On Saturday, December 29, 2018 at 11:16:05 PM UTC-5, Alexis King wrote: > > > On Dec 29, 2018, at 21:32, Philip McGrath <phi...@philipmcgrath.com > <javascript:>> wrote: > > > >> Respectfully, I would also concentrate on Rackets web presence. If I > was to google any of the popular languages, I would find the answer to > these questions in spades, with real life applications, and examples. You > can also compare Pythons website to Rackets. Pythons website seems to be > design more for advertising Python. If I go to the Pythons web page there > is a section “use Python for” in it, it has various topics such as web > development, GUI development, scientific and numeric, with all the > applicable packages needed. If you knew nothing about Python, but where > interested in using it for web development, it easy to see where to go, > etc. > > > > I would be interested to hear more about your experience with Racket's > web site, because it tries to include these things, but evidently it did > not succeed in communicating them to you. When I go to > https://racket-lang.org/ and scroll down about one screen's worth, I see > short, runable examples of a few flashy features including web development > and GUI applications specifically, with links to tutorials and > documentation. > > The previous version of the Racket website (before its redesign two years > ago) included such things more explicitly, in a format non-Racketters > (which is who the homepage is for, after all!) are more likely to > comprehend. It included, among other things, a clear purpose statement for > the language at the very top of the page, a set of small, to the point code > examples that showed off various kinds of general-purpose programming (with > explanations), and a set of links to further resources clearly geared > towards programmers of different skill levels. To give you a sense for how > this website used to be targeted, here’s the aforementioned purpose > statement, in its entirety: > > > Racket is a full-spectrum programming language. It goes beyond Lisp and > Scheme with dialects that support objects, types, laziness, and more. > Racket enables programmers to link components written in different > dialects, and it empowers programmers to create new, project-specific > dialects. Racket's libraries support applications from web servers and > databases to GUIs and charts. > > >The concepts enumerated in the above statement are linked to the relevant > sections in the Guide for those interested in learning more. >
I think the above statement is more explicit, but it still does not answer the why, why should I create project-specific dialects? I also like how the old website has sections for grow you program, grow your language and grow your skill. Here we get more information as to the benefits of using racket, with a description that is more descriptive about racket capabilities. > The following code snippets showed Racket doing mundane but useful tasks > an “ordinary” programmer would likely understand. They included things like > simple scripting using the filesystem, a small web server, basic terminal > I/O, creating a GUI window, a toy web scraper, and even sending e-mail. > Towards the end of this carousel of snippets, some of Racket’s > language-oriented programming features start to sneak in — there’s a small > Typed Racket program, a document written in Scribble, and even a tiny > datalog database — but these are clearly secondary to the main point: > Racket is a full-spectrum, general-purpose programming language, and if you > already know how to program, it is grounded in things familiar to you. > > If you are interested in seeing the old homepage, in all its late aughts > design glory, it is preserved with full functionality here: > > > https://web.archive.org/web/20161129144201/http://www.racket-lang.org:80/ > > The redesign of the Racket website shifted the emphasis from Racket as a > general-purpose programming language to Racket as a language workbench. > There is no doubt that this shift has its advantages — Racket’s support for > language-oriented programming is one of its features that sets it apart > most significantly from other ecosystems. Unfortunately, I don’t think > we’ve gotten far enough to really push #lang as a killer feature to the > working programmer yet, so I don’t think the current design does much to > convey why the average person should care (especially since it focuses a > lot on building languages while the old homepage focused more on using > languages). I expressed some of these concerns, among others, when the > redesign was first proposed; if you are interested, you can read the > discussion here: > This is one of the points I am trying to make. Why is #lang a killer feature? What benefits does it bring? What problem does it solve? These are some of the things that should be on the website. Here is an example, again I am a beginner so don’t concentrate on the specifics, concentrate on the general point. For example What is language-oriented program and what benefits does it bring? In addition to using the terms, respectfully racket website should highlight the benefits. Let’s say language-oriented program makes it easier to write more concise, readable, and maintainable code that directly addresses the specific of the target domain. Instead of highlighting language-oriented programing by itself. Something along the lines of Racket help programmers write more concise, readable, and maintainable code that directly addresses the specific of the target domain through rackets support of language-oriented programing. In this example we can see the benefits of using language-oriented programming. It makes code concise, readable, and maintainable. It also directly addresses the specific targeted domain. The description answers the WHY someone should choose Racket over other languages. Now I know my views on language-oriented program maybe off. But the point is the benefits of using Racket should be clearly articulated to those who may not be familiar with what make Racket special. > > https://github.com/racket/racket-lang-org/pull/28 > Thank you for providng this link, I will check it out when I get a chance. > Now, admittedly, it’s easy to complain, but actions speak louder than > words: I have put zero effort into making the website better, while I’m > sure MB volunteered several days of his time. The website is open source, > and perhaps if I truly cared, I would invest some of my own free time into > suggesting (and implementing) concrete changes. I simply have not. I’m sure > a pull request would be welcomed, should anyone submit one to clarify some > confusion they bumped into. On the other hand, it obviously isn’t the > responsibility of those outside of the Racket community to invest time into > making Racket’s website better, especially given the effort involved, so it > does not surprise me it has been left largely unchanged. > > Alexis > > I hope my critique does not come across as complaining. People have put a life time of effort into building Racket up to where it is now and it would be disrespectful to all those who have work tirelessly to build this community. My goal here is try and add solutions to help Racket gain in popularity from the perspective of someone who is a total beginner. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Racket Users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to racket-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
