On Thu, 26 Jan 2006 17:57:05 +0000 Steve Holden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > How does > http://beta.python.org/about/beginners/ > look?
Better than it did. ;-) No, it looks great. I think you're hitting approximately the right tone here. That first paragraph may be a bit too curt about "new to programming" folks (Actually, I think you were mentally pausing on the link, which doesn't happen on reading because of the contrast problem -- when I consciously make this pause, it sounds better). But ... 1) Contrast between text and links is too low (it's hard to see the in-text links). 2) Partly because of #1, it would be nicer to have some of these links in a nice bullet-list. It would also break up the paragraph text a bit, which would (ironically) increase the chances of it being read. You could probably go either way -- leave the color alone and introduce some bullets, or increase the color contrast so that the links stand out. 3) Remember that many people will be *scanning* this page, not reading it. What will they see as their eyes scan down the page during the first 1/2 second? Enough to make them spend 10 seconds taking a more thorough look? Will that make them spend the 3-5 minutes actually reading what you wrote? Remember that a beginner is likely "shopping" for a programming language, and wants to know: 1) What general class of language is Python? 2) What distinguishes it from other languages? (Obvious comparables: C, Perl, Ruby, Java, Visual Basic. Less obvious, but useful: Lisp, Haskell). 3) How long is it going to take me to learn it? 4) How much help can I get and what resources are available to learn it? (Python is an open-source native, which to some people continues to mean "underdocumented and undersupported", even if *we* know that's a myth (I now believe the opposite, but I'm in the choir ;-) )). 5) Will I be able to do anything after learning it, that I can't do now? You're still sort of "advertising" on the beginners site, but it needs to be more of a technical advertisement than the "buzzword sell" on the front page. This is the page someone reads who is imagining that *they* are going to have to learn this language (not pay someone else to). Cheers, Terry -- Terry Hancock ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
