7 ms·

Please note this homepage is NOT final and it's going to see revisions before we push it out to the actual website, including many tweaks to the content and pro

Please note this homepage is NOT final and it's going to see revisions before we push it out to the actual website, including many tweaks to the content and probably some styling tweaks too. There are a lot of other things we still need to do as well, like ensure all redirects and subpages work properly. Source: I'm one of the Haskell.org administrators, and we pushed this out only today.

coolsunglasses 12y ago
Thank you, this is the best present ever :)
Pacabel 12y ago
Is there a practical reason why there's so much empty space with this new design, and why so little valuable content and functionality is visible by default? Viewing the existing site in a desktop browser, I get to see the description of Haskell, and a bunch of useful links about learning it, downloading an implementation, using it, and participating in the community. Recent news items and upcoming events are also visible, as is the search field. This new design lacks pretty much all of that. Instead of useful content, links and functionality, all I'm seeing are large areas of purple and white, and an extremely blurry photo, along with content of very limited value. I just can't see this new design being beneficial in any way. It makes it much harder to get useful information about Haskell, which seems very contradictory to what a website like this should be doing.
- vamega 12y ago
  Yeah, I just viewed it and agree that the blurry photograph should be replaced with something else. It somehow detracts from the page.
- gipp 12y ago
  The existing site is a pretty unappealing design and is extremely overcrowded; this has been complained about for years.
  - Pacabel 12y ago
    What's "unappealing" about the existing design? The existing design seems to do a good job of using the space available to convey a large amount of important and relevant information, with very little effort required from the viewer. For example, a viewer of the existing site can quickly get to various types of documentation right away, without having to click on a link to visit a dedicated "Documentation" page, like with the new design. The same goes for news and community details, as well. An inefficient, unnecessary extra link click or press is now needed to get to very core information. It isn't worth making an informational website look "pretty" if that means ruining its ability to effectively convey information.
    - radmuzom 12y ago
      Upvoted you. Even I find the new design to be terrible. One more point - the old webpage seems to be "simple" HTML - which loads properly even in very bad internet connections and old browsers like Hacker News. The new design seems to include video links in the homepage, which is always a bad idea, however "modern" you want it to be. Also, the old homepage immediately gives a sense that Haskell is mature - with separate links about the language, books, libraries, IDEs, etc. The new webpage does not convey anything at all.
- rtfeldman 12y ago
  Yes - the practical reason is to focus on the newcomer's experience. Information overload is actively harmful to someone coming to haskell.org to learn about the language from scratch. Omitting content that is primarily valuable to experienced Haskellers is a feature, not a bug.
  - Pacabel 12y ago
    This sounds like a dangerous trade off to be making. It's reminiscent of what we saw with GNOME 3, or even Windows 8. The experience is made much worse for existing users, in a vain attempt to "simplify" the design to allegedly appeal to new users who may not even really exist in practice. It's obvious now that it didn't work well in those cases, and I don't see why this case would be any different. As an occasional Haskell user, I'm served much, much better by the existing site than by this new design. The existing one lets me get to the information I'm looking for with minimal effort. This new site denies me that accessibility, I'm afraid to say. I don't see the point in trying to attract new users if doing so also means harming the experiences of established users. Drawing in new users becomes pointless if retention starts to suffer.
    - rtfeldman 12y ago
      This case is different because it's an introductory page rather than a tool intended for heavy daily use, like GNOME or Windows. Newbies are going to head to haskell.org when they want to learn about the language, and it's sensible for them to be greeted by a pleasant introduction to the language. As "an occasional Haskell user," you aren't the target audience for the haskell.org landing page. :) If you're visiting on a regular basis, there's no reason your needs couldn't be met by some page other than the landing page.
    - nbouscal 12y ago
      As an established user, I navigate directly to hackage or the wiki. I don't remember the last time I hit the homepage.
    - cgag 12y ago
      i'm pretty sure existing users don't go to the official haskell site
- lenkite 12y ago
  The real reason is that one of the standard bootstrap layout examples was used. The 'bootstrapped' web today is extraordinarily boring. It is the same big banner followed by striped two column grid again and again and again.
vamega 12y ago
Hi, I think the visual refresh is a great idea. Would you need some help in curating a better set of videos? I think that having some topics this advanced on the home page might scare of users, especially given their visual priority on the page. Also, what's the plan on the view examples links on the page? Currently these don't link anywhere. Are you looking for existing articles that exist online to link to, or are you looking to have some content written that can be hosted on haskell.org.
- wbillingsley 12y ago
  I liked that the videos showed a glimpse into the active community around Haskell -- they are not just a fixed set of tutorials for newcomers, but show the variety of talks that Haskell programmers around the world give (including some deeper topics). I'd hope there's some way to keep that perpetually current -- for it to include recent talks, kept up to date.
ics 12y ago
What I personally would like to see: www.haskell.org: fun, introductory, digestible lang.haskell.org: the current haskell.org homepage, good bookmark for those who want the haskell portal
slashdotaccount 12y ago
Can you please fix this markup? There should be a href on the <a> tag. <p><a>View examples</a></p>
- aidos 12y ago
  I believe it's valid - http://www.w3.org/TR/html-markup/a.html#placeholder-hyperlink http://www.w3.org/TR/html-markup/a.html#placeholder-hyperlin...
gravity13 12y ago
I love the tutorial! I couldn't help writing down some notes while going through it, here they are if you're interested in reading: - Really would love to return to previous steps to review things (for example, reviewing what the difference is between a list and a tuple) - "You just passed the (+1) function to the map function." But didn't I also pass [1..5] to it too? It's unclear to me whether map is a function which takes two arguments ... or if the first part "map (+1)" evaluates to a function which acts on [1..5] - Is a (+1) a tuple with one item (the function "+1") or is it just similar syntax? - Really like the exercises and would love to have more challenges interspersing the intake of new content. It honestly feels like the best way to learn. I'm going to sleep for the night, otherwise I'd keep going. I'll return to it later. Looks promising! P.S. Mini-bug report: Somehow this happened and it really confused me https://i.cloudup.com/0wRJS7FZls.png https://i.cloudup.com/0wRJS7FZls.png - looks like my 'try it again anyways' strategy saved me here. (there were no js console errors).
- tinco 12y ago
  Not sure if you would like to know some answers to your questions, here are they anyway: - It's unclear to me whether map is a function which takes two arguments ... or if the first part "map (+1)" evaluates to a function which acts on [1..5] The latter is true. In Haskell you can pass arguments to functions one at a time each time the result could be a function that takes another argument. You might even say that Haskell functions always take one argument, and that Haskell's function syntax is just a bit of sugaring. The process of returning a function that takes the second argument is called a 'curry' after the man Haskell Curry. - Is a (+1) a tuple with one item (the function "+1") or is it just similar syntax? A tuple of 1 is just an expression. The ('s are just to determine expression scope, it's the commas that would make it a tuple. A tuple of 2 would just be 2 expressions bundled together, so I don't think there's a meaningful difference :P
  - zfogg 12y ago
    - You might even say that Haskell functions always take one argument This is exactly true. Every Haskell function takes either zero arguments, or one.
Sir_Cmpwn 12y ago
I'm a bit late, but perhaps you'll see this. Can you catch Ctrl+W in the REPL and use it to delete the prior word, instead of closing the tab? Kind of jarring to get into the groove of using a REPL and then accidentally close the tab.

coolsunglasses 12y ago

Thank you, this is the best present ever :)

Pacabel 12y ago

Is there a practical reason why there's so much empty space with this new design, and why so little valuable content and functionality is visible by default? Viewing the existing site in a desktop browser, I get to see the description of Haskell, and a bunch of useful links about learning it, downloading an implementation, using it, and participating in the community. Recent news items and upcoming events are also visible, as is the search field. This new design lacks pretty much all of that. Instead of useful content, links and functionality, all I'm seeing are large areas of purple and white, and an extremely blurry photo, along with content of very limited value. I just can't see this new design being beneficial in any way. It makes it much harder to get useful information about Haskell, which seems very contradictory to what a website like this should be doing.

vamega 12y ago
Yeah, I just viewed it and agree that the blurry photograph should be replaced with something else. It somehow detracts from the page.
gipp 12y ago
The existing site is a pretty unappealing design and is extremely overcrowded; this has been complained about for years.
- Pacabel 12y ago
  What's "unappealing" about the existing design? The existing design seems to do a good job of using the space available to convey a large amount of important and relevant information, with very little effort required from the viewer. For example, a viewer of the existing site can quickly get to various types of documentation right away, without having to click on a link to visit a dedicated "Documentation" page, like with the new design. The same goes for news and community details, as well. An inefficient, unnecessary extra link click or press is now needed to get to very core information. It isn't worth making an informational website look "pretty" if that means ruining its ability to effectively convey information.
  - radmuzom 12y ago
    Upvoted you. Even I find the new design to be terrible. One more point - the old webpage seems to be "simple" HTML - which loads properly even in very bad internet connections and old browsers like Hacker News. The new design seems to include video links in the homepage, which is always a bad idea, however "modern" you want it to be. Also, the old homepage immediately gives a sense that Haskell is mature - with separate links about the language, books, libraries, IDEs, etc. The new webpage does not convey anything at all.
rtfeldman 12y ago
Yes - the practical reason is to focus on the newcomer's experience. Information overload is actively harmful to someone coming to haskell.org to learn about the language from scratch. Omitting content that is primarily valuable to experienced Haskellers is a feature, not a bug.
- Pacabel 12y ago
  This sounds like a dangerous trade off to be making. It's reminiscent of what we saw with GNOME 3, or even Windows 8. The experience is made much worse for existing users, in a vain attempt to "simplify" the design to allegedly appeal to new users who may not even really exist in practice. It's obvious now that it didn't work well in those cases, and I don't see why this case would be any different. As an occasional Haskell user, I'm served much, much better by the existing site than by this new design. The existing one lets me get to the information I'm looking for with minimal effort. This new site denies me that accessibility, I'm afraid to say. I don't see the point in trying to attract new users if doing so also means harming the experiences of established users. Drawing in new users becomes pointless if retention starts to suffer.
  - rtfeldman 12y ago
    This case is different because it's an introductory page rather than a tool intended for heavy daily use, like GNOME or Windows. Newbies are going to head to haskell.org when they want to learn about the language, and it's sensible for them to be greeted by a pleasant introduction to the language. As "an occasional Haskell user," you aren't the target audience for the haskell.org landing page. :) If you're visiting on a regular basis, there's no reason your needs couldn't be met by some page other than the landing page.
  - nbouscal 12y ago
    As an established user, I navigate directly to hackage or the wiki. I don't remember the last time I hit the homepage.
  - cgag 12y ago
    i'm pretty sure existing users don't go to the official haskell site
lenkite 12y ago
The real reason is that one of the standard bootstrap layout examples was used. The 'bootstrapped' web today is extraordinarily boring. It is the same big banner followed by striped two column grid again and again and again.

vamega 12y ago

Hi, I think the visual refresh is a great idea. Would you need some help in curating a better set of videos? I think that having some topics this advanced on the home page might scare of users, especially given their visual priority on the page. Also, what's the plan on the view examples links on the page? Currently these don't link anywhere. Are you looking for existing articles that exist online to link to, or are you looking to have some content written that can be hosted on haskell.org.

wbillingsley 12y ago
I liked that the videos showed a glimpse into the active community around Haskell -- they are not just a fixed set of tutorials for newcomers, but show the variety of talks that Haskell programmers around the world give (including some deeper topics). I'd hope there's some way to keep that perpetually current -- for it to include recent talks, kept up to date.

ics 12y ago

What I personally would like to see: www.haskell.org: fun, introductory, digestible lang.haskell.org: the current haskell.org homepage, good bookmark for those who want the haskell portal

slashdotaccount 12y ago

Can you please fix this markup? There should be a href on the <a> tag. <p><a>View examples</a></p>

aidos 12y ago
I believe it's valid - http://www.w3.org/TR/html-markup/a.html#placeholder-hyperlink http://www.w3.org/TR/html-markup/a.html#placeholder-hyperlin...

gravity13 12y ago

I love the tutorial! I couldn't help writing down some notes while going through it, here they are if you're interested in reading: - Really would love to return to previous steps to review things (for example, reviewing what the difference is between a list and a tuple) - "You just passed the (+1) function to the map function." But didn't I also pass [1..5] to it too? It's unclear to me whether map is a function which takes two arguments ... or if the first part "map (+1)" evaluates to a function which acts on [1..5] - Is a (+1) a tuple with one item (the function "+1") or is it just similar syntax? - Really like the exercises and would love to have more challenges interspersing the intake of new content. It honestly feels like the best way to learn. I'm going to sleep for the night, otherwise I'd keep going. I'll return to it later. Looks promising! P.S. Mini-bug report: Somehow this happened and it really confused me https://i.cloudup.com/0wRJS7FZls.png https://i.cloudup.com/0wRJS7FZls.png - looks like my 'try it again anyways' strategy saved me here. (there were no js console errors).

tinco 12y ago
Not sure if you would like to know some answers to your questions, here are they anyway: - It's unclear to me whether map is a function which takes two arguments ... or if the first part "map (+1)" evaluates to a function which acts on [1..5] The latter is true. In Haskell you can pass arguments to functions one at a time each time the result could be a function that takes another argument. You might even say that Haskell functions always take one argument, and that Haskell's function syntax is just a bit of sugaring. The process of returning a function that takes the second argument is called a 'curry' after the man Haskell Curry. - Is a (+1) a tuple with one item (the function "+1") or is it just similar syntax? A tuple of 1 is just an expression. The ('s are just to determine expression scope, it's the commas that would make it a tuple. A tuple of 2 would just be 2 expressions bundled together, so I don't think there's a meaningful difference :P
- zfogg 12y ago
  - You might even say that Haskell functions always take one argument This is exactly true. Every Haskell function takes either zero arguments, or one.

Sir_Cmpwn 12y ago

I'm a bit late, but perhaps you'll see this. Can you catch Ctrl+W in the REPL and use it to delete the prior word, instead of closing the tab? Kind of jarring to get into the groove of using a REPL and then accidentally close the tab.