Comments on Python Redesign

[Tim Parkin]

> To the extent that my comments were misdirected and/or unwarrented, I
> retract and/or apologize.
Thanks for the apology. I do appreciate it. I really want what is best
for Python aswell.

> Perhaps Python needs two front pages or even two sites.  One for the
> IT manager types that you seem to be aiming at, who would be impressed
> by the corporate look that tends to depress me, and one for
> programmers just looking for info. 

My general intention was to create a developer oriented homepage for
people to bookmark in addition to the main www.python.org homepage.
Whatever domain this is under (dev.python.org, home.python.org, etc)
the main page really has to appeal to suits, senior software engineers,
VP's if it is to increase it's serious adoption in industry. If this
means a slight compromise in terms of what existing users of the site
want (in this case the slight compromise is a more 'glitzy' home page
and possibly alternative place to bookmark) then I personally think
it's worth it. I normally bookmark the docs page and let the python
blogging community/rss feeds fill me in on everything else.

Also don't forget there are a lot of people coming from 'commercial'
langauges. When they get to the Python site, they judge it by it's
appearance. If they are used to a professional designed marketing
presentation then they will react negatively to a design that clashes
with this.

This discussion has had many man days committed to it in
marketing-python and we've generally reached a good consensus.

> The comments page *is* live, not an image.  It was also unusually
> painful and difficult for me to read.
> I usually don't care too much what people do with their pages.  If I
> can't read it, I move on to one of the millions of others vying for my
> attention.  However, python.org is one I visit a lot (top 5, surely)
> and I really care about being able to continue reading it.
Apologies if you had problems but, as I've said, I don't really have
time to apply lots of work to my home page. It's a sign of my
commitment to Python that I've been working for 8 weeks on it
whilst my own site has been like you see it.

Tim Parkin