From: Ben Giddings <bg-rubytalk@...>
Date: 2005-02-17T07:40:54+09:00
Subject: Re: Where is Ruby headed etc.

Glenn wrote:
> Now a controversial point.  The perl website (www.perl.com) catches my
> eye.  So does the Python one (www.python.org).  For whatever reason,
> both websites made me go "mmm, this language looks interesting, lets
> investigate further.
> 
> The Ruby one (www.ruby-lang.org) doesn't.  Well, not for me.  It's not
> a bad website, most of the basic content is there, but so much more
> could be added to it, to sort of collect lots of basic ruby info and
> websites into one specific place, to attract and interest the new
> potential rubyist.  And it should be much more eyecatching.  Like the
> website should be an HTML venus-flytrap for programmers.  Well, that's
> my thought anyway.
> 
> I did say it was a controversial point!

Ooh goody!  My favourite subject comes up again!

You also forgot the PHP site, parts of the Java site and a few others. 
Really, Ruby's is severely lacking in the "draw you in and make you buy 
a new car you don't really need" category.  It's great for a "as spare 
time allows" hobbyist site, but it could look oh so much better.

I loved why_'s mockup, as did many others, but the dangling participle 
that ended that last discussion is "is anybody who can do anything about 
the ruby-web-presence-situation listening?"

So...

Is anybody who can do anything about the ruby-web-presence-situation 
listening?

If so, here's what I think we should do:

Step 1:
Find all the broken links, and outdated pages on ruby-lang.org and get 
rid of them

Step 2:
Make sure that all the essentials are on the ruby-lang.org site, so 
newbies don't get confused (core api docs, stdlib docs, interfacing with 
C docs, "how to submit a bug", all those other things I brought up earlier)

Step 3:
Prettify!

I think Step 1 would be easy.  We'd just have to have a few volunteers 
get together and go over the site, page by page, and flag the pages and 
links that need to either be updated or deleted.  Easy.  Then someone 
would have to make those changes, not as easy, but if the people doing 
the search also edited the pages so they were up to date, it shoudln't 
be too hard.

Step 2 would be a bit harder, but not too much.  I think most of that 
info exists out there somewhere, it woudld just be a matter of 
consolidating it on the ruby-lang.org domain, and linking it in in the 
right place.

Step 3 is more difficult, but I think worth doing in the long run.

So...

I'll be happy to start looking for broken links and outdated pages, if I 
know that when I'm done someone can fix the things I find.

Ben