[Haskell-cafe] New slogan for haskell.org

[Thomas Schilling]

On Tue, 2007-11-27 at 08:34 -0800, David Fox wrote:
> On Nov 27, 2007 8:14 AM, Henning Thielemann
> <lemming at henning-thielemann.de> wrote:
>         
>         On Tue, 27 Nov 2007, Thomas Davie wrote:
>         
>         > On 27 Nov 2007, at 14:44, David Menendez wrote:
>         >
>         > > On Nov 26, 2007 1:44 PM, Thomas Davie
>         <tom.davie at gmail.com> wrote:
>         > >
>         > > 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,
>         > >
>         > > Are we? I thought Haskell.org was intended to describe
>         what Haskell
>         > > *is*. There are plenty of articles and blog posts and wiki
>         pages out 
>         > > there that advocate Haskell. I don't see why the main web
>         page needs
>         > > to be polluted with marketing.
>         >
>         > Because someone's first contact with Haskell is likely to be
>         someone
>         > saying "I use this really cool language called Haskell", or
>         a lecturer
>         > teaching it to them.  In either case, if a tiny amount of
>         interest is
>         > sparked, their likely second contact is likely to be
>         haskell.org
>         > (through guessing or googling).
>         
>         
>         I think this is true, but for me it means, that we do not need
>         another
>         advertisement at Haskell.org, but facts. I also expect that
>         people
>         visiting the site already know about static typing and have
>         categorized
>         themselves into static typing lovers or haters. They will also
>         have heard
>         about polymorphism (just like object-orientation :-). So they
>         only need to 
>         find out about the words, they do not know.
>         
>         >  Quite frankly, there's nothing going to put me off a
>         language more than
>         > a paragraph full of unknown buzz words that I have to look
>         up on the 
>         > front page.
>         >
>         > There's plenty of places on Haskell.org where we can
>         describe what
>         > haskell *is*, but the front page should be used for grabbing
>         peoples 
>         > attention and telling them why it's useful.
>         
>         
>         Haskell.org is not only for new users. I like it as front
>         page, because of
>         the news and the entry points to the Wiki. 
>         
>         _______________________________________________
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>         Haskell-Cafe at haskell.org
>         http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
>         
> 
> 
> In that case we need to identify all the groups that the front page is
> serving and create separate areas for each, all "above the fold" as it
> were: 
> 
> 1. A "sales pitch" for new users.  I see how much this disturbs some
> people, but maybe it is better to think of it as a quick introduction
> with a focus on benefits and comparisons to things which are already
> familiar.  This is what one needs when one is in the stage of deciding
> whether to pursue something. 
> 
> 2. After you have decided whether to pursue Haskell, you probably want
> to decide *how* to pursue it.  In this section would be much of what
> is there now - links to the definition, documentation, and important
> tutorials, mailing lists, and so on. 
> 
> 3. Finally, you want a section for people who are already deeply
> involved.  This would be a news section, probably an RSS feed, links
> to newsletters, and so on.
> 
> This thread should focus on part 1 above.  I think it would be a huge
> mistake to deliberately omit this material because "we do not need
> another advertisement at Haskell.org, but facts."  Its all facts!
> Haskell.org needs to serve everyone who arrives there.

I agree.  I know that all those things belong on the front page, but we
have to start somewhere.  In order to keep the thread productive I
decided to post a concrete draft to work with rather than a general
approach.  

I do not want to remove any other parts of the page, except for the
slogan.  We could re-arrange things a little, though.  For example,
putting the "Getting Started" part in the middle rather than at the side
is a good idea, IMO.  Also, the headlines are a little out of date, so
maybe we should push them down a little. 

So here's the current state, incorporating various suggestions and
improvements.  I'd like to keep the "research" keyword (but tied closely
with "practical"), since this is one rather distinguishing aspect of
Haskell.

  
" 
Haskell is a modern, general-purpose, pure functional programming
language that combines many powerful results from research into a
practical programming language.  Its features include:

 * Static typing increases robustness as the compiler will
   catch many common errors automatically.

 * Type inference deduces types automatically freeing
   the programmer from writing superfluous type signatures.

 * Higher-order functions, polymorphism, and
   laziness enable higher levels of abstraction, more
   compositional, thus more reusable code.

 * '''Purity''' helps to keep your code maintainable, enables
   automatic, randomized testing and eases concurrent programming
   significantly.

Haskell comes with many libraries, freely available compilers for
almost any computer, debuggers, profilers, code coverage and testing
tools.

[Maybe:

 * Monads, Arrows are powerful abstraction mechanisms
   that can be used to capture domain-specific abstractions, while
   retaining the safety of static typing.
]


== Learn More ==

  links to tutorials, books, wiki-pages  (this could just be pointers to
the side bar)

== Get Involved ==

  links to feeds, mailing lists, hackage, ...

== Events ==

  as before
 
== Headlines ==

  as before

== News ==

  as before.  Or maybe in a side bar?  using a 3-column layout?

"