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Website hatred or...

cjfields on 2009-08-31T02:42:44

I'm absolutely amazed at the stones being lobbed at the new perl6 site.

Okay, that's fine, not everyone will like it. That's a given for just about anything. But why so much negativity for a simple website? Or is it really directed at Perl 6 in general? From some of the comments it seems to be the more the latter, using the former as an excuse to say something. John Napiorkowski had an interesting post related to this a while back.

(No, really. I want to know. Comments welcome, particularly if there any rational, reasonable, clear-headed, non-conspiracy-theory-tainted ones. Just trying to get a handle on where the hate is coming from).

it's easy pickin'

petdance on 2009-08-31T03:31:42

It's easy picking on things you don't like, when you don't actually have to face the people you're talking to. You can be a douchebag to whoever you want.

Re:it's easy pickin'

cjfields on 2009-08-31T04:58:12

Agreed on that point, but I would like to get some reasoned responses. The other post I linked to didn't have much sound reasoning, just general douchbaggy-ness.

Just to note, what's particularly funny is I think your instigator dropped in on #perl6 at one point, I think trying to stir the pot. Not sure said instigator knew who s/he was conversing with...

Re:it's easy pickin'

vek on 2009-08-31T17:57:34

For me it has nothing to do with Perl6. I think as it stands the site looks extremely unprofessional. It makes me cringe to look at it to be honest.

Now, could I do any better? Absolutely not. I'm not a graphic designer, nor can I draw a straight line with a ruler. I know when I'm out of my element and wouldn't even attempt it. But does that mean I can't voice my opinion? No it doesn't. I know when I like something. I know when I dislike something.

Re:it's easy pickin'

cjfields on 2009-08-31T23:42:19

For me it has nothing to do with Perl6. I think as it stands the site looks extremely unprofessional. It makes me cringe to look at it to be honest.

You weren't the only one.

Now, could I do any better? Absolutely not. I'm not a graphic designer, nor can I draw a straight line with a ruler. I know when I'm out of my element and wouldn't even attempt it. But does that mean I can't voice my opinion? No it doesn't. I know when I like something. I know when I dislike something.

I have no problem with anyone voicing their opinion as long as it well-reasoned. What you state above somewhat falls into that category, but it would be nice to know (for instance) what about the site annoys you. The #perl6 folk seem pretty responsive to it.

Re:it's easy pickin'

ank on 2009-08-31T17:04:16

I'm more than willing to talk about the things that suck about that logo and how to improve it face to face. I'm in Sydney, Australia. My name is Andres N. Kievsky. I'd be more than pleased to show what can be done, what can be improved, and why that's a bad logo, from my point of view and experience.

My main concern is that it looks like a joke; it's not a logo I can be proud of, the overuse of primary colours has been long associated with primary school and first steps.

The round forms and happy face denote humanity, which has very little to do with technology. The butterfly itself seems a rendering of a young child; it does not resemble a real butterfly.

The P and 6 on the wings are in the wrong colours; they can't be easily seen in many screens.

I can go on. I'm willing to do it face to face. Even to an audience.

-- ank

Re:it's easy pickin'

cjfields on 2009-08-31T23:28:19

Yes, but that's not the way it came across, if that's not already clear from the responses you received. The vast majority of your responses were against Perl 6 itself, not the website.

I am glad to see you at least positively responding to pmichaud and maybe helping out a little too.

Re:it's easy pickin'

cjfields on 2009-08-31T23:55:34

Whoops, take that back. Apparently you aren't willing to help out. Sorry to read that, but no great loss, you're only bringing anger (incoherent anger at that) to the table anyway.

Re:it's easy pickin'

ank on 2009-09-01T00:57:58

Damian Conway, on the thread I quoted:

"Not so keen on "braintricity"; though it does lead to other ideas.

For example, perhaps we could update:

Perl 5 is the duct tape of the internet

to:

Perl 6 is the neurotransmitter of the semantic web"

Would you like to work with someone like this? Who is incoherent here?

Re:it's easy pickin'

cjfields on 2009-09-01T02:13:51

Damian Conway...

Would you like to work with someone like this? Who is incoherent here?

If Damian's reading this I'm sure he would agree, just maybe not on who's incoherent.

Re:it's easy pickin'

ank on 2009-09-01T03:26:50

That's pretty much irrelevant. I dare you to say that out loud in a business meeting to a potential client.

Re:it's easy pickin'

ank on 2009-09-01T01:00:11

As I said, I'm willing to help fix the butterfly. I have seen no replies to that.

Re:it's easy pickin'

cjfields on 2009-09-01T02:29:13

As I said, I'm willing to help fix the butterfly. I have seen no replies to that.

Um, do you mean this reply to pmichaud, where you said you wouldn't send anything? No mention of a butterfly there...

Really, this is getting old. Reply away. You apparently need, nay relish, the last word, and it appears to always be argumentative and contrarian. I've now learned there is no point in continuing to converse with you.

Re:it's easy pickin'

ank on 2009-09-01T03:18:50

I mean this very same thread. I am willing to meet and help design a new butterfyl/logo, to the best of my limited abilities. Or at the bvery least point out the issues, and how they can be solved.

Why is sucks

Alias on 2009-08-31T06:34:59

Because when you already have a negative view on something for one reason (late) it makes things quadratically worse to add MORE reasons to hate something.

Multiple negatives creates the impression of incompetance.

My 0.02 credits

phaylon on 2009-08-31T14:32:11

First a disclaimer: I haven't yet participated in either the development of Perl 6 directly or any of its marketing efforts.

A few things that would trouble me as someone who hasn't been in the loop with Perl 6 for a while (I followed a bit closer in the beginning, but lost interest):

  • The colors are way too active. My eyes (or rather: my eye) have to switch focus all the time when I look around on that frontpage. Together with the multicolor butterfly it just seems noisy colored. I'd prefer a more consistent colorscheme, so that if I read the right block, my eyes are at the same time still able to scan the words on the next one. This gives context. There are the traditional schools of color palletes to use in print. Personally, I'd like to pick one ground color, one accentuation color (for design and layout purposes), and use them in two or three shades of brightness when needed. For text, I almost always prefer either (if on dark background) "almost white" or (if on light background) "almost black".
  • There's too much stuff in bold. The information on that page is actually pretty dense, so I think it would benefit from cleaner typesetting. Personally, I prefer using sans-serif for the body of the page, and a font with serifs (like Georgia) for the headings to have a separation.
  • I find the logo itself a bit debatable. I get the playfulness, but I always thought of the Perl 6 movement as "geeky playful" not "hello kitty playful." But that's actual a rather minor point. I think people are put off by it because the site has the logo rather big on its top. It's a bit of a slap in the face. If the top-block would be smaller (and didn't contain that much text), and the logo would shrink too, it would seem much more elegant. This might require the aforementioned consistency in the color schemes with an easier-to-read palette, because if the site is this colorful itself, the logo would figuratively drown if it were smaller.
  • The intro text next to the butterfly should rather sum up the Perl 6 spirit, idea and mission, and not be a call to volunteers who at that point might not even know what Perl 6 is yet. Something like

    Perl 6 is a modern high-level language integrating both experiences from decades of Perl 5 development and recent developments in other languages and comp-sci research.

    Then have a content block concerned with getting in volunteers.

On the things-I-like list are definitely the layout and the dense information. It is frustrating to have to navigate through multiple levels to find examples and such, so this works out really good.

I also want to note that I don't find the design bad, Since the layout is clean, things like colorschemes and typesetting depend on the information you want to present. I can imagine many projects for which this design would be perfect, I'm just not sure something technical like a language specification and development effort falls into that category.

And of course, ++ for doing it in the first place.