[pydotorg-www] project plan (python.org and navigation)

[A.M. Kuchling]

On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 06:08:33PM +0200, Paul Boddie wrote:
> gathering together again. Certainly, any discussions about the changes as 
> they happened are important in order to review what was done, what people 
> didn't like, what people probably still don't like, and to avoid making any 
> similar mistakes again.

I disagree about the importance of history, because IMHO it makes us
prone to the sunk-cost fallacy.  "Someone put a lot of effort into
this document/script/module, so we need to keep it" -- but what really
matters is whether the document/whatever is still relevant in the future.

I could summarize the python.org history (chronology may be slightly off):

* first web site in early 90s -- people had to log in to a particular
  machine at CNRI to edit the HTML files.

* ht2html script written by Barry Warsaw; would wrap page content in
  a stock template.  (Sound familiar?)

* CVS repository introduced; we could commit a change on our desktop
  machine and a hook would magically make it appear on the live
  server.  Sharp!

* A few generations of different templating styles (
  e.g. the dashed-line graphic w/ different colors for different sections,
  the blue sidebars (http://www6.uniovi.es/python/Mirrors.html).

* Site moved from a CNRI server to XS4ALL's donated hosting.

* Tim Parkin & Pollenation's redesign, which introduced XHTML
  compliance and validity, and the Pyramid script; ht2html went away.

* Pyramid rewritten by me to rebuild fewer pages when you only edited
  one thing.

And that's where we are.  But I don't know if any of that matters at
all; it explains past decisions, but those decisions were made in a
different world.

--amk