Comments on Python Redesign

[David Mertz]

|>We developers should not be treated as second class Python users because
|>someone got the idea that the page should look like what PHBs expect.

Graham Fawcett <fawcett at teksavvy.com> wrote previously:
|Developers will always be first-class Python users; it's a programming
|language, after all. Whether they should be first-class users of
|www.python.org, in my humble opinion, is questionable.
|http://dev.python.org/ would fly from my fingers just as quickly as
|http://www.python.org/ .

There's something too this claim, actually.  I find the page at
http://ibm.com/ to be a bit too busy and marketing-oriented (but not
nearly so much so as Parkin's sample); however, one click on the
"Developers" link that is fairly prominent brings you right to the much
better organized developerWorks site (where I write, after all).  In
fact, the general layout of dW is quite similar to that of the current
python.org site.

However, given that hardly anyone would bother making links to this new
marketing-oriented http://www.python.org, the benefit of Fawcett's
organization would be reduced.  Any PHB who actually searched for a term
like "Python programming" would still get http://dev.python.org/ since
that's the one everyone would go to (at least as google's first choice).

|They suggest that the owners of the site know business, that they bathe
|regularly and might even own a tie.  They offer smells of competency,
|viability and longeivity, and these are good smells to offer to
|decision-makers.

I guess so.  But as someone who makes a lot of recommendations via my
writing, I find many of those same "knows business" signs to
significantly lessen my first impressions of a product.  I want
something that works well, not something where the money goes to the
marketing department.  It's a big red flag to my mind to see a web page
that looks like a brochure.

Admittedly, I am nobody's -boss-.  And I don't directly buy much
software.  But I do exercise a certain "moral influence" on technology
choices.

And after all...  I'm not sure where the idea came from that the PSF is
a for-profit company that WANTS to market Python (as opposed to just
make the best tools possible).

|P.S. Not in reply to you, Lulu, but I *do* think they should offer a
|boxed Python set: bundle a Python 2.3 development environment on a
|CD-ROM for $299;

I'd like to announce that Gnosis Software is hereby offering a $299
boxed set of Python that includes the full development environment for
Python 2.3 (and dozens of widely used 3rd party Python packages, chosen
from widely used free software) for multiple platforms on CD; it further
includes both an attractive spiral bound edition of Guido's Tutorial,
the standard Library documentation, and a copy of Mertz' book _Text
Processing in Python_ in the box.

Just email <send-me-money at gnosis.cx> for details on payment/shipping.
The first order may take an extra week for setup time (it might take a
couple days for me to talk to my local copy-shop about printing the box
and so on).  [only *wink*ing inasmuch as I question the market, for even
one $299 sale, I really would create something quite nice looking]

Yours, David...

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