A new look for rust-lang.org
blog.rust-lang.org
A new look for rust-lang.org
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Re: A new look for rust-lang.org
#2A personal opinion:
The old site said to me "Here's a programming language made by programmers for programmers.".
The new site says to me "Here's a programming language which has a marketing team.".
The "Featuring" bullet list was an excellent way of calling out what makes Rust distinctive, and I felt I could trust what it said to be basically true.
But claims like "empowers everyone to become a systems programmer" or "Rust has great documentation", coming from the language's own designers, convey little information: they might be an over-optimistic view.
(Or, in the language of the blog post: I trust them to tell me what a fireflower is. I'd rather judge for myself whether I believe that it will turn me into Fire Mario.)
Re: A new look for rust-lang.org
#3A personal opinion: The old site said to me "Here's a programming language made by programmers for programmers.". The new site says to me "Here's a programming language which has a marketing team.". The "Featuring" bullet list was an excellent way of calling out what makes Rust distinctive, and I felt I could trust what it said to be basically true. But claims like "empowers everyone to become a systems programmer" o…
I strongly agree. The list of features on the old list is very meaningful to a C programmer who will recognize all of those things as things would love to use every day. Its underlying message is "we're technical nerds and we made a thing that you'll like".
The new version is corporate-speak that won't appeal to.. anyone? Its underlying message is "we're trying to get you to like us and we studied how to do this".
But, like, what's the point of a programming language's website anyway? Most people who visit the site will probably be at least vaguely aware of it. You use it if recommendations online, code samples, etc are compelling, and if the early adoption story (examples and motivations) are compelling. All I ever want is a list of examples up front and center. The more words I have to get through that aren't literal actual examples that show both what the language looks like and what differentiates it... the more exhausting the whole experience.
Re: A new look for rust-lang.org
#4If it empowered everyone, it would be available on other OSes than Linux, Windows, and macos (ok, it is available on Android and iOS apparently and some *BSD variants too).
I'd love to use Rust - but my business requires support for, (in addition to Linux and Windows), Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, and OS400 for me to serve my customer base.
Rust can't empower me there, it simply isn't available.
Re: A new look for rust-lang.org
#5A personal opinion: The old site said to me "Here's a programming language made by programmers for programmers.". The new site says to me "Here's a programming language which has a marketing team.". The "Featuring" bullet list was an excellent way of calling out what makes Rust distinctive, and I felt I could trust what it said to be basically true. But claims like "empowers everyone to become a systems programmer" o…
I strongly agree. The list of features on the old list is very meaningful to a C programmer who will recognize all of those things as things would love to use every day. Its underlying message is "we're technical nerds and we made a thing that you'll like". The new version is corporate-speak that won't appeal to.. anyone? Its underlying message is "we're trying to get you to like us and we studied how to do this". Bu…
I totally agree. As a coder, whenever I visit a website of a project I'm interested in, I'm looking for key technical features to convince me it's the right tool for the job, or that it offers an unique property tht I never even thought about. That's usually conveyed in a list of bullet points, and a couple of examples.
I can rarely find it though. I wasn't quite able to grasp why, and I kind of accepted this as how it is. But after seeing the two revisions side by side, I finally get it! The important, unique information found in the old version. The majority of project web sites are closer to the new version, which hides the complexity behind colorful "screens" and headlines which are short, friendly, distracting, and very, very bland, delivering the same "simplicity, performance, productivity" message regardless of the project. Can you guess what Docker does (or does especially well) just based on the website? [0]
I've learned to cut the crap and go straight to the "about" page to understand the distinct advantages in a more condensed form, but that seems to be missing from the redesign.
Re: A new look for rust-lang.org
#6If it empowered everyone, it would be available on other OSes than Linux, Windows, and macos (ok, it is available on Android and iOS apparently and some *BSD variants too). I'd love to use Rust - but my business requires support for, (in addition to Linux and Windows), Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, and OS400 for me to serve my customer base. Rust can't empower me there, it simply isn't available.
There are people working on it! Debian is now shipping 14 architectures. The big show-stopper is if LLVM has support for a particular bit of hardware. OSes are easier. We need people who know these systems to help out. It's not easy, but we'll get there.
Re: A new look for rust-lang.org
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
I strongly agree. The list of features on the old list is very meaningful to a C programmer who will recognize all of those things as things would love to use every day. Its underlying message is "we're technical nerds and we made a thing that you'll like". The new version is corporate-speak that won't appeal to.. anyone? Its underlying message is "we're trying to get you to like us and we studied how to do this". Bu…
I totally agree. As a coder, whenever I visit a website of a project I'm interested in, I'm looking for key technical features to convince me it's the right tool for the job, or that it offers an unique property tht I never even thought about. That's usually conveyed in a list of bullet points, and a couple of examples. I can rarely find it though. I wasn't quite able to grasp why, and I kind of accepted this as how…
>As a coder
Obviously the website is no longer targeted at coders: the Rust Team seems to target managers to push adoption. To me, it looks like a corporation that has to report user growth every quarter, so they start employing harmful UX to desperately try to push the numbers up.
Re: A new look for rust-lang.org
#8The old site was pleasantly minimal, easy to find the important things at a glance, and fit everything into a single screen.
The new one overloads you with bright, ever changing colors and useless marketing, while hiding important stuff like language documentation into a tiny link at the very bottom, next to the site terms and conditions.
It is dazzle camouflage [0] for information.
Re: A new look for rust-lang.org
#9The existing site's "rust by example" is extremely valuable. It's up front and centre. In the new site it's very buried, which is a shame. Much easier to get started, perhaps, but much less easy to see whether I'd want to in the first place.
The getting started stuff is good, though.
Re: A new look for rust-lang.org
#10In my (useless) opinion, the old website looks more modern and approachable. I can see immediately what are the benefits of Rust, as well as a code sample. The new site only offers a vague tagline ("The programming language that empowers everyone to become a systems programmer."), which doesn't explain much.