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The New Haskell Homepage

new-www.haskell.org

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Re: The New Haskell Homepage

#71

Post by [deleted] »

tel wrote: post #62
vamega wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you suggest a simpler example? Finding primes is something that is taught in the first programming class in Indian high schools. I guess I've never thought of it as something hard. I looked at nodejs.org, and their first example is a web server! Python has the Fibonacci as it's second example (the first one show's numeric operations). Ruby does simple string operations on it's home page. While I think that is i…

Well, for one, it's a bad sieve algorithm. I think a neat algorithm to demonstrate laziness and Haskell clarity would be enumerating the Calkin-Wilf rationals. [0] It's quite a bit longer but demonstrates a number of neat ideas. I'll start first with a derivation which demonstrates all of the structure of the algorithm and then go through a series of mechanical transforms so that by the end I have a one-liner and a c…

[deleted]

Re: The New Haskell Homepage

#72

Post by Camillo »

The downloads page is a bit too deemphasized; the big, bright Download button in the old page was a good call to action. However, I am really glad to see that the downloads page no longer recommends the Haskell Platform for OS X or Linux.

I wish there were better free book recommendations on the Documentation page. LYAH's style is obnoxious, and RWH has gotten quite long in the tooth.

Re: The New Haskell Homepage

#73

Post by rtfeldman »

Pacabel wrote: post #46
thoughtpolice wrote: post #24

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.

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 vi…

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.

Re: The New Haskell Homepage

#74

Post by tel »

gipp wrote: post #65
tel wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for one, it's a bad sieve algorithm. I think a neat algorithm to demonstrate laziness and Haskell clarity would be enumerating the Calkin-Wilf rationals. [0] It's quite a bit longer but demonstrates a number of neat ideas. I'll start first with a derivation which demonstrates all of the structure of the algorithm and then go through a series of mechanical transforms so that by the end I have a one-liner and a c…

It's also utterly incomprehensible for someone who hasn't seen Haskell before. Whereas with the existing example, one can at least piece together an idea of what's going on. The point is to demonstrate the directness of expression and conciseness of Haskell, not to show how to create an efficient implementation of an involved algorithm.

I agree that the first formulation is a bit incomprehensible, though two-liner breadth-first search is understandable if a bit amazing.

Some of the latter versions (and perhaps ultimately the very last version) are easier to walk through for a beginner, though, and are calculated from properties expressed in the first.

Re: The New Haskell Homepage

#75

Post by Pacabel »

gipp wrote: post #64
Pacabel wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vi…

The existing site is a pretty unappealing design and is extremely overcrowded; this has been complained about for years.

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.

Re: The New Haskell Homepage

#76

Post by mark_l_watson »

jonsterling wrote: post #48
mark_l_watson wrote: post #18

I like the look. A question: I have always used the "The Haskell Platform" download page and installer. The new download page looks like it is just Haskell, cabal, and default libraries. I am running ghc version 7.6.3 and cabal version 1.16.0.2. Haskell experts: should I do a fresh install? (I am on OS X and Ubuntu). Also, shameless plug: I blogged earlier today about using Haskell to access OpenCalais and the DBPedi…

If you're on OS X or Linux, you should not use the Haskell Platform. It's a whole lot of pain for literally no gain...

Thanks Jon, I appreciate the advice. I am re-installing from haskell.org right now.

Re: The New Haskell Homepage

#77

Post by fleitz »

msl09 wrote: post #40
dmytrish wrote: post #8

"Try haskell expression here" + lessons is very nice. Just a little nitpick: λ map (+1) [1..5] can't find file: Imports.hs λ map (+ 1) [1..5] [2,3,4,5,6]:: (Enum b, Num b) => [b] though the first expression is what suggested in lesson 4. Edit: looks like some random bug.

yep, you are not the only one that had that problem λ foldr (:) [] [1,2,3] :: Num a => [a] λ foldr (:) [] [1,2,3] [1,2,3] :: Num a => [a]

I had similar issues with the first expression, sometimes when executing a new expression I also had to type it twice to get the answer.

Re: The New Haskell Homepage

#78

Post by Pacabel »

rtfeldman wrote: post #73
Pacabel wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vi…

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.

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.

Re: The New Haskell Homepage

#79

Post by mrspeaker »

Camillo wrote: post #72

The downloads page is a bit too deemphasized; the big, bright Download button in the old page was a good call to action. However, I am really glad to see that the downloads page no longer recommends the Haskell Platform for OS X or Linux. I wish there were better free book recommendations on the Documentation page. LYAH's style is obnoxious, and RWH has gotten quite long in the tooth.

I agree about the download page being too subtle: I _really_ love this new redesign - the old site was impossible to figure out what I was supposed to do or what was going on or what the hell "cabal" was. This new site is clean and clear: but still missing a nice big call to action (besides the live coding part).

Once you've looked at the live coding, the next thing is "community" which is great for docs, but not so great for "getting up and running" - which was also hard to figure out on the old site. I'd prefer to be lead from the live coding to clear instructions how to get Haskell running on my system.

But, again - I love this redesign... great work!

Re: The New Haskell Homepage

#80

Post by bignaj »

ufo wrote: post #35

It bugs me a bit that the example code is brute force trial division instead of a true prime sieve. Sure, it highlights lazyness but the algorithm is less efficient. http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~oneill/papers/Sieve-JFP.pdf

If you ever wanted to know what a typical Haskell programmer sounds like, ^^this is it to a T.
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