[fpc-pascal] What to do to get new users

[Steve Litt]

Nikolay Nikolov via fpc-pascal said on Thu, 17 Oct 2024 11:20:15 +0300


>> I also agree. Unfortunately, as I said, compiler developers don't
>> make good web designers.
>>
>> Examples for bad sites (I'm repeating myself, I know):
>>
>> https://gcc.gnu.org/
>>
>> https://llvm.org/
>>
>> But this time I'll also give some better examples:
>>
>> https://nim-lang.org/
>>
>> https://www.haskell.org/
>>
>> https://www.rust-lang.org/
>>
>> https://ziglang.org/
>>
>> https://www.python.org/  
>
>Another example - Ada, a Pascal-like language:
>
>https://ada-lang.io/
>
>Nikolay

This is interesting. You've described two sets of sites, one relatively
bad and relatively good:

Bad = (freepascal.org, gcc.gnu.org, llvm.org)

Good =
(nim-lang.org, haskell.org, rust-lang.org, ziglang.org, python.org,
ada-lang.io);

So I compared the two sets and the most noticeable thing that stood out
was that the good sites had substantial sections having a dark
background. A second, less noticeable and less consistent difference
between the sets is that the good websites have subsections within the
sections that are separated by substantial whitespace and on wide
monitors are side by side. The bad ones seem to be massive walls of
text.

Please think about it. If you had to give somebody a specification for
a "good web page" and avoid the dreaded "you know what I mean" that
our clients always give us when asked, would these two factors comprise
most of the difference between good and bad websites? If so, it's
pretty easy to make a good website, always assuming somebody with
aesthetic taste decides on those background colors and the foreground
colors that go with them (and please make them contrast for the
visually impaired).

If I'm right about the definition of good sites, all it takes is HTML5
and some CSS skills. Even the top menus can be made with CSS sans
Javascript.

I also noticed that a lot of the good websites were good on the home
page but reverted to the bad style on other pages. The Python site
always had the "good" layout.

Nikolay, your post is the first time I ever heard anyone specify a
specification for a good site. Everyone else seems to ether say "you
know what I mean" or "you don't have the skills, hire a designer".

So what do you all think? Does a good site really boil down to generous
sections of light content on dark background plus generous spacing
between sections and subsections?

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt 

http://444domains.com