don't forget to add the PSF donation button in a prominent place, > e.g. on the top right corner. Aahz has the code for the button. It's near the top of my list, but other things keep getting higher priority (such as catching up on my e-mail after being without for thirty hours ;-). (Yes, I'm on the west coast of the US, but my e-mail is in NYC.) -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From zope at toenjes.com Sat Aug 16 00:37:40 2003 From: zope at toenjes.com (Trevor Toenjes) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:27 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <001201c36378$b04827d0$0a00a8c0@JASPER> Message-ID: <NEBBLDPBKLOKNHPAEECGMEAKKHAA.zope@toenjes.com> WOW!!!! ...should say it all. Kudos Tim. You got your game on... The direction for the homepage is nearly dead on for execution. Brilliant. The concept is very strong. I havent seen anything proposed come this close to what python needs. Thank you for the time and thought commitment to develop this mockup and bring some real creative to the table. It's very lightweight and could be easily maintained and updated. I dont care particularly for the logo or the tagline. I think we can be more unique than infinities and nautilus shapes. And I am not particularly fond of integrating a symbol into a logo, and prefer strong fontography for longevity. Which, by the way, you are doing pretty good exploring the font choices. I still think a Gilliam-esque influence should be explored. :) IMHO, any symbology should be able to stand on its own for python's identity, and I am not sure you can do that with the infinity symbol. The tagline is also weak and there needs to be more discussion and new ideas before that is nailed. Consider a descriptor to help first timers "get it" faster. -Trevor > -----Original Message----- > From: pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org > [mailto:pydotorg-redesign-bounces@python.org]On Behalf Of Tim Parkin > Sent: Friday, August 15, 2003 6:01 PM > To: 'Fred L. Drake, Jr.'; amk@amk.ca > Cc: 'Pydotorg-Redesign' > Subject: RE: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts > > > Fred L. Drake write: > >A.M. Kuchling writes: > > > Unfortunately there's already a company with the same name > > > (www.ip-wizard.com). > > > >If that's a real problem (and it might be), we might be able to use > >"expanding possibilities" and the infinity sign. > > I've mocked a page up with the expanding possibilities strapline... > > http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python.html > > Still some work to do to get it how I really want it but I think it's a > start. > > Tim Parkin > > > > _______________________________________________ > Pydotorg-redesign mailing list > Pydotorg-redesign@python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pydotorg-redesign From vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com Sat Aug 16 17:03:59 2003 From: vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com (Brandon J. Van Every) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:29 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Python logos should have snakes Message-ID: <000801c3643b$16d5bc20$bd6cfea9@vangogh> Hello. By way of introduction, I don't use Python, and I'm rude. I've been giving some feedback on marketing-python about what the non-converted think of Python. I have some things to say about logos. I've been scanning your archives and am very pleased to see that you're working on so many wonderful things. But you're bogged down on the logo, so I'm going to say a couple of things sans tact, to remind you of this and that. >From a placeholder standpoint, the current Python logo is fine. From a marketing standpoint, it sucks rocks. The design is deliberately "tech retro," like Atari 2600 Space Invader graphics from my youth. I can't think of anything more foolish than telling a business audience that your programming language is retro. We have a phrase in game development: "Programmer Art." This is the stuff that programmers stick in as a placeholder until real artists get around to the job. Is www.python.org a marketing vehicle? Yes it is. When people spread info about Python by word of mouth, or presentation slide, they say "Go to www.python.org." It's easy to remember, that's why we point people there. So as long as you have the "Python is amateur and retro!" logo screaming at people, you are doing big damage to the marketing of Python. Reorganizing the content is great, it's needed, I applaud. But you need to fix this logo *NOW*. If nothing else, remove it. That would take someone 5 minutes. A Python logo should have a snake in it. I don't know why this hasn't been focused on. It is obvious, obvious, obvious brand identity. The graphic design problem is "figure out how to combine the word 'Python' with a snake." It isn't infinities or spirals or asking what kind of extant corporate bland Guido prefers. Make logos with *SNAKES*. I actually like the "Sesame Street" logo with a snake http://just.letterror.com/pythonlogo/ but I also think http://pollenation.net/assets/public/samples.gif show that it may not hold up well in company. I think it is worth noting that the Java logo is the only distinctive one of the batch. Possibly the Python snake logo is fixable with some tweaking, however. I think the eyes and tongue are too subtle. I'm also thinking that Green is the correct color for a Python, not purple. What if you change the shape of the snake to be less "Romper Room" and more "I, Claudius?" http://www.historyinfilm.com/claudius/ That's not a literal suggestion, the idea is simply to communicate deadliness and danger rather than playfulness. Business types like to *kill* or *strangle* their competiton, not play with it. Of course I will refrain from the useless suggestion of taking inspiration from "Le Petit Prince," but I can't help mentioning the thought. :-) Cheers, www.3DProgrammer.com Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA 20% of the world is real. 80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads. From magnus at thinkware.se Sat Aug 16 17:33:46 2003 From: magnus at thinkware.se (Magnus =?iso-8859-1?Q?Lyck=E5?=) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:32 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] logos In-Reply-To: <005301c36454$a14092e0$0200a8c0@b> References: <000201c363c0$963a0000$bd6cfea9@vangogh> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20030816163434.020df8c0@www.thinkware.se> At 17:15 2003-08-16 -0700, Oktay Safak wrote: >Be patient, we are working on both issues. We just need some time. It will >be a big change and I wouldn't like to see it rushed. If we'll change it, we >need to get it right. Some food for thought: > >http://www.geocities.com/oktay_safak/python.jpg > >http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python-logo-test.gif > >http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python8.gif >http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python1.gif >http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python5.gif > >I'd love to hear your comments on them. None of them really caught my attention or seem like an improvement, but I'm no pro in the field. Is any of them made by someone who has an arts or design education, or works as a graphics design professional? I think the first thing to consider when making a logotype is what values and messages we want to convey with it. What do we want people to feel when they see the logo? This will narrow down the choices of color, shape and font quite a bit...and made correctly, a logo will convey a message. Those Python logos said nothing to me. Why so grey? Is dull and boring the main message? Do we want people to feel desire, or trust? Do we want to give an impression of high quality or hitech or speed or what? I think we have to decide what factor is most important and do the most of that. How do we say: "Developing with Python takes less time" in our logo? Frankly, I think the name "Python" is a liability. (Not that there is a lot we can do about that now.) If someone asks me to compare Python and Ruby, I'll immediately admit that that other language has a more sellable name, particularly in Sweden where "tastes python" means "tastes like shit". Maybe we should still try to make the best of that though. It could work. Agility, surprising power, not the fastest creature out there, but faster than one might imagine, and really flexible and big enough to get around big obstacles. Hm...this seems more like a TV commercial than a logo... (Although, when I've seen pythons in real life, they almost always just lie there and do nothing... Hm...) >Note that Guido has killed the >spiral and the infinity symbol ideas though. Good! We have a programming language called Python. Although the name has an origin that is related to Monty Python and not to snakes, the obvious choice *if* we want some kind of symbol would be (like the Python icons in Windows) to use the snake. I realize that both the spiral and the infinity symbol could be seen as an abstract image of a snake, but it's too far fetched. People who see a spiral or infinity symbol won't think: "Aha, a snake, it's about Python." It's one thing if there is a little snake that coils into an infinity symbol, but what's the message? Python programs take forever to finish? What would the spiral stand for? Goes round and round a long time before it reaches the goal? I'm not at all sure we want some kind of symbol or icon like that in the logo at all. Making something distinctive graphic out of the letters P-y-t-h-o-n like we have today is probably a really good idea. Look at the pros: Volvo, Ford, IBM, HP, LEGO, Amazon, Microsoft etc. Almost all of them have just the plain text and some fairly simple (but probably very expensive to come up with) decoration or little detail in or around the text. When there is something non-textual (Audi and Saab for instance) it's often a logo which was developed many decades ago that is still being used, since it's just a strongly rooted symbol in the public mind. Some (like Volvo) have even dropped the old symbol and reverted to plain text. Asian car companies (Mazda, Hyundai, Toyota etc) often use symbols these days since they must be recognized by people who don't use the latin alphabet. That's not really relevant for us, since Python is useless for people who don't type with the latin alphabet... Don't underestimate the value of text as graphics. My son loved cars when he was one and a half years old. He knew more than half a dozen brands, and if you asked "Where's the Ford?" on a parking lot, he'd walk over to the closest Ford, put his finger on the logo, and say "Huh!" which was about all his vocabulary allowed by then. When he was a little over two, I was once reading in a newspaper while he was present, and suddenly he poked his finger in the text and said "Toyota". Quite to my surprise, he had his finger on the word "Toyota". There were no pictures, no logos, just a full page of plain, normal 10 pt text. But "Toyota" looked close enough to "TOYOTA" which was a logotype he recognized (from older Toyotas). To him, this was just a picture. He still can't read two years later, but words are pictures too. Some of these pictures are well known to him, and convey very clear messages. There is so much a pro can do with text. The VOLVO logo gives a very clear image of the values Volvo stands for. Safe, solid, trustworthy and a little boring. There is no way you can add "sporty like a Ferrari" to the image of the logo, and keep the other values. Ford makes a point of keeping an old-fashioned logo, giving the message that "hey, we more or less invented the entire concept of a car". Introducing little figures is a difficult and dangerous task. If you just knew how much grief the Ericsson marketing people have had with their stylized E, consisting of three parallel, rounded bars. They even had to send out internal memos forbidding employees to answer the phone saying "Three hotdogs" instead of "Ericsson". -- Magnus Lycka (It's really Lyckå), magnus@thinkware.se Thinkware AB, Sweden, www.thinkware.se I code Python ~ The Agile Programming Language From aahz at pythoncraft.com Sat Aug 16 17:57:37 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:34 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] logos In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20030816163434.020df8c0@www.thinkware.se> References: <000201c363c0$963a0000$bd6cfea9@vangogh> <5.2.1.1.0.20030816163434.020df8c0@www.thinkware.se> Message-ID: <20030816215628.GA12659@panix.com> On Sat, Aug 16, 2003, Magnus Lyck? wrote: > > I think the first thing to consider when making a logotype > is what values and messages we want to convey with it. > What do we want people to feel when they see the logo? This > will narrow down the choices of color, shape and font quite > a bit...and made correctly, a logo will convey a message. > > Those Python logos said nothing to me. Why so grey? Is dull > and boring the main message? We want blue! We want blue! (I happen to like the electric blue of the "Python Powered" logo on the "Python: Programming the way Guido indented it" t-shirts.) -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From aahz at pythoncraft.com Sat Aug 16 20:52:58 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:37 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] python.org Commercial Exits In-Reply-To: <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> References: <3F34095D.6030107@lemburg.com> <16180.7186.818089.252768@montanaro.dyndns.org> <3F3CE423.1040503@lemburg.com> <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <20030817005256.GA23855@panix.com> [now that I'm back from the power outage -- yes, I'm on the west coast of the USA, but my ISP is in NYC -- I've got some comments] On Fri, Aug 15, 2003, A.M. Kuchling wrote: > > Proposal: > > * Create /community/companies.html. Criterion for listing: > companies that either use Python primarily, or have made strong > commitments to using it and supporting the community. Works for me. You don't say, but I assume this replaces "Commercial Exits" on sidebar. > * Change the top-level sidebar to http://www.amk.ca/python.org.html . > Suggestions that haven't been acted on: > * Move down the 'Mirror sites' link (this is a good idea) Works for me. Should replace "SIGs" with Site Map (if not now, eventually). I want PyCon in the sidebar until Community points to /community/ *and* /community/ is beefed up to prominently display PyCon. Now that I've added the quickie links to /download/, I think the docs should go above "Python Versions" in the sidebar. Please change "Developer's Guide" back to "Python Project" and include the bugs/patches links -- I added those partly for efficient access and partly to emphasize that this is for people who want to contribute bugs and patches: the developers of Python itself. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From zope at toenjes.com Sun Aug 17 14:56:04 2003 From: zope at toenjes.com (Trevor Toenjes) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:39 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] 3 Simple Logo Development Guidelines In-Reply-To: <16189.25463.379945.666268@grendel.zope.com> Message-ID: <NEBBLDPBKLOKNHPAEECGGEEIKHAA.zope@toenjes.com> Since it looks like efforts and opinions are being scattered, here are some tactical suggestions to get back on track... 1. An identity analysis needs to be completed to summarize what the logo needs to communicate to its viewers. If we cant agree on this, then no one will agree on the final design, because you are all shooting in different directions from completely different angles. In order to be truly effective as a volunteer group, you have to come to an agreement on a direction. VERY IMPORTANT: The summary needs to include prioritizing the various needs, so there is no confusion on how to weight the selection criteria. The summary can include..."quirky style to show uniqueness" vs. "it must look corporate in the style of contemporary American business identities" OR keywords like ...flexible, powerful, fun, geeky, sophisticated, international The final criteria needs to be precise and not too inclusive. 2. All logos should be developed in black and white first. After final acceptance, then a color palette can be developed. If it doesn't work in black and white, then it needs to be tossed out. 3. Each submitted logo needs to be accompanied by a positioning explanation about what particularly need is being met by the design and how the designer believes that is being communicated visually. NOTE: Sub-Branding. Remember, after THE LOGO is selected, then variations on the theme can be developed for the various segments. examples: Python Community could have some fun color variation. Python Powered. Python Documentation can have a variation. The PSF can have its own variation on the main theme, with a variation on the colors. The decision is a Marketing decision, and not a web design decision. I am concerned that this effort is fragmented on 2 lists and may not include individuals that have valuable positioning and direction input. hence the cross-post. I think all logo and identity discussions should be confined to the marketing list. This discussion should not stall pydot-redesign in anyway, and is probably a distraction. If it is redeveloped conservatively, then redoing the look and feel (skins/templates) later will be trivial, once the new logo and color-palette is selected. There is much informational architecture and other things to do while a logo is being developed. And if this still fails to produce results that everyone is happy with, then consider accessing real creative design talent. (I can help with that if the time comes.) An agency would still require us to complete Step 1 before they do 2 and 3. Meanwhile, don't be too critical on each other. Face it, there is no top agency-level creative talent on this list. I don't expect a typical python developer to have the skills to design a logo and identity that meets the strategic needs to move Python forward on a global marketing scale. But we should have fun winging it, like most non-funded marketing activities. :) Cheers, Trevor From lac at strakt.com Mon Aug 18 02:23:06 2003 From: lac at strakt.com (Laura Creighton) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:42 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] 3 Simple Logo Development Guidelines In-Reply-To: Message from "Trevor Toenjes" <zope@toenjes.com> of "Sun, 17 Aug 2003 14:55:11 EDT." <NEBBLDPBKLOKNHPAEECGGEEIKHAA.zope@toenjes.com> References: <NEBBLDPBKLOKNHPAEECGGEEIKHAA.zope@toenjes.com> Message-ID: <200308180622.h7I6Mvq3009726@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> Somebody asked me once what I wanted from the Marketing Python mailing list. answer: Notes like these. Something more substantial and sophisticated than 'i know the markets, and I have an opinion, and you should like mine because i say so'. So -- How do we make an identity analysis? Laura ......... In a message of Sun, 17 Aug 2003 14:55:11 EDT, "Trevor Toenjes" writes: >Since it looks like efforts and opinions are being scattered, here are so >me >tactical suggestions to get back on track... > >1. An identity analysis needs to be completed to summarize what the logo >needs to communicate to its viewers. If we cant agree on this, then no o >ne >will agree on the final design, because you are all shooting in different >directions from completely different angles. In order to be truly >effective as a volunteer group, you have to come to an agreement on a >direction. > >VERY IMPORTANT: The summary needs to include prioritizing the various >needs, so there is no confusion on how to weight the selection criteria. > >The summary can include..."quirky style to show uniqueness" vs. "it must >look corporate in the style of contemporary American business identities" >OR keywords like >...flexible, powerful, fun, geeky, sophisticated, international >The final criteria needs to be precise and not too inclusive. > >2. All logos should be developed in black and white first. After final >acceptance, then a color palette can be developed. If it doesn't work in >black and white, then it needs to be tossed out. > >3. Each submitted logo needs to be accompanied by a positioning explanat >ion >about what particularly need is being met by the design and how the desig >ner >believes that is being communicated visually. > > > >NOTE: Sub-Branding. > Remember, after THE LOGO is selected, then variations on the theme can > be >developed for the various segments. >examples: >Python Community could have some fun color variation. >Python Powered. >Python Documentation can have a variation. >The PSF can have its own variation on the main theme, with a variation on >the colors. > >The decision is a Marketing decision, and not a web design decision. I a >m >concerned that this effort is fragmented on 2 lists and may not include >individuals that have valuable positioning and direction input. hence th >e >cross-post. I think all logo and identity discussions should be confined > to >the marketing list. > >This discussion should not stall pydot-redesign in anyway, and is probabl >y a >distraction. If it is redeveloped conservatively, then redoing the look >and >feel (skins/templates) later will be trivial, once the new logo and >color-palette is selected. There is much informational architecture and >other things to do while a logo is being developed. > >And if this still fails to produce results that everyone is happy with, t >hen >consider accessing real creative design talent. (I can help with that if >the >time comes.) An agency would still require us to complete Step 1 before >they do 2 and 3. > >Meanwhile, don't be too critical on each other. Face it, there is no top >agency-level creative talent on this list. I don't expect a typical pyt >hon >developer to have the skills to design a logo and identity that meets the >strategic needs to move Python forward on a global marketing scale. But >we >should have fun winging it, like most non-funded marketing activities. : >) > >Cheers, >Trevor > >_______________________________________________ >marketing-python mailing list >marketing-python@wingide.com >http://pythonology.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-python From walter at livinglogic.de Mon Aug 18 06:14:44 2003 From: walter at livinglogic.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Walter_D=F6rwald?=) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:44 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Some logo attempts In-Reply-To: <16189.25463.379945.666268@grendel.zope.com> References: <16187.49800.356480.922914@grendel.zope.com> <000001c36306$e2ce9990$0a00a8c0@JASPER> <16189.25463.379945.666268@grendel.zope.com> Message-ID: <3F40A6F1.5090403@livinglogic.de> Fred L. Drake, Jr. wrote: > Tim Parkin writes: > > In that vein > > > > http://pollenation.net/assets/public/python8.gif > > Hey, I like that one! Here's a new bunch of logo attempts, done by our designer Peter B?ker: http://styx.livinglogic.de/~walter/Python_logo.gif Bye, Walter D?rwald From aahz at pythoncraft.com Mon Aug 18 12:02:43 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:47 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] FWD: Re: What's better about Ruby than Python? Message-ID: <20030818160240.GA13977@panix.com> Did we decide whether we were removing the language comparisons page? If not, we should ask Alex to reSTify this. ----- Forwarded message from Alex Martelli <aleaxit@yahoo.com> ----- > From: Alex Martelli <aleaxit@yahoo.com> > Newsgroups: comp.lang.python > Subject: Re: What's better about Ruby than Python? > Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 17:26:30 +0200 > Organization: None in Sight > > Erik Max Francis wrote: > >> "Brandon J. Van Every" wrote: >> >>> What's better about Ruby than Python? I'm sure there's something. >>> What is it? >> >> Wouldn't it make much more sense to ask Ruby people this, rather than >> Python people? > > Might, or might not, depending on one's purposes -- for example, if > one's purposes include a "sociological study" of the Python community, > then putting questions to that community is likely to prove more > revealing of informaiton about it, than putting them elsewhere:-). > > Personally, I gladly took the opportunity to follow Dave Thomas' > one-day Ruby tutorial at last OSCON. Below a thin veneer of syntax > differences, I find Ruby and Python amazingly similar -- if I was > computing the minimum spanning tree among just about any set of > languages, I'm pretty sure Python and Ruby would be the first two > leaves to coalesce into an intermediate node:-). > > Sure, I do get weary, in Ruby, of typing the silly "end" at the end > of each block (rather than just unindenting) -- but then I do get > to avoid typing the equally-silly ':' which Python requires at the > _start_ of each block, so that's almost a wash:-). Other syntax > differences such as '@foo' versus 'self.foo', or the higher significance > of case in Ruby vs Python, are really just about as irrelevant to me. > > Others no doubt base their choice of programming languages on just > such issues, and they generate the hottest debates -- but to me that's > just an example of one of Parkinson's Laws in action (the amount on > debate on an issue is inversely proportional to the issue's actual > importance). > > One syntax difference that I do find important, and in Python's > favour -- but other people will no doubt think just the reverse -- > is "how do you call a function which takes no parameters". In > Python (like in C), to call a function you always apply the > "call operator" -- trailing parentheses just after the object > you're calling (inside those trailing parentheses go the args > you're passing in the call -- if you're passing no args, then > the parentheses are empty). This leaves the mere mention of > any object, with no operator involved, as meaning just a > reference to the object -- in any context, without special > cases, exceptions, ad-hoc rules, and the like. In Ruby (like > in Pascal), to call a function WITH arguments you pass the > args (normally in parentheses, though that is not invariably > the case) -- BUT if the function takes no args then simply > mentioning the function implicitly calls it. This may meet > the expectations of many people (at least, no doubt, those > whose only previous experience of programming was with Pascal, > or other languages with similar "implcit calling", such as > Visual Basic) -- but to me, it means the mere mention of an > object may EITHER mean a reference to the object, OR a call > to the object, depending on the object's type -- and in those > cases where I can't get a reference to the object by merely > mentioning it I will need to use explicit "give me a reference > to this, DON'T call it!" operators that aren't needed otherwise. > I feel this impacts the "first-classness" of functions (or > methods, or other callable objects) and the possibility of > interchanging objects smoothly. Therefore, to me, this specific > syntax difference is a serious black mark against Ruby -- but > I do understand why others would thing otherwise, even though > I could hardly disagree more vehemently with them:-). > > Below the syntax, we get into some important differences in > elementary semantics -- for example, strings in Ruby are > mutable objects (like in C++), while in Python they are not > mutable (like in Java, or I believe C#). Again, people who > judge primarily by what they're already familiar with may > think this is a plus for Ruby (unless they're familiar with > Java or C#, of course:-). Me, I think immutable strings are > an excellent idea (and I'm not surprised that Java, independently > I think, reinvented that idea which was already in Python), though > I wouldn't mind having a "mutable string buffer" type as well > (and ideally one with better ease-of-use than Java's own > "string buffers"); and I don't give this judgment because of > familiarity -- before studying Java, apart from functional > programming languages where _all_ data are immutable, all the > languages I knew had mutable strings -- yet when I first saw > the immutable-string idea in Java (which I learned well before > I learned Python), it immediately struck me as excellent, a > very good fit for the reference-semantics of a higher level > programming language (as opposed to the value-semantics that > fit best with languages closer to the machine and farther from > applications, such as C) with strings as a first-class, built-in > (and pretty crucial) data type. > > Ruby does have some advantages in elementary semantics -- for > example, the removal of Python's "lists vs tuples" exceedingly > subtle distinction. But mostly the score (as I keep it, with > simplicity a big plus and subtle, clever distinctions a notable > minus) is against Ruby (e.g., having both closed and half-open > intervals, with the notations a..b and a...b [anybody wants > to claim that it's _obvious_ which is which?-)], is silly -- > IMHO, of course!). Again, people who consider having a lot of > similar but subtly different things at the core of a language > a PLUS, rather than a MINUS, will of course count these "the > other way around" from how I count them:-). > > Don't be misled by these comparisons into thinking the two > languages are _very_ different, mind you. They aren't. But > if I'm asked to compare "capelli d'angelo" to "spaghettini", > after pointing out that these two kinds of pasta are just > about undistinguishable to anybody and interchangeable in any > dish you might want to prepare, I would then inevitably have > to move into microscopic examination of how the lengths and > diameters imperceptibly differ, how the ends of the strands > are tapered in one case and not in the other, and so on -- to > try and explain why I, personally, would rather have capelli > d'angelo as the pasta in any kind of broth, but would prefer > spaghettini as the pastasciutta to go with suitable sauces for > such long thin pasta forms (olive oil, minced garlic, minced > red peppers, and finely ground anchovies, for example - but if > you sliced the garlic and peppers instead of mincing them, then > you should choose the sounder body of spaghetti rather than the > thinner evanescence of spaghettini, and would be well advised > to forego the achoview and add instead some fresh spring basil > [or even -- I'm a heretic...! -- light mint...] leaves -- at > the very last moment before serving the dish). Ooops, sorry, > it shows that I'm traveling abroad and haven't had pasta for > a while, I guess. But the analogy is still pretty good!-) > > So, back to Python and Ruby, we come to the two biggies (in > terms of language proper -- leaving the libraries, and other > important ancillaries such as tools and environments, how to > embed/extend each language, etc, etc, out of it for now -- they > wouldn't apply to all IMPLEMENTATIONS of each language anyway, > e.g., Jython vs Classic Python being two implementations of > the Python language!): > > 1. Ruby's iterators and codeblocks vs Python's iterators > and generators; > > 2. Ruby's TOTAL, unbridled "dynamicity", including the ability > to "reopen" any existing class, including all built-in ones, > and change its behavior at run-time -- vs Python's vast but > _bounded_ dynamicity, which never changes the behavior of > existing built-in classes and their instances. > > Personally, I consider [1] a wash (the differences are so > deep that I could easily see people hating either approach > and revering the other, but on MY personal scales the pluses > and minuses just about even up); and [2] a crucial issue -- > one that makes Ruby much more suitable for "tinkering", BUT > Python equally more suitable for use in large production > applications. It's funny, in a way, because both languages > are so MUCH more dynamic than most others, that in the end > the key difference between them from my POV should hinge on > that -- that Ruby "goes to eleven" in this regard (the > reference here is to "Spinal Tap", of course). In Ruby, > there are no limits to my creativity -- if I decide that > all string comparisons must become case-insensitive, _I CAN > DO THAT_! I.e., I can dynamically alter the built-in string > class so that > a = "Hello World" > b = "hello world" > if a == b > print "equal!\n" > else > print "different!\n" > end > WILL print "equal". In python, there is NO way I can do > that. For the purposes of metaprogramming, implementing > experimental frameworks, and the like, this amazing dynamic > ability of Ruby is _extremely_ appealing. BUT -- if we're > talking about large applications, developed by many people > and maintained by even more, including all kinds of libraries > from diverse sources, and needing to go into production in > client sites... well, I don't WANT a language that is QUITE > so dynamic, thank you very much. I loathe the very idea of > some library unwittingly breaking other unrelated ones that > rely on those strings being different -- that's the kind of > deep and deeply hidden "channel", between pieces of code that > LOOK separate and SHOULD BE separate, that spells d-e-a-t-h > in large-scale programming. By letting any module affect the > behavior of any other "covertly", the ability to mutate the > semantics of built-in types is just a BAD idea for production > application programming, just as it's cool for tinkering. > > If I had to use Ruby for such a large application, I would > try to rely on coding-style restrictions, lots of tests (to > be rerun whenever ANYTHING changes -- even what should be > totally unrelated...), and the like, to prohibit use of this > language feature. But NOT having the feature in the first > place is even better, in my opinion -- just as Python itself > would be an even better language for application programming > if a certain number of built-ins could be "nailed down", so > I KNEW that, e.g., len("ciao") is 4 (rather than having to > worry subliminally about whether somebody's changed the > binding of name 'len' in the __builtins__ module...). I do > hope that eventually Python does "nail down" its built-ins. > > But the problem's minor, since rebinding built-ins is quite > a deprecated as well as a rare practice in Python. In Ruby, > it strikes me as major -- just like the _too powerful_ macro > facilities of other languages (such as, say, Dylan) present > similar risks in my own opinion (I do hope that Python never > gets such a powerful macro system, no matter the allure of > "letting people define their own domain-specific little > languages embedded in the language itself" -- it would, IMHO, > impair Python's wonderful usefulness for application > programming, by presenting an "attractive nuisance" to the > would-be tinkerer who lurks in every programmer's heart...). > > > Alex > > ----- End forwarded message ----- From aahz at pythoncraft.com Mon Aug 18 13:06:56 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:50 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] donate.png? Message-ID: <20030818170654.GA25184@panix.com> Per MAL's push (thank you!), I've installed a button on the front-page sidebar that goes directly to the PSF donations page. However, I don't like that button -- it's difficult to read on a high-res monitor and it's a GIF (borrowed from PayPal). Would someone like to make a button similar to http://www.python.org/pics/donate.gif with a pixel of space between letters that's a PNG? Feel free to use a different color scheme, too, but MAKE IT READABLE. ;-) -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From altis at semi-retired.com Mon Aug 18 13:15:09 2003 From: altis at semi-retired.com (Kevin Altis) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:52 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Dropping language comparisons In-Reply-To: <16189.14073.59500.515788@montanaro.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <KJEOLDOPMIDKCMJDCNDPGEKCEDAA.altis@semi-retired.com> > From: Skip Montanaro > > amk> If marketing-python wants to someday write something, > fine, but for > amk> now IMHO this page should simply be dropped. Objections? > > No particular objections except to note that the issue of language > comparisons does come up from time-to-time. (It's a relevant question to > ask if you're coming to Python from some other language.) > > This sounds like Wiki material to me. Perhaps we should solicit > a volunteer > from c.l.py to create and manage a section of the Wiki devoted to language > comparisons. This question is raised so frequently, that despite some of the material being old, it is better than nothing. So I vote for leaving the Comparisons page in place and updating if possible, dropping any links that seem particularly misleading. Last week Stephen Ferg posted a new doc: "Java and Python Side-by-Side Comparison - discusses the reasons why programmers can be more productive in Python than in Java." http://www.ferg.org/projects/python_java_side-by-side.html There are also some relatively new pro Python articles like Which Language Do You Recommend? by Paul Baranowski http://peek-a-booty.org/Docs/WhichLanguageDoYouRecommend.htm We have to have something to point people at and it is easier to modify than to create something from scratch. ka From altis at semi-retired.com Mon Aug 18 13:21:38 2003 From: altis at semi-retired.com (Kevin Altis) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:54 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [Pydotorg] Re: python.org Commercial Exits In-Reply-To: <20030815191625.GA19965@vail.asti-usa.com> Message-ID: <KJEOLDOPMIDKCMJDCNDPOEKCEDAA.altis@semi-retired.com> > From: A.M. Kuchling > > On Fri, Aug 15, 2003 at 03:46:11PM +0200, M.-A. Lemburg wrote: > > Just wanted to ping in on this again, because I don't see any > > changes on python.org web-site. > > <sigh> The sidebar discussion has yet again exploded off into a > zillion subthreads. I want to actually do something about this. > > Proposal: > > * Create /community/companies.html. Criterion for listing: > companies that either use Python primarily, or have made strong > commitments > to using it and supporting the community. +1 I expect that after we have gone through the home page redesign, the Exits and Commercial Exits sections won't be on the home page anyway. > * Change the top-level sidebar to http://www.amk.ca/python.org.html . > Suggestions that haven't been acted on: > * Move down the 'Mirror sites' link (this is a good idea) > > That's it. Last call for suggestions, or vetos from the appropriate > people, please. I thought the sidebar discussion had been rolled into the home page redesign discussion and that we were not planning on any dramatic sidebar changes but I guess I missed something amongst all the emails. I'm just catching up with the deluge, so I should be in sync in another day or so. ka From altis at semi-retired.com Mon Aug 18 13:28:58 2003 From: altis at semi-retired.com (Kevin Altis) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:56 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] RE: [marketing-python] 3 Simple Logo Development Guidelines In-Reply-To: <NEBBLDPBKLOKNHPAEECGGEEIKHAA.zope@toenjes.com> Message-ID: <KJEOLDOPMIDKCMJDCNDPMEKDEDAA.altis@semi-retired.com> > From: Trevor Toenjes > > The decision is a Marketing decision, and not a web design decision. I am > concerned that this effort is fragmented on 2 lists and may not include > individuals that have valuable positioning and direction input. hence the > cross-post. I think all logo and identity discussions should be > confined to > the marketing list. > > This discussion should not stall pydot-redesign in anyway, and is > probably a > distraction. If it is redeveloped conservatively, then redoing > the look and > feel (skins/templates) later will be trivial, once the new logo and > color-palette is selected. There is much informational architecture and > other things to do while a logo is being developed. I'll second this. The logo process can happen in parallel with the overall redesign and should be confined to the marketing-python list rather than being cross-posted. If Just isn't already on marketing-python, then when there is something that he should take a look at, we'll cc him. ka From mmclay at comcast.net Sun Aug 24 06:14:37 2003 From: mmclay at comcast.net (Michael McLay) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:20:59 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] PWC: informal announcement In-Reply-To: <20030823221403.GA18750@panix.com> References: <20030823221403.GA18750@panix.com> Message-ID: <200308220034.37081.mmclay@comcast.net> On Saturday 23 August 2003 06:14 pm, Aahz wrote: > [This was supposed to go out a couple of days ago, but I didn't see the > point while the virus storm was at its highest. If you reply to this, > please keep it on *one* list.] > > Some people have been asking who will make decisions regarding the web > site. At the most recent PSF board meeting, it was decided that a > committee would take over for Guido -- though Guido as BDFL retains the > right to veto a recommendation of the committee. There should be little > change for most issues, particularly in the short term -- if you've been > doing work, just continue what you've been doing. I've been doing some work on a prototype redesign. Please take a look at: http://drydock.python.net:9673/python The look is straight plone, with the substitution of a one of the proposed new logos. Thanks are in order to Stefan Drees and the other starship webmasters for getting Zope and plone operational on the new starship. I've only completed a draft for the Manager and Donation links. The prototype still needs a market pitch for Developers, Students, etc.. If anyone is interested in filling in some of the holes, embellishing my first draft, or fixing the grammar and speling, please let me know and I'll add you as a manager to the plone interface. I tried to write in marketing-speak for managers. It's not my native tongue, so I won't be offended if your comment suggest I missed the mark. However, please do so politely:-) I've just spent my last round tuit, so I'll probably not be able to work on extending the content for a couple days. From lac at strakt.com Sun Aug 24 11:42:31 2003 From: lac at strakt.com (Laura Creighton) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:02 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] PWC: informal announcement In-Reply-To: Message from Michael McLay <mmclay@comcast.net> of "Fri, 22 Aug 2003 00:34:36 EDT." <200308220034.37081.mmclay@comcast.net> References: <20030823221403.GA18750@panix.com> <200308220034.37081.mmclay@comcast.net> Message-ID: <200308240709.h7O79mq3008995@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> In a message of Fri, 22 Aug 2003 00:34:36 EDT, Michael McLay writes: >On Saturday 23 August 2003 06:14 pm, Aahz wrote: >> [This was supposed to go out a couple of days ago, but I didn't see the >> point while the virus storm was at its highest. If you reply to this, >> please keep it on *one* list.] >> >> Some people have been asking who will make decisions regarding the web >> site. At the most recent PSF board meeting, it was decided that a >> committee would take over for Guido -- though Guido as BDFL retains the >> right to veto a recommendation of the committee. There should be littl >e >> change for most issues, particularly in the short term -- if you've bee >n >> doing work, just continue what you've been doing. > >I've been doing some work on a prototype redesign. Please take a look at: > > http://drydock.python.net:9673/python > >The look is straight plone, with the substitution of a one of the propose >d new >logos. Thanks are in order to Stefan Drees and the other starship webmast >ers >for getting Zope and plone operational on the new starship. I don't see the logic of making the look a straight Plone. Of course, if this is only a way to organise material for development purposes, all fine and good. But we want to look _different_, don't we? I also don't like the idea of having a login page on the front of our website. But this is just for organisational purposes, correct? Laura From roy at panix.com Sun Aug 24 15:07:51 2003 From: roy at panix.com (Roy Smith) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:05 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] PWC: informal announcement In-Reply-To: <200308220856.25313.mmclay@comcast.net> Message-ID: <B6CA8CF6-D641-11D7-B13D-0050E405C35A@panix.com> On Friday, August 22, 2003, at 08:56 AM, Michael McLay wrote: > >> The "donating to the PSF" page is formatted differently from the >> others >> (the center text has longer lines). I assume this is unintentional? > > I'm not seeing a difference in line lengths. I haven't finished the > Donations > page. I cribbed something I had written for other purposes to get > something > to fill up the space. It needs some refinement. I made a couple of screen shots to show what I'm talking about. Maybe it's browser-specific? I'm using Safari on Mac-OSX. www.panix.com/~roy/PythonShot-1.pdf www.panix.com/~roy/PythonShot-2.pdf PS -- anybody know how to make OSX do a screenshot as a gif or jpeg? From roy at panix.com Sun Aug 24 15:17:29 2003 From: roy at panix.com (Roy Smith) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:07 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] PWC: informal announcement In-Reply-To: <200308220034.37081.mmclay@comcast.net> Message-ID: <86AB413E-D630-11D7-B13D-0050E405C35A@panix.com> On Friday, August 22, 2003, at 12:34 AM, Michael McLay wrote: > > I've been doing some work on a prototype redesign. Please take a look > at: > > http://drydock.python.net:9673/python Over all, very nice. But, of course I've got some nit-picks... Why the calender in the right margin? What events are we going to show when you click on a date? It's pretty, and perhaps it's a nice demo of plone technology, but I'm a bit of a minimalist when it comes to web design. The question I always ask is, "Does the value justify the realestate dedicated to it?" Is a calander really so important that we should devote prime real estate (top of a column) to it on every page? > I've only completed a draft for the Manager and Donation links. The > prototype > still needs a market pitch for Developers, Students, etc.. If anyone is > interested in filling in some of the holes, embellishing my first > draft, or > fixing the grammar and speling, please let me know and I'll add you as > a > manager to the plone interface. I'm game. I don't know anything about plone, but I'm willing to learn. The "donating to the PSF" page is formatted differently from the others (the center text has longer lines). I assume this is unintentional? There's a fair amount of real estate devoted to membership related stuff. What would people be joining? What benefits do they get? What benefits do we get by making people join something before getting access to certain material? The drinking from the firehose link doesn't have any indication that it's an off-site link, and the result is visually jarring (and somewhat confusing). Lastly, a bit of a meta-comment. Obviously, the design is the plone site with some new content dropped in. Is the intent that these two sites will have the same look-and-feel in the long run? If so, I think that's not a good idea, because their identities will merge. There are lots of e-commerce web sites I go to which have so many visual elements in common with Amazon that my first impression is that "Oh, Amazon must have bought this company". From aahz at pythoncraft.com Sun Aug 24 16:32:27 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:10 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Following directions In-Reply-To: <200308220034.37081.mmclay@comcast.net> References: <20030823221403.GA18750@panix.com> <200308220034.37081.mmclay@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20030824161335.GA19009@panix.com> On Fri, Aug 22, 2003, Michael McLay wrote: > On Saturday 23 August 2003 06:14 pm, Aahz wrote: >> >> [This was supposed to go out a couple of days ago, but I didn't see the >> point while the virus storm was at its highest. If you reply to this, >> please keep it on *one* list.] > > [....] This is not quite a flame, but I am not happy that people are ignoring my clear and explicit request to keep replies to one list. I (perhaps foolishly) did not set Reply-To: because each list has a different purpose. I've set Reply-To: on this message to marketing-python, because I think that's where the traffic has been coming from. For the record, here are brief mandates for several important lists: * pydotorg-pwc: The Python Website Committee serves as a decision-making body for the website, under the PSF board. This is not a public list. * psc: The list for the Public Support Committee -- if you're trying to suggest ways for the PSF to raise money, this is the place. This is not a public list. * pydotorg: the working list for people actively maintaining the python.org servers (primarily the website, but also the mailing lists); in other words, people with checkin privs. This list should be used for current work *ONLY*. This is not a public list. * pydotorg-redesign: the list for discussing medium-term and blue-sky proposals for updating the python.org website. This list does not have a PSF mandate, but should be considered to have implicit approval because it was created with the advice and consent of Guido. This is a public list. * marketing-python: the list for discussing general marketing issues related to expanding the Python userbase. It does not have a PSF mandate, but the PSF has been working closely with many of the key people on marketing-python. This is a public list. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From mmclay at comcast.net Sun Aug 24 17:20:20 2003 From: mmclay at comcast.net (Michael McLay) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:13 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Look and Feel for the website In-Reply-To: <200308240709.h7O79mq3008995@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> References: <20030823221403.GA18750@panix.com> <200308220034.37081.mmclay@comcast.net> <200308240709.h7O79mq3008995@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> Message-ID: <200308220717.45484.mmclay@comcast.net> On Sunday 24 August 2003 03:09 am, Laura Creighton wrote: > > I don't see the logic of making the look a straight Plone. Of course, if > this is only a way to organise material for development purposes, all > fine and good. But we want to look _different_, don't we? I also don't > like the idea of having a login page on the front of our website. But > this is just for organisational purposes, correct? I'm not a graphic designer. I was only interested in building content and putting in the top level categories for the group to build upon. Someone like Just would be much more qualified to come up with a unique look and feel for the the site. Plone is a reasonable starting point, but I'm sure someone else will have better ideas for the details of the new look and feel. I put up a dart board, a starting point for discussion and nothing else. From mmclay at comcast.net Sun Aug 24 18:04:38 2003 From: mmclay at comcast.net (Michael McLay) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:16 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [marketing-python] PWC: informal announcement In-Reply-To: <86AB413E-D630-11D7-B13D-0050E405C35A@panix.com> References: <86AB413E-D630-11D7-B13D-0050E405C35A@panix.com> Message-ID: <200308220856.25313.mmclay@comcast.net> On Sunday 24 August 2003 08:43 am, Roy Smith wrote: > On Friday, August 22, 2003, at 12:34 AM, Michael McLay wrote: > > I've been doing some work on a prototype redesign. Please take a look > > at: > > > > http://drydock.python.net:9673/python > > Over all, very nice. But, of course I've got some nit-picks... > > Why the calender in the right margin? What events are we going to show > when you click on a date? It's pretty, and perhaps it's a nice demo of > plone technology, but I'm a bit of a minimalist when it comes to web > design. The question I always ask is, "Does the value justify the > realestate dedicated to it?" Is a calander really so important that we > should devote prime real estate (top of a column) to it on every page? The calendar will only be useful if we can generate enough conent to show that there are alot of opportunities for people to learn about python. Local Python user groups should be able to place announcements. And of course big events like the PyCon. People offering training courses could also use this as a place to advertise their classes. I would also expect we would also allow Zope sprints and other Python related events in the calendar. If we don't have enough traffic then I agree that it would be a distraction from the site. If we do get enough traffic then the calendar should be removed. It's a marketing tool for showing that Python has an active community of users. > > I've only completed a draft for the Manager and Donation links. The > > prototype > > still needs a market pitch for Developers, Students, etc.. If anyone is > > interested in filling in some of the holes, embellishing my first > > draft, or > > fixing the grammar and speling, please let me know and I'll add you as > > a > > manager to the plone interface. > > I'm game. I don't know anything about plone, but I'm willing to learn. Adding content is very easy once you have an account. I've written all of the current content as structured text and there is a good HOWTO on the plone website that teaches how to do this. The editing capability is part of the plone user interface once you are logged into the website. > The "donating to the PSF" page is formatted differently from the others > (the center text has longer lines). I assume this is unintentional? I'm not seeing a difference in line lengths. I haven't finished the Donations page. I cribbed something I had written for other purposes to get something to fill up the space. It needs some refinement. > There's a fair amount of real estate devoted to membership related > stuff. What would people be joining? What benefits do they get? What > benefits do we get by making people join something before getting > access to certain material? I've removed the login box from the top page and moved it to the members tab. I don't have a plan for what becoming a member will provide as of yet, aside from allowing Python users to submit news articles and event announcements. Beyond that the value of being a member is TBD. > > The drinking from the firehose link doesn't have any indication that > it's an off-site link, and the result is visually jarring (and somewhat > confusing). The point of adding this link is to include access to the current content directly from the front page. If we assume that the committee agrees to this new look and feel then the existing content would be moved to the new format. Until that happens the link is going to be jarring. > Lastly, a bit of a meta-comment. Obviously, the design is the plone > site with some new content dropped in. Is the intent that these two > sites will have the same look-and-feel in the long run? If so, I think > that's not a good idea, because their identities will merge. There are > lots of e-commerce web sites I go to which have so many visual elements > in common with Amazon that my first impression is that "Oh, Amazon must > have bought this company". I just used the default plone site as an easy way to get the site up and running for collaborative development. I'm not a website designer so I'll expect someone else to work on developing a new theme for the look and feel. I was only working on getting some marketing content in place. From aahz at pythoncraft.com Sun Aug 24 21:13:43 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:18 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] PWC: informal announcement Message-ID: <20030823221403.GA18750@panix.com> [This was supposed to go out a couple of days ago, but I didn't see the point while the virus storm was at its highest. If you reply to this, please keep it on *one* list.] Some people have been asking who will make decisions regarding the web site. At the most recent PSF board meeting, it was decided that a committee would take over for Guido -- though Guido as BDFL retains the right to veto a recommendation of the committee. There should be little change for most issues, particularly in the short term -- if you've been doing work, just continue what you've been doing. The Python Website Committee (PWC) consists of a cross-section of people in the Python community who've been involved with the web site currently and in the past: Thomas Wouters (chair), sysadmin Aahz, site maintainer Kevin Altis, marketing Fred Drake, documentation Just van Rossum, graphic design Becuase we just received our mandate, we really haven't started operations yet. This is just a heads-up so that people know where to look for decisions. You can reach the PWC through pydotorg-pwc@python.org (Thomas is on vacation until Sept 2, so don't expect to get much response for a while.) -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz From barry at python.org Sun Aug 24 23:24:23 2003 From: barry at python.org (Barry Warsaw) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:21 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Re: [Pydotorg] PWC: informal announcement In-Reply-To: <20030823221403.GA18750@panix.com> References: <20030823221403.GA18750@panix.com> Message-ID: <1061781833.4397.8.camel@geddy> On Sat, 2003-08-23 at 18:14, Aahz wrote: > (Thomas is on vacation until Sept 2, so don't expect to get much > response for a while.) I have no time to be involved, and I trust those already on the committee to DTRT, but if you need some sysadmin'ing in the meantime, give me a holler. -Barry From lac at strakt.com Mon Aug 25 11:06:28 2003 From: lac at strakt.com (Laura Creighton) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:23 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] idea I had (expressed in the wrong forum) Message-ID: <200308251506.h7PF6HOK015332@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> I am envisioning the new python website as having a separate section for IT Managers, Programmers, Educators, Journalists -- what have you -- wherever we want to have a special focused message about how Python is good for their particular needs. Then I had this idea for the bottom of the page. Something like: Journalist? (or whoevers pages we are in at this time). Help us improve our website. Click here to tell us what worked for you, what didn't, and your ideas, questions, comments and suggestions. Then give them a way a) to mail us something and maybe b) a way to answer a short poll about their experience. THey don't have to do this, but some people love polls. What do other people think of this idea? Laura From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 26 09:46:49 2003 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat Sep 13 09:21:27 2003 Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Plone-based design In-Reply-To: <200308220034.37081.mmclay@comcast.net> References: <20030823221403.GA18750@panix.com> <200308220034.37081.mmclay@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20030826134634.GB23529@panix.com> [Michael, you're not on pydotorg-redesign, where all discussion of long-term changes to the website should take place. Please subscribe if you wish to continue participating in this discussion.] On Fri, Aug 22, 2003, Michael McLay wrote: > > I've been doing some work on a prototype redesign. Please take a look > at: > > http://drydock.python.net:9673/python > > The look is straight plone, with the substitution of a one of the > proposed new logos. Thanks are in order to Stefan Drees and the other > starship webmasters for getting Zope and plone operational on the new > starship. I'm going to oppose any approach that departs too radically from the current approach. I think that a primary navbar on top combined with a secondary navbar on the left side is a highly efficient layout, and I'll need lots of convincing to change my mind. I'm much more amenable to changes in content, site architecture (both navigation/structure and content delivery), and graphic design. I'm sure Plone can do this, I just wanted to be clear. Do keep in mind that you'll need to set up Plone primarily for delivery of static content (see previous threads on pydotorg-redesign for more info). -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz