[Haskell-cafe] New slogan for haskell.org

[Thomas Davie]

On 26 Nov 2007, at 15:50, Henning Thielemann wrote:

>
> On Mon, 26 Nov 2007, Thomas Davie wrote:
>
>> On 26 Nov 2007, at 15:15, Henning Thielemann wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, 4 Oct 2007, Don Stewart wrote:
>>>
>>>> The Haskell website has the rather strange motivational text:
>>>>
>>>>   Haskell is a general purpose, purely functional programming
>>>> language
>>>>   featuring static typing, higher order functions, polymorphism,
>>>> type
>>>>   classes, and monadic effects. Haskell compilers are freely
>>>> available
>>>>   for almost any computer.
>>>
>>> To continue an old thread: What about turning the strange words like
>>> 'monadic effects' into links to glossary articles?
>>>
>>> Btw. where is 'lazy' ?
>>
>> I believe the point of this discussion was that anyone reading the
>> Haskell webpage will currently get about as far as "featuring static
>> typing", and go "this is all very nice, but what exactly does this
>> language do for me?  Why should I use it?".  Take for example what  
>> the
>> python website says:
>
> I didn't want to repeat the discussion. I think the discussion ended  
> with:
> Anything more helpful would be too long for the title line at  
> haskell.org,
> and a more detailed explanation (but not a generic advertisement  
> like that
> from Python) should be reachable easily. Now my idea was, that making
> links to glossary articles leaves the slogan as short as it is, and  
> allows
> people to find out quickly about the words they still don't know. An
> explanation why Haskell's features are useful for programmers is still
> required.

But the point is that this section of the site is the bit that's meant  
to be an advertisement -- we're trying to encourage people to read  
more, and quite frankly, making it a fist full of links would make at  
least me think "Well bugger this if I have to read 10 pages before I  
even have a clue what it is".

Bob