[Pydotorg-redesign] I think that the current site structure needs to be scrapped altogether.

[amk at amk.ca]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2003 at 05:26:52PM +0200, Laura Creighton wrote:
> Right now, it looks as if somebody has said 'the most important thing
> is to have all the links that are important up there on the first
> page'.  Pack 'em in.

Correct; the links are jumbled together in no apparent order.  I'd like to
at least put them into a sensible order, without making wider revisions such
as changing the graphic design or logical structure of the site.

> If we don't produce some sort of consensus on how we are going to
> limit the information shown on the first page, we are going to end
> up with a very pretty site that still scares the managers, scientists,
> educators, and journalists away.

That's fine, but we shouldn't let future possibilities deter us from making
trivial improvements *right now*. Isn't this the primary lesson of XP?  Not
to say, "Oh, we'll clean this up later", but to say "Let's clean it up
*now*".  

The redesign effort is looking increasingly like the types-sig to me.  The
types-sig expended lots of discussion time on complicated questions and
*never* *produced* *anything*.  No add-on tools, no Python patches, no
specification, no plan, *nothing*.  All that discussion time was therefore
wasted.  If people deferred working on type-checking because "the types-sig
will have a solution soon", the community lost out because we never saw the
tools those people would have produced. 
 
Similarly, redesign chatter circulates and recirculates endlessly around
marketing issues such as "What classes of users use the site?" and "Is Java
or VB Python's competition?" and "Pictures: threat or menace?".  If we defer
making any improvements to the existing site because "there will be a
redesign in six months", what if the redesign discussion collapses?  For six
months the site will have impeded users unnecessarily; what's the benefit of
that?

At this point I've had an improved sidebar arrangement for around two
months, and it's *still* not live.  I'm becoming increasingly tempted to say
to hell with it and just make the revised version live.  If people hate it,
that's fine; just go ahead and make fixes to CVS.  At least there will be
*some* improvement to the site as a result, as I can't see anyone wanting to
go back to the existing sidebar arrangement.

--amk