From curt at hibbs.com Thu Feb 17 14:53:01 2005 From: curt at hibbs.com (Curt Hibbs) Date: Thu Feb 17 14:49:24 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] RE: Welcome to the "vit-discuss" mailing list In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Sorry, I meant this to be an invitation to subscribe, but I checked the "subscribe" checkbox instead of the "invite" checkbox. Please feel free to unsubscribe if you don't want this. Curt > -----Original Message----- > From: vit-discuss-bounces@rubyforge.org > [mailto:vit-discuss-bounces@rubyforge.org]On Behalf Of > vit-discuss-request@rubyforge.org > Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 1:45 PM > To: curt@hibbs.com > Subject: Welcome to the "vit-discuss" mailing list > > > There is general agreement that Ruby web site is in need of > improvement. After encouragement from Matz, we created a project > on RubyForge and this mailing list to collaborate on making this > a reality. > > Please subscribe to this mailing list if you want to participate. > > Also, we just found out that there is a group in Japan who also > started a project to work on this last month. We hope to > collaborate with them so that, between us, we can put the best > possible face on Ruby. > > After a day of getting the subscritions in place we can talk > about how to proceed. > Welcome to the vit-discuss@rubyforge.org mailing list! > > To post to this list, send your email to: > > vit-discuss@rubyforge.org > > General information about the mailing list is at: > > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/vit-discuss > > If you ever want to unsubscribe or change your options (eg, switch to > or from digest mode, change your password, etc.), visit your > subscription page at: > > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/options/vit-discuss/curt%40hibbs.com > > You can also make such adjustments via email by sending a message to: > > vit-discuss-request@rubyforge.org > > with the word `help' in the subject or body (don't include the > quotes), and you will get back a message with instructions. > > You must know your password to change your options (including changing > the password, itself) or to unsubscribe. It is: > > xautmi > > Normally, Mailman will remind you of your rubyforge.org mailing list > passwords once every month, although you can disable this if you > prefer. This reminder will also include instructions on how to > unsubscribe or change your account options. There is also a button on > your options page that will email your current password to you. > -- > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. > Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 2/14/2005 > From james.britt at gmail.com Thu Feb 17 20:45:43 2005 From: james.britt at gmail.com (James Britt) Date: Thu Feb 17 20:41:14 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Checking in Message-ID: <421548C7.5060105@gmail.com> Just saying hello, and verifying that I'm on this list. I got some confirmation E-mail that said I could go to some site to check.set my settings. SO I go visit, take a look, and leave. Next thing I know I;m getting a message that I'm unsubscribed. Frickin' Python tools .... Any way, Hello. James Britt From ng at johnwlong.com Thu Feb 17 21:43:27 2005 From: ng at johnwlong.com (John W. Long) Date: Thu Feb 17 21:39:50 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] RE: Welcome to the "vit-discuss" mailing list In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4215564F.5080505@johnwlong.com> Thanks Curt, I just discovered this as I was subscribing on my own. Sounds like rubyforge won't let you subscribe twice. =) -- John Curt Hibbs wrote: > Sorry, I meant this to be an invitation to subscribe, but I checked the > "subscribe" checkbox instead of the "invite" checkbox. > > Please feel free to unsubscribe if you don't want this. > > Curt > > >>-----Original Message----- >>From: vit-discuss-bounces@rubyforge.org >>[mailto:vit-discuss-bounces@rubyforge.org]On Behalf Of >>vit-discuss-request@rubyforge.org >>Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 1:45 PM >>To: curt@hibbs.com >>Subject: Welcome to the "vit-discuss" mailing list >> >> >>There is general agreement that Ruby web site is in need of >>improvement. After encouragement from Matz, we created a project >>on RubyForge and this mailing list to collaborate on making this >>a reality. >> >>Please subscribe to this mailing list if you want to participate. >> >>Also, we just found out that there is a group in Japan who also >>started a project to work on this last month. We hope to >>collaborate with them so that, between us, we can put the best >>possible face on Ruby. >> >>After a day of getting the subscritions in place we can talk >>about how to proceed. >>Welcome to the vit-discuss@rubyforge.org mailing list! >> >>To post to this list, send your email to: >> >> vit-discuss@rubyforge.org >> >>General information about the mailing list is at: >> >> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/vit-discuss >> >>If you ever want to unsubscribe or change your options (eg, switch to >>or from digest mode, change your password, etc.), visit your >>subscription page at: >> >> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/options/vit-discuss/curt%40hibbs.com >> >>You can also make such adjustments via email by sending a message to: >> >> vit-discuss-request@rubyforge.org >> >>with the word `help' in the subject or body (don't include the >>quotes), and you will get back a message with instructions. >> >>You must know your password to change your options (including changing >>the password, itself) or to unsubscribe. It is: >> >> xautmi >> >>Normally, Mailman will remind you of your rubyforge.org mailing list >>passwords once every month, although you can disable this if you >>prefer. This reminder will also include instructions on how to >>unsubscribe or change your account options. There is also a button on >>your options page that will email your current password to you. >>-- >>No virus found in this incoming message. >>Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. >>Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 2/14/2005 >> > > > _______________________________________________ > vit-discuss mailing list > vit-discuss@rubyforge.org > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/vit-discuss > From ezra at yakima-herald.com Thu Feb 17 22:47:43 2005 From: ezra at yakima-herald.com (Ezra Zygmuntowicz) Date: Thu Feb 17 22:46:00 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] RE: Welcome to the "vit-discuss" mailing list In-Reply-To: <4215564F.5080505@johnwlong.com> References: <4215564F.5080505@johnwlong.com> Message-ID: Yep I had the same experience as well. But now I am getting the list fine. So hello to all and I look forward to working with you folks for the greater good our beloved Ruby. -Ezra On Feb 17, 2005, at 6:43 PM, John W. Long wrote: > Thanks Curt, I just discovered this as I was subscribing on my own. > Sounds like rubyforge won't let you subscribe twice. =) > > -- > John > > > Curt Hibbs wrote: >> Sorry, I meant this to be an invitation to subscribe, but I checked >> the >> "subscribe" checkbox instead of the "invite" checkbox. >> Please feel free to unsubscribe if you don't want this. >> Curt >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: vit-discuss-bounces@rubyforge.org >>> [mailto:vit-discuss-bounces@rubyforge.org]On Behalf Of >>> vit-discuss-request@rubyforge.org >>> Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 1:45 PM >>> To: curt@hibbs.com >>> Subject: Welcome to the "vit-discuss" mailing list >>> >>> >>> There is general agreement that Ruby web site is in need of >>> improvement. After encouragement from Matz, we created a project >>> on RubyForge and this mailing list to collaborate on making this >>> a reality. >>> >>> Please subscribe to this mailing list if you want to participate. >>> >>> Also, we just found out that there is a group in Japan who also >>> started a project to work on this last month. We hope to >>> collaborate with them so that, between us, we can put the best >>> possible face on Ruby. >>> >>> After a day of getting the subscritions in place we can talk >>> about how to proceed. >>> Welcome to the vit-discuss@rubyforge.org mailing list! >>> >>> To post to this list, send your email to: >>> >>> vit-discuss@rubyforge.org >>> >>> General information about the mailing list is at: >>> >>> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/vit-discuss >>> >>> If you ever want to unsubscribe or change your options (eg, switch to >>> or from digest mode, change your password, etc.), visit your >>> subscription page at: >>> >>> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/options/vit-discuss/curt%40hibbs.com >>> >>> You can also make such adjustments via email by sending a message to: >>> >>> vit-discuss-request@rubyforge.org >>> >>> with the word `help' in the subject or body (don't include the >>> quotes), and you will get back a message with instructions. >>> >>> You must know your password to change your options (including >>> changing >>> the password, itself) or to unsubscribe. It is: >>> >>> xautmi >>> >>> Normally, Mailman will remind you of your rubyforge.org mailing list >>> passwords once every month, although you can disable this if you >>> prefer. This reminder will also include instructions on how to >>> unsubscribe or change your account options. There is also a button >>> on >>> your options page that will email your current password to you. >>> -- >>> No virus found in this incoming message. >>> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. >>> Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 2/14/2005 >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> vit-discuss mailing list >> vit-discuss@rubyforge.org >> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/vit-discuss > > _______________________________________________ > vit-discuss mailing list > vit-discuss@rubyforge.org > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/vit-discuss > > -Ezra Zygmuntowicz Yakima Herald-Republic WebMaster 509-577-7732 ezra@yakima-herald.com -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 3355 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/vit-discuss/attachments/20050217/e874ab01/attachment.bin From zdennis at mktec.com Thu Feb 17 23:11:59 2005 From: zdennis at mktec.com (Zach Dennis) Date: Thu Feb 17 23:12:54 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Hello In-Reply-To: References: <4215564F.5080505@johnwlong.com> Message-ID: <42156B0F.3080903@mktec.com> I'm sure there will probably be a whole lot of folks joining in the next few days, but those already here. Hello! Thanks for opening this mailing list up to the public, instead of just having a few people invited. This was great, and I"m glad that Matz and others from the www-admin group are willing, excited and open for this to "team" effort to come together. Is there a formal plan of attack to take, or is the list going to wait a few days until more folks have subscribed? If all of this was already pointed out...i apologize for asking redundant questions. Happying Rubying! Zach From ng at johnwlong.com Thu Feb 17 23:26:27 2005 From: ng at johnwlong.com (John W. Long) Date: Thu Feb 17 23:22:52 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Hello In-Reply-To: <42156B0F.3080903@mktec.com> References: <4215564F.5080505@johnwlong.com> <42156B0F.3080903@mktec.com> Message-ID: <42156E73.8050602@johnwlong.com> Zach Dennis wrote: > I'm sure there will probably be a whole lot of folks joining in the > next few days, but those already here. Hello! Welcome Zach! > Is there a formal plan of attack to take, or is the list going to wait > a few days until more folks have subscribed? The current plan is to wait a day or so until more folks subscribe. Feel free to begin adding stuff to the wiki though: http://vit.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl -- John From curt at hibbs.com Fri Feb 18 06:21:44 2005 From: curt at hibbs.com (Curt Hibbs) Date: Fri Feb 18 06:18:05 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Hello In-Reply-To: <42156E73.8050602@johnwlong.com> Message-ID: John W. Long wrote: > > Zach Dennis wrote: > > I'm sure there will probably be a whole lot of folks joining in the > > next few days, but those already here. Hello! > > Welcome Zach! > > > Is there a formal plan of attack to take, or is the list going to > wait > a few days until more folks have subscribed? > > The current plan is to wait a day or so until more folks subscribe. Feel > free to begin adding stuff to the wiki though: > > http://vit.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl Yes everyone... feel free to collect your thoughts on the wiki while we give people some time to subscribe! Curt From curt at hibbs.com Fri Feb 18 06:23:38 2005 From: curt at hibbs.com (Curt Hibbs) Date: Fri Feb 18 06:20:01 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Checking in In-Reply-To: <421548C7.5060105@gmail.com> Message-ID: James Britt wrote: > > Just saying hello, and verifying that I'm on this list. > > I got some confirmation E-mail that said I could go to some site to > check.set my settings. SO I go visit, take a look, and leave. > > Next thing I know I;m getting a message that I'm unsubscribed. > > > Frickin' Python tools .... > > > Any way, Hello. That was my fault. I had subscribed you twice under two different email addresses. When I noticed that I unsubscribed one of the (I assume that you don't want duplicates of each message :-). Curt From flgr at ccan.de Fri Feb 18 07:44:07 2005 From: flgr at ccan.de (Florian Gross) Date: Fri Feb 18 07:40:33 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] RE: Welcome to the "vit-discuss" mailing list In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4215E317.7090204@ccan.de> Curt Hibbs wrote: > Sorry, I meant this to be an invitation to subscribe, but I checked the > "subscribe" checkbox instead of the "invite" checkbox. > > Please feel free to unsubscribe if you don't want this. I'd prefer reading and writing via gmane. I'm going to do a request for the list being added as gmane.comp.lang.ruby.vit if you're okay with that. From chneukirchen at gmail.com Thu Feb 17 16:49:39 2005 From: chneukirchen at gmail.com (Christian Neukirchen) Date: Fri Feb 18 09:12:14 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] RE: Welcome to the "vit-discuss" mailing list In-Reply-To: (Curt Hibbs's message of "Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:53:01 -0600") References: Message-ID: "Curt Hibbs" writes: > Sorry, I meant this to be an invitation to subscribe, but I checked the > "subscribe" checkbox instead of the "invite" checkbox. > > Please feel free to unsubscribe if you don't want this. > > Curt No, thank you for subscribing me! -- Christian Neukirchen http://chneukirchen.org From curt.hibbs at gmail.com Fri Feb 18 09:24:15 2005 From: curt.hibbs at gmail.com (Curt Hibbs) Date: Fri Feb 18 09:50:07 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] RE: Welcome to the "vit-discuss" mailing list In-Reply-To: <4215E317.7090204@ccan.de> Message-ID: Florian Gross wrote: > > Curt Hibbs wrote: > > > Sorry, I meant this to be an invitation to subscribe, but I checked the > > "subscribe" checkbox instead of the "invite" checkbox. > > > > Please feel free to unsubscribe if you don't want this. > > I'd prefer reading and writing via gmane. > > I'm going to do a request for the list being added as > gmane.comp.lang.ruby.vit if you're okay with that. No problem at all, please feel free to do so. Curt From ruby-talk at whytheluckystiff.net Fri Feb 18 12:15:39 2005 From: ruby-talk at whytheluckystiff.net (why the lucky stiff) Date: Fri Feb 18 12:12:02 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Now, where were we? Message-ID: <421622BB.1050007@whytheluckystiff.net> Hi, everybody. Consider the wealth of discussion that has been rolling down the snowhill for the last few months. It's a raging and incongruous boulder. Let's size ite up. Here are what I consider to be the essentials of the discussion so far: * The quintessential ruby-talk thread is the "Best ways to accelerate Ruby's popularity," which lived out its existence for a month or so, throughout January. * I think the thread (and others which spawned from it at that time) really got moving when Ben Giddings stripped ruby-lang.org down to its essentials and everyone started thinking about what those essentials were exactly. * I posted a mockup of a hypothetical Ruby.org. The comments are especially useful, as the discussion is primarily centered on the page layout. * Useful criticism from gab: * A related topic deals with an official Ruby manual, which I think is very pertinent to our work here. John Long's designs were posted on RedHanded in early January. * The idea of giving an official look, ruby-lang.org subdomains, or a common header to community sites has been brought up a lot. I think the prevailing feeling about this has been that such an umbrella might be too much work to keep aloof. But, a good point. * Discussion of the more dilapidated parts of ruby-lang.org. I think we can all agree that its important that ruby-lang.org be up-to-date and reflect the hectic activity that truly is Ruby. * Another recurring topic is the state of ruby-doc.org. There is a prevailing notion that ruby-doc requires closer attention. Which is very interesting, considering that RubyGarden has avoided scrutiny, even though it suffers from many of its own issues. * Other related ruby-talk threads: _why From ruby-talk at whytheluckystiff.net Fri Feb 18 12:19:16 2005 From: ruby-talk at whytheluckystiff.net (why the lucky stiff) Date: Fri Feb 18 12:15:38 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Team organization Message-ID: <42162394.2030100@whytheluckystiff.net> I sorted through a lot of private correspondence, in addition to the ruby-talk discussion, to see if there was anything worth passing on. I think this message from David Hansson hits the spot concerning this list and the organization of the Ruby-Lang team. -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: David Heinemeier Hansson Subject: Re: Should I add you? [was FW: Ruby Visual Identity Team] Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 18:41:20 +0100 Size: 2670 Url: http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/vit-discuss/attachments/20050218/3dea90d5/RubyVisualIdentityTeam.eml From curt at hibbs.com Fri Feb 18 13:13:46 2005 From: curt at hibbs.com (Curt Hibbs) Date: Fri Feb 18 13:10:14 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Team organization In-Reply-To: <42162394.2030100@whytheluckystiff.net> Message-ID: why the lucky wrote: > > I sorted through a lot of private correspondence, in addition to the > ruby-talk discussion, to see if there was anything worth passing on. I > think this message from David Hansson hits the spot concerning this list > and the organization of the Ruby-Lang team. Yes, I agree completely -- this looks like a very workable approach that won't get mired down in never-ending talk. Curt From curt at hibbs.com Fri Feb 18 13:22:16 2005 From: curt at hibbs.com (Curt Hibbs) Date: Fri Feb 18 13:18:41 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Now, where were we? In-Reply-To: <421622BB.1050007@whytheluckystiff.net> Message-ID: Wow... good summary! One thing that I would add is that we need setup some kind of working relationship with the Japanese group that (unknown to us) started something similar last month. Curt why the lucky stiff wrote: > > Hi, everybody. Consider the wealth of discussion that has been rolling > down the snowhill for the last few months. It's a raging and > incongruous boulder. Let's size ite up. > > Here are what I consider to be the essentials of the discussion so far: > > * The quintessential ruby-talk thread is the "Best ways to accelerate > Ruby's popularity," which lived out its existence for a month or so, > throughout January. > 596?124484-128974> > > * I think the thread (and others which spawned from it at that time) > really got moving when Ben Giddings stripped ruby-lang.org down to its > essentials and everyone started thinking about what those essentials > were exactly. > > > * I posted a mockup of a hypothetical Ruby.org. The comments are > especially useful, as the discussion is primarily centered on the page > layout. > > > * Useful criticism from gab: > > * A related topic deals with an official Ruby manual, which I think is > very pertinent to our work here. John Long's designs were posted on > RedHanded in early January. > > > > * The idea of giving an official look, ruby-lang.org subdomains, or a > common header to community sites has been brought up a lot. > > I think the prevailing feeling about this has been that such an umbrella > might be too much work to keep aloof. > > But, a good point. > > > * Discussion of the more dilapidated parts of ruby-lang.org. I think we > can all agree that its important that ruby-lang.org be up-to-date and > reflect the hectic activity that truly is Ruby. > > > * Another recurring topic is the state of ruby-doc.org. There is a > prevailing notion that ruby-doc requires closer attention. Which is > very interesting, considering that RubyGarden has avoided scrutiny, even > though it suffers from many of its own issues. > > > * Other related ruby-talk threads: > _why _______________________________________________ vit-discuss mailing list vit-discuss@rubyforge.org http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/vit-discuss -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 2/14/2005 From ruby-talk at whytheluckystiff.net Fri Feb 18 13:33:10 2005 From: ruby-talk at whytheluckystiff.net (why the lucky stiff) Date: Fri Feb 18 13:29:31 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Now, where were we? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <421634E6.6020204@whytheluckystiff.net> Curt Hibbs wrote: >Wow... good summary! > >One thing that I would add is that we need setup some kind of working >relationship with the Japanese group that (unknown to us) started something >similar last month. > > > Curt, have you e-mailed Maki and invited him to join? He's really accessible. Shugo Maeda should be invited into this discussion as well. If you do have problems getting a hold of them, I can talk to Daigo, who is a member of the Ruby group mentioned in the ruby-talk post. _why From curt at hibbs.com Fri Feb 18 13:43:06 2005 From: curt at hibbs.com (Curt Hibbs) Date: Fri Feb 18 13:39:33 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Now, where were we? In-Reply-To: <421634E6.6020204@whytheluckystiff.net> Message-ID: why the lucky stiff wrote: > > Curt Hibbs wrote: > > >Wow... good summary! > > > >One thing that I would add is that we need setup some kind of working > >relationship with the Japanese group that (unknown to us) > started something > >similar last month. > > > > > > > Curt, have you e-mailed Maki and invited him to join? He's really > accessible. Shugo Maeda should be invited into this discussion as well. Well, as it turns out, both of them are among the group that I "accidentally" subscribed to this list. So, they should be getting all of these messages. > If you do have problems getting a hold of them, I can talk to Daigo, who > is a member of the Ruby group mentioned in the ruby-talk post. Can you go ahead and ask Daigo to do that, just in case these messages are getting routed to spam folders and they are not seeing them? Thanks, Curt From timsuth at ihug.co.nz Fri Feb 18 17:11:03 2005 From: timsuth at ihug.co.nz (Tim Sutherland) Date: Fri Feb 18 17:07:26 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Team organization In-Reply-To: <42162394.2030100@whytheluckystiff.net> References: <42162394.2030100@whytheluckystiff.net> Message-ID: <20050218221103.GA3355@alien.zone> Ben Giddings wrote: [...] > === People I hope will volunteer === [...] > Tim Sutherland > His weekly summaries are great, so hopefully he could be involved in > adding something like that to the main Ruby site. [...] I'd be very happy for this to be on the main site. I'll be writing a Rails app soon to help with creating the weekly news. This can just output HTML, text, RSS etc., so I won't need a Wiki like I use now. Glad you guys are working on improving the site. From chad at chadfowler.com Sat Feb 19 14:03:44 2005 From: chad at chadfowler.com (Chad Fowler) Date: Sat Feb 19 14:00:04 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Team organization In-Reply-To: <20050218221103.GA3355@alien.zone> References: <42162394.2030100@whytheluckystiff.net> <20050218221103.GA3355@alien.zone> Message-ID: <8227594439f5bd602a606302a2807fe0@chadfowler.com> On 18-Feb-05, at 5:11 PM, Tim Sutherland wrote: > Ben Giddings wrote: > [...] >> === People I hope will volunteer === > [...] >> Tim Sutherland >> His weekly summaries are great, so hopefully he could be involved in >> adding something like that to the main Ruby site. > [...] > > I'd be very happy for this to be on the main site. > > I'll be writing a Rails app soon to help with creating the weekly > news. This > can just output HTML, text, RSS etc., so I won't need a Wiki like I > use now. > > Cool! If you'd like to host it on RubyGarden, let me know and we can install it. Chad From maki at rubycolor.org Sun Feb 20 03:08:35 2005 From: maki at rubycolor.org (Masayoshi Takahashi) Date: Sun Feb 20 03:02:44 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Now, where were we? In-Reply-To: References: <421634E6.6020204@whytheluckystiff.net> Message-ID: <20050220.170835.45867350.maki@rubycolor.org> Hello all, "Curt Hibbs" wrote: > why the lucky stiff wrote: > > > > Curt Hibbs wrote: > > > > >Wow... good summary! Year, it's very helpful to me. Thanks! > > >One thing that I would add is that we need setup some kind of working > > >relationship with the Japanese group that (unknown to us) > > started something > > >similar last month. > > > > > > > > > > > Curt, have you e-mailed Maki and invited him to join? He's really > > accessible. Shugo Maeda should be invited into this discussion as well. > > Well, as it turns out, both of them are among the group that I > "accidentally" subscribed to this list. So, they should be getting all of > these messages. Yes, I'm here and read messages (thanks, Curt!). sorry too late response. We ruby-lang.org revise (or 'review'? I don't know an exactly word) team consist of Ruby user/hackers, not designers. So it's hard to suggest something in visual ascpects, but we do them in functional aspects. I'm also in www-admin list. I guess the members in www-admin are too busy to maintain Ruby itself, so IMHO we don't have enough time and power to update web site. We need your help. Regards, Masayoshi 'Maki' Takahashi E-mail: maki@rubycolor.org From curt at hibbs.com Sun Feb 20 05:16:43 2005 From: curt at hibbs.com (Curt Hibbs) Date: Sun Feb 20 05:13:03 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Getting Started [was Now, where were we?] In-Reply-To: <20050220.170835.45867350.maki@rubycolor.org> Message-ID: Masayoshi Takahashi wrote: > > Yes, I'm here and read messages (thanks, Curt!). sorry too late response. > > We ruby-lang.org revise (or 'review'? I don't know an exactly word) > team consist of Ruby user/hackers, not designers. So it's hard > to suggest something in visual aspects, but we do them in > functional aspects. > > I'm also in www-admin list. I guess the members in www-admin are > too busy to maintain Ruby itself, so IMHO we don't have enough time > and power to update web site. We need your help. Excellent... it looks like we can form a very productive partnership! Here is how I would like to see us to proceed. Let's take our charter from matz's post: * form a team to design the appearance * form another team to choose the CMS * create prototype on that CMS The Visual Team ------------------------ We need pick a core visual design team of no more than 3 people to design the new ruby-lang.org site. These people should be actual producing contributors, not mere commentators. This group would do the hard work of the redesign in tight collaboration and periodically present their results to the rest of us for feedback. This feedback would be considered advisements which the core team would be free to accept or reject at their discretion. This should give each of us influence over the final result while avoiding the gridlock and committee-style blandness that often accompanies larger groups. In the meantime we should all post our ideas on what the new ruby-lany.org should be (or should not be) as input to the soon-to-be-formed core team. To help kick off this part, my choices for the core team are: - Why the Lucky Stiff - John Long - Ben Giddings What are yours? The CMS Team ----------------------- At the same time we need to select a team that will be responsible for choosing the CMS that will power the new site. This team would research the candidates, present their choice(s) to this group for feedback and, ultimately, create a prototype installation with which the design team would implement their design. The same approach should apply here: no more than 3 people on the team who are willing to be active contributors. Feedback from all of us would be considered advisory, and the team retains the authority to make the decisions. Here are my suggestions to kick off this part: - Use Ruby based solutions. Whatever capabilities the team decides to include (wiki, blog, etc.), I think they should be written in Ruby. Its unlikely that there would be an all-in-one Ruby solution, so this would mean the team may have to write some glue code to tie the pieces together. I don't have anyone to nominate for this team. I think that people who have the time and interest to do this should volunteer. If we have too many volunteers then we'll have to pick. ========= Feel free to disagree with the organizational outline I layed out above. But be prepared to present concrete alternatives, because above all I want us to get moving forward as soon as possible. Curt From ruby-talk at whytheluckystiff.net Sun Feb 20 23:57:04 2005 From: ruby-talk at whytheluckystiff.net (why the lucky stiff) Date: Sun Feb 20 23:48:14 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Getting Started [was Now, where were we?] In-Reply-To: References: <20050220.170835.45867350.maki@rubycolor.org> Message-ID: <20050221045704.GA76426@topi.cc> Curt Hibbs (curt@hibbs.com) wrote: > > * form a team to design the appearance > * form another team to choose the CMS > * create prototype on that CMS > It seems like the two teams should be one team. If the core team can make the prototype a product of the design phase, I think we'll save time. Then, from the prototype, we could get some of the folks from this list to storm in and help us fill in the blanks. I mean we all know Ruby, right? Concerning choice of a CMS, could we just open up the discussion to the entire list and let Curt and Maki make the final call? Curt, since he's the leader chosen by Matz, and Maki, since he knows what www-admin need. _why From curt at hibbs.com Mon Feb 21 07:05:45 2005 From: curt at hibbs.com (Curt Hibbs) Date: Mon Feb 21 07:02:01 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Getting Started [was Now, where were we?] In-Reply-To: <20050221045704.GA76426@topi.cc> Message-ID: why the lucky stiff wrote: > > Curt Hibbs (curt@hibbs.com) wrote: > > > > * form a team to design the appearance > > * form another team to choose the CMS > > * create prototype on that CMS > > > > It seems like the two teams should be one team. If the core team can > make the prototype a product of the design phase, I think we'll save > time. Then, from the prototype, we could get some of the folks from > this list to storm in and help us fill in the blanks. I mean we all > know Ruby, right? On further reflection, I think I agree with you. There's really no advantage two separating this into two teams and there are distinct disadvantages. I really didn't think that one through. Curt > Concerning choice of a CMS, could we just open up the discussion to the > entire list and let Curt and Maki make the final call? Curt, since he's > the leader chosen by Matz, and Maki, since he knows what www-admin need. > > _why From hgs at dmu.ac.uk Mon Feb 21 08:34:41 2005 From: hgs at dmu.ac.uk (Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng) Date: Mon Feb 21 08:41:58 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Accessibility aspects of design. Message-ID: I know that the committees are not fully formed yet, but can I put in a plea for accessibility to be considered as a high priority? I've had a few cases on the present Rubylang.org site of columns flowing into each other, because I use large print. Some would say huge print :-) at 25 points, but I knew someone who could only really access 60 point print comfortably. [Remember, not all visually impaired people know braille, and for some it is inaccessible anyway due to a poor sense of touch, e.g. due to diabetic neuropathy. In the UK alone there are an estimated 24,000 deafblind people[1] who would find using synthetic speech difficult, or impossible, and some of whom would manage by means of large print.] I have had problems on the redhanded site, which I tried to raise with _why, but I think the reason I got no response may well be due to his looking after Hobix, Syck, redcloth, and his own site, and that's just the stuff he does that I know about. Basically, code in the left column ends up as being too wide, and the column is not in a scrollable
, so the text disappears under the right hand column, so bits are missing from it. I suggested adding 'margins: auto;" to the stylesheet. Another thing: Could there be alternative stylesheets? I've had people with dyslexia tell me that serif fonts (like Times) are difficult to read, whereas fonts like Helvetica or Ariel are easy, and colours can be an issue for dyslexics too. Some of these things can be overridden by the browser, following the user's preferences, but if the site enforces its own standards that doesn't happen. I might appear to be on a disability rights soapbox here, but my point is that the aim of this exercise is to bring more people in to the Ruby community, so it would be best to avaid barriers which may keep people out. Making the site accessible improves it for people browsing with (mobile|cell) phones -- if you can tell what images are without having to see (download) them for example. There are projects to browse the web by telephone -- i.e. verbally. Some people access the web by e-mail[2]. So we need to remove as many assumptions as possible. Thank you, Hugh [1] http://www.deafblind.org.uk/ [2] http://www.mail-archive.com/accmail@listserv.aol.com/msg01870.html From chneukirchen at gmail.com Mon Feb 21 08:51:29 2005 From: chneukirchen at gmail.com (Christian Neukirchen) Date: Mon Feb 21 08:47:32 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Getting Started [was Now, where were we?] In-Reply-To: <20050221045704.GA76426@topi.cc> (why the lucky stiff's message of "Sun, 20 Feb 2005 23:57:04 -0500") References: <20050220.170835.45867350.maki@rubycolor.org> <20050221045704.GA76426@topi.cc> Message-ID: why the lucky stiff writes: > Curt Hibbs (curt@hibbs.com) wrote: >> >> * form a team to design the appearance >> * form another team to choose the CMS >> * create prototype on that CMS >> > > It seems like the two teams should be one team. If the core team can > make the prototype a product of the design phase, I think we'll save > time. Then, from the prototype, we could get some of the folks from > this list to storm in and help us fill in the blanks. I mean we all > know Ruby, right? > > Concerning choice of a CMS, could we just open up the discussion to the > entire list and let Curt and Maki make the final call? Curt, since he's > the leader chosen by Matz, and Maki, since he knows what www-admin need. What are the requirements for the CMS? I think we need to focus on the (future) contents and the structure of the site first before we can choose a CMS. Content and structure also strongly influence the design, too. > _why -- Christian Neukirchen http://chneukirchen.org From dblack at wobblini.net Mon Feb 21 09:09:30 2005 From: dblack at wobblini.net (David A. Black) Date: Mon Feb 21 09:05:46 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Accessibility aspects of design. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi -- On Mon, 21 Feb 2005, Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng wrote: > I know that the committees are not fully formed yet, but > can I put in a plea for accessibility to be considered as > a high priority? Absolutely, as far as I and (I trust) everyone here is concerned. This should be a sine qua non of any plan. We have colorblind, blind, visually impaired, and deaf people in our community (just to enumerate those I am personally aware of for whom the issues you discuss might be crucial), and the stylesheet mechanism, along with considerations of underlying design, should be leveraged to make things accessible to everyone. > I might appear to be on a disability rights soapbox here, but my > point is that the aim of this exercise is to bring more people in to > the Ruby community, so it would be best to avaid barriers which may > keep people out. The only soapbox you're on is the Ruby soapbox, and that's fine :-) The information and scenarios you've described are enlightening. David -- David A. Black dblack@wobblini.net From zdennis at mktec.com Mon Feb 21 09:15:41 2005 From: zdennis at mktec.com (Zach Dennis) Date: Mon Feb 21 09:11:57 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Accessibility aspects of design. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4219ED0D.3060105@mktec.com> David A. Black wrote: > Hi -- > > On Mon, 21 Feb 2005, Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng wrote: > >> I know that the committees are not fully formed yet, but >> can I put in a plea for accessibility to be considered as >> a high priority? > > > Absolutely, as far as I and (I trust) everyone here is concerned. > This should be a sine qua non of any plan. We have colorblind, blind, > visually impaired, and deaf people in our community (just to enumerate > those I am personally aware of for whom the issues you discuss might > be crucial), and the stylesheet mechanism, along with considerations > of underlying design, should be leveraged to make things accessible to > everyone. > I like sites that have the [small font] [LARGE FONT] etc...(i only have two sizes when typing in plain text, so visualize with me) option on their web sites to allow for the user to switch the font size on the page. This may be another option to look at (I know browsers allow you to change font size as well). Zach From curt at hibbs.com Mon Feb 21 09:37:43 2005 From: curt at hibbs.com (Curt Hibbs) Date: Mon Feb 21 09:34:00 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Accessibility aspects of design. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: David A. Black wrote: > > On Mon, 21 Feb 2005, Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng wrote: > > > I know that the committees are not fully formed yet, but > > can I put in a plea for accessibility to be considered as > > a high priority? > > Absolutely, as far as I and (I trust) everyone here is concerned. > This should be a sine qua non of any plan. We have colorblind, blind, > visually impaired, and deaf people in our community (just to enumerate > those I am personally aware of for whom the issues you discuss might > be crucial), and the stylesheet mechanism, along with considerations > of underlying design, should be leveraged to make things accessible to > everyone. Yes, yes, yes... that's the whole point of having this list in the first place! > > I might appear to be on a disability rights soapbox here, but my > > point is that the aim of this exercise is to bring more people in to > > the Ruby community, so it would be best to avaid barriers which may > > keep people out. > > The only soapbox you're on is the Ruby soapbox, and that's fine :-) > The information and scenarios you've described are enlightening. +1 Curt From hgs at dmu.ac.uk Mon Feb 21 09:42:35 2005 From: hgs at dmu.ac.uk (Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng) Date: Mon Feb 21 09:38:55 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Accessibility aspects of design. In-Reply-To: <4219ED0D.3060105@mktec.com> References: <4219ED0D.3060105@mktec.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 21 Feb 2005, Zach Dennis wrote: > I like sites that have the [small font] [LARGE FONT] etc...(i only have two Thanks for people's support on this issue. I think we could probably use that (as ruby-doc.org does to good effect) and stylesheets as well, to support the widest number of browser types. Hugh From hgs at dmu.ac.uk Mon Feb 21 10:11:31 2005 From: hgs at dmu.ac.uk (Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng) Date: Mon Feb 21 10:13:16 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Other usability stuff. Message-ID: In case this helps people, I've found reading Donald A Norman's book "The Design of Everyday things" which is the same book as "The Psychology of Everyday Things" useful in understanding usability problems. While he doesn't really give a list of points in one place in the book, there are common themes throughout it which would apply to making a website helpful. For example. the idea that the difficulties can broadly be broken down into "gulf of execution" -- how do I get from "I want this to happen" to making it happen, and "gulf of evaluation" -- the sytem has done something, which outputs show me this and how do I interpret those outputs? Also putting knowledge into the world so that you can look at something and see how to use it, or keeping it in your head, which may be quicker once learnt. Also making the design model accord with the mental model the user will build given the interface. I also found "About Face" by Alan Cooper, which is now About Face 2 now, I think, and the [IMHO ghastly titled :-)] "The Inmates are Running the Asylum" which covers much of the same ground, but is more concise, and cheaper. http://www.cooper.com/content/insights/cooper_books.asp#TIARTA Insights from these: people hate being made to feel stupid, so design error processes so as not to cause that feeling. Get the computer to do all it can: this often doesn't happen -- for example one can only find documents by name or date or contents, not what one was also working on at about the same time. Computer Scientists like trees, but they are not natural for most users to navigate. [Probably not a useful insight for a progamming website :-)] Make as much reversible as possible, so when the user fouls up they can go back: "Delete?"; "yes"; "Are you sure?"; Of course - "Yes" -- Oh, botheration! People may get different stuff from this, such as his use of Personas. Hugh From curt at hibbs.com Mon Feb 21 10:17:19 2005 From: curt at hibbs.com (Curt Hibbs) Date: Mon Feb 21 10:13:38 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming Message-ID: Let's use this thread to do some brainstorming on the ruby-lang-org site. - What should is be/do/look? - What should it not be/do/look? There are no rules. Post whatever comes to your mind. Feel free to debate points or not to debate. The point is, let's get everyone's thoughts and concerns down in writing. Then we can collect/categorize/prioritize/etc. Curt From curt at hibbs.com Mon Feb 21 10:17:57 2005 From: curt at hibbs.com (Curt Hibbs) Date: Mon Feb 21 10:14:15 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Choose the Core Team Message-ID: Please use this thread to post who you think should be part of the three person core team. Feel free to nominate yourself (or exclude yourself if someone else nominated you). And feel free to post a testimonial for anyone. I'd like to choose a core team before the end of this week so that we can maintain some momentum. Thanks, Curt From curt at hibbs.com Mon Feb 21 10:23:19 2005 From: curt at hibbs.com (Curt Hibbs) Date: Mon Feb 21 10:19:35 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Choose the Core Team In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Curt Hibbs wrote: > > Please use this thread to post who you think should be part of the three > person core team. Feel free to nominate yourself (or exclude yourself if > someone else nominated you). And feel free to post a testimonial > for anyone. I wrote this before, but I wanted to get it into this thread. My choices for core team are: - Why the Lucky Stiff - John Long - Ben Giddings Curt From ruby-lists at lypanov.net Mon Feb 21 10:29:25 2005 From: ruby-lists at lypanov.net (Alexander Kellett) Date: Mon Feb 21 10:25:39 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Choose the Core Team In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6a275c97a3772825b0a21cc79ad6e0b9@lypanov.net> On Feb 21, 2005, at 4:23 PM, Curt Hibbs wrote: > I wrote this before, but I wanted to get it into this thread. My > choices for > core team are: > > - Why the Lucky Stiff ditto on _why from me the simple mock up replacement was very cute i'm sure he'll bring along good aesthetics and a degree of *needed* simplicity to any new developments :) Alex From chad at chadfowler.com Mon Feb 21 11:39:46 2005 From: chad at chadfowler.com (chad@chadfowler.com) Date: Mon Feb 21 10:29:38 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <24226.208.252.131.50.1109003986.squirrel@208.252.131.50> > Let's use this thread to do some brainstorming on the ruby-lang-org site. > > - What should is be/do/look? > - What should it not be/do/look? > > There are no rules. Post whatever comes to your mind. Feel free to debate > points or not to debate. > > The point is, let's get everyone's thoughts and concerns down in writing. > Then we can collect/categorize/prioritize/etc. > I don't have a lot to say, and I don't want to muddy the waters too much with my input. My number one suggestion is to put as little as possible on the site to make it useful. I mean this both visually (keep it minimal--why's mockup is great in this way) and functionally. Chad From blaumag at gmail.com Mon Feb 21 10:48:11 2005 From: blaumag at gmail.com (Michel Martens) Date: Mon Feb 21 10:44:26 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Choose the Core Team In-Reply-To: <6a275c97a3772825b0a21cc79ad6e0b9@lypanov.net> References: <6a275c97a3772825b0a21cc79ad6e0b9@lypanov.net> Message-ID: <6a6506460502210748352f77dd@mail.gmail.com> I want to nominate myself as a designer (been doing that for the last eight years). Michel. From zdennis at mktec.com Mon Feb 21 10:48:11 2005 From: zdennis at mktec.com (Zach Dennis) Date: Mon Feb 21 10:44:28 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <421A02BB.4090907@mktec.com> Curt Hibbs wrote: > Let's use this thread to do some brainstorming on the ruby-lang-org site. > > - What should is be/do/look? - simple, clean, elegant - nice logo - perhaps some background image for menu bar or buttons (maybe a little gradient) - the search should be closer to the top of the page and better emphasized, right now you dont' see it unless you are specifically looking for it > - What should it not be/do/look? - simple and clean is good, but if the site looks like it was created in 1994 then I think we are stepping on our own toes - not a whole lot of images, and no rotating images (like animated gifs) - dont go all red and white, (but if it is all red and white make sure there is more white then red). - When everything is red it is hard to differentiate visually links from emphasized text from borders from headers from background colors Zach From zdennis at mktec.com Mon Feb 21 10:48:57 2005 From: zdennis at mktec.com (Zach Dennis) Date: Mon Feb 21 10:45:13 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Choose the Core Team In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <421A02E9.60605@mktec.com> Curt Hibbs wrote: > Curt Hibbs wrote: > >>Please use this thread to post who you think should be part of the three >>person core team. Feel free to nominate yourself (or exclude yourself if >>someone else nominated you). And feel free to post a testimonial >>for anyone. > > > I wrote this before, but I wanted to get it into this thread. My choices for > core team are: > > - Why the Lucky Stiff > - John Long > - Ben Giddings Looks good to me, Zach From chneukirchen at gmail.com Mon Feb 21 10:52:32 2005 From: chneukirchen at gmail.com (Christian Neukirchen) Date: Mon Feb 21 10:48:33 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Choose the Core Team In-Reply-To: <6a275c97a3772825b0a21cc79ad6e0b9@lypanov.net> (Alexander Kellett's message of "Mon, 21 Feb 2005 16:29:25 +0100") References: <6a275c97a3772825b0a21cc79ad6e0b9@lypanov.net> Message-ID: Alexander Kellett writes: > On Feb 21, 2005, at 4:23 PM, Curt Hibbs wrote: >> I wrote this before, but I wanted to get it into this thread. My >> choices for >> core team are: >> >> - Why the Lucky Stiff > > ditto on _why from me > the simple mock up replacement > was very cute i'm sure he'll > bring along good aesthetics and > a degree of *needed* simplicity > to any new developments :) > > Alex +1 -- Christian Neukirchen http://chneukirchen.org From hgs at dmu.ac.uk Mon Feb 21 10:50:22 2005 From: hgs at dmu.ac.uk (Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng) Date: Mon Feb 21 10:49:32 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Following up on Chad Fowler's point: I think (Due to D.A. Norman's book) we can keep things simple if we group things: Download links. Possibly with download stats. Binaries, binaries and more binaries! It's very easy to build ruby, but just how many platforms can we show have binaries? More than netbsd? Devloper links Links to bugs database. link to RAA, but does the RAA itself come under the remit of this or Links to svn/cvs bases for x.y, x.y+1 branches for ruby Possibly with a nice graph of lines of code like the Pike people have http://pike.ida.liu.se/ so we can see how things are progressing. Ruby news links. Lots of sites to look at for this. Obviously want our own RSS feed. And _why has refs to some YAMLified news (!okay/news) feeds, so maybe we can yield those, too? not? FAQs, and maybe mirrors of the ruby-doc stuff just in case something goes pop! The problem is that keeping it very minimal will undersell ruby to some kinds of developer, so I think the ideal is to have all the information reachable fairly quickly, but no one section should overwhelm the most-easily-overwhelmed visitor. Ruby has great power, and many facilities (Threads, Continuations, Class Instance Variables) most of which are not apparent at first, but the interface presented is simple and clear. I believe the site could do the same. Hugh From zdennis at mktec.com Mon Feb 21 11:24:59 2005 From: zdennis at mktec.com (Zach Dennis) Date: Mon Feb 21 11:21:15 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Choose the Core Team In-Reply-To: <6a6506460502210748352f77dd@mail.gmail.com> References: <6a275c97a3772825b0a21cc79ad6e0b9@lypanov.net> <6a6506460502210748352f77dd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <421A0B5B.5080502@mktec.com> Michel Martens wrote: > I want to nominate myself as a designer (been doing that for the last > eight years). > > I will second this. I didn't know Michel was on the list, but I liked his simple/elegancy of the links he posted on the ruby ml: http://www.soveran.org (personal weblog) http://www.soveran.com (my evil capitalist face) https://visitorzone.ejkreed.com (my latest work for Cisco Systems Argentina) Zach From ruby-lists at lypanov.net Mon Feb 21 11:27:28 2005 From: ruby-lists at lypanov.net (Alexander Kellett) Date: Mon Feb 21 11:23:42 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Choose the Core Team In-Reply-To: <6a6506460502210748352f77dd@mail.gmail.com> References: <6a275c97a3772825b0a21cc79ad6e0b9@lypanov.net> <6a6506460502210748352f77dd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1442f123f67eedfe35ea1efa05145abf@lypanov.net> portfolio? ;) On Feb 21, 2005, at 4:48 PM, Michel Martens wrote: > I want to nominate myself as a designer (been doing that for the last > eight years). > > Michel. > _______________________________________________ > vit-discuss mailing list > vit-discuss@rubyforge.org > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/vit-discuss From agorilla at gmail.com Mon Feb 21 11:48:13 2005 From: agorilla at gmail.com (Bill Guindon) Date: Mon Feb 21 11:44:28 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <67a2229205022108485e75a3f0@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 15:50:22 +0000 (WET), Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng wrote: > Devloper links Ruby Community similar to / based on: http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?RubyOnIRC http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?RubyOnTheNet -- Bill Guindon (aka aGorilla) From maki at rubycolor.org Mon Feb 21 12:08:24 2005 From: maki at rubycolor.org (Masayoshi Takahashi) Date: Mon Feb 21 12:02:21 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050222.020824.48405526.maki@rubycolor.org> Hi, "Curt Hibbs" wrote: > Let's use this thread to do some brainstorming on the ruby-lang-org site. > > - What should is be/do/look? FYI, there are some (summaries of) comments on current Ruby Homepage: * about contents * should release document based HTML * should add more documents for newbies * should delete old contents * should support windows user more * should add book guides * about system * should make menu more sophisticated * should use meaningful filename (not number) Regards, Masayoshi 'Maki' Takahashi E-mail: maki@rubycolor.org > - What should it not be/do/look? > > There are no rules. Post whatever comes to your mind. Feel free to debate > points or not to debate. > > The point is, let's get everyone's thoughts and concerns down in writing. > Then we can collect/categorize/prioritize/etc. > > Curt > > _______________________________________________ > vit-discuss mailing list > vit-discuss@rubyforge.org > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/vit-discuss > From rampant at gmail.com Mon Feb 21 12:41:12 2005 From: rampant at gmail.com (Douglas Livingstone) Date: Mon Feb 21 12:37:28 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: <20050222.020824.48405526.maki@rubycolor.org> References: <20050222.020824.48405526.maki@rubycolor.org> Message-ID: <5630944605022109412a765d2d@mail.gmail.com> > * should make menu more sophisticated Cut out some of it, say: About Ruby * What is Ruby? - http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/20020101.html * Ruby's License - http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/LICENSE.txt * Download - http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/20020102.html * Documentation - http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/20020103.html * Development - http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/20020106.html * Links - http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/20020308.html Community * Mailing list - http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/20020104.html * User Groups - http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?RubyUserGroups * Ruby Around The World - http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/20020307.html * More... - http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/20020105.html Projects * RAA: Ruby App. Archive - http://raa.ruby-lang.org/ * RubyForge - http://www.rubyforge.org/ * RubyGarden Wiki - http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby > * should use meaningful filename (not number) Meaningful URL, don't care what the files themselves are called or where the data is stored. Douglas From martin.ankerl at gmail.com Mon Feb 21 12:57:37 2005 From: martin.ankerl at gmail.com (Martin Ankerl) Date: Mon Feb 21 12:53:52 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > - What should is be/do/look? Clean, simple, and usable; just like Ruby :-) * I think it is very important to have a symbol like the red diamond. I vote for a logo on the top left that contains such a symbol. * Are there any thoughts on integrating a search engine? I like what http://www.php.net does on the top left. * What about integrating rubyforge more, e.g. show 10 most active rubygems. Every month, one project could be featured (just like sourceforge does). > - What should it not be/do/look? Gentoo.org had a webpage redesign contest quite a while ago, here are the results: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/infrastructure/redesign-guidelines.xml The first entry (Aaron Shi) is the winner. IMHO such a design looks too much like a big coorporation. Ruby should instead be clean, simple, and have a community. -- Martin Ankerl | http://martinus.geekisp.com/ From ruby-talk at whytheluckystiff.net Mon Feb 21 13:29:14 2005 From: ruby-talk at whytheluckystiff.net (why the lucky stiff) Date: Mon Feb 21 13:25:29 2005 Subject: [OT] RedHanded CSS (was Re: [Vit-discuss] Accessibility aspects of design.) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <421A287A.9060404@whytheluckystiff.net> Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng wrote: > I have had problems on the redhanded site, which I tried to raise > with _why ... I suggested adding 'margins: auto;" to the stylesheet. I've worked on changing this, but simply adding 'margins:auto' or the like doesn't fix the problem in all browsers. I'm sympathetic to your plight. What makes RedHanded difficult is the amount of code in our posts. I will fix this, just waiting for a bright idea. _why From ruby-talk at whytheluckystiff.net Mon Feb 21 13:32:54 2005 From: ruby-talk at whytheluckystiff.net (why the lucky stiff) Date: Mon Feb 21 13:29:09 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: <20050222.020824.48405526.maki@rubycolor.org> References: <20050222.020824.48405526.maki@rubycolor.org> Message-ID: <421A2956.9090009@whytheluckystiff.net> Masayoshi Takahashi wrote: > * should release document based HTML > * should add more documents for newbies > * should delete old contents > * should support windows user more > * should add book guides > > Good stuff, Maki. Can you explain "should release document based HTML" a bit more? Rephrase or explain with links. _why From ruby-talk at whytheluckystiff.net Mon Feb 21 13:36:11 2005 From: ruby-talk at whytheluckystiff.net (why the lucky stiff) Date: Mon Feb 21 13:32:27 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Choose the Core Team In-Reply-To: <421A0B5B.5080502@mktec.com> References: <6a275c97a3772825b0a21cc79ad6e0b9@lypanov.net> <6a6506460502210748352f77dd@mail.gmail.com> <421A0B5B.5080502@mktec.com> Message-ID: <421A2A1B.6070700@whytheluckystiff.net> Zach Dennis wrote: > I will second this. I didn't know Michel was on the list, but I liked > his simple/elegancy of the links he posted on the ruby ml: > > http://www.soveran.org (personal weblog) This is great and seems very compatible with the design we're looking for on Ruby-Lang. I like the art. It would be very cool, very different to have some line art incorporated into the header. It's worth trying on a mockup, I'd say. _why From zdennis at mktec.com Mon Feb 21 13:59:36 2005 From: zdennis at mktec.com (Zach Dennis) Date: Mon Feb 21 13:56:03 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <421A2F98.3040903@mktec.com> Martin Ankerl wrote: > Gentoo.org had a webpage redesign contest quite a while ago This sounds like a good idea. Why not do some mockups that are not fully functionality and we can go from there with implementation of the design? Zach From zdennis at mktec.com Mon Feb 21 14:00:59 2005 From: zdennis at mktec.com (Zach Dennis) Date: Mon Feb 21 13:57:14 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: <421A2F98.3040903@mktec.com> References: <421A2F98.3040903@mktec.com> Message-ID: <421A2FEB.4080709@mktec.com> Zach Dennis wrote: > Martin Ankerl wrote: > >> Gentoo.org had a webpage redesign contest quite a while ago > > > This sounds like a good idea. Why not do some mockups that are not fully > functionality and we can go from there with implementation of the design? > mockups that are not functional at all is what i meant, just pretty images Zach From maki at rubycolor.org Mon Feb 21 14:14:18 2005 From: maki at rubycolor.org (Masayoshi Takahashi) Date: Mon Feb 21 14:08:13 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: <421A2956.9090009@whytheluckystiff.net> References: <20050222.020824.48405526.maki@rubycolor.org> <421A2956.9090009@whytheluckystiff.net> Message-ID: <20050222.041418.83628053.maki@rubycolor.org> why the lucky stiff wrote: > > * should release document based HTML > > * should add more documents for newbies > > * should delete old contents > > * should support windows user more > > * should add book guides > > > > > Good stuff, Maki. Can you explain "should release document based HTML" > a bit more? Rephrase or explain with links. Oops, sorry. it means "sould release (downloadable) Reference Manual in HTML format"(*) I translated it too literally :-/ (*) Japanese reference manual is maintained in Wiki now. http://www.ruby-lang.org/ja/man/ And there's no RDoc translated into Japanese. Regards, Masayoshi 'Maki' Takahashi E-mail: maki@rubycolor.org From curt at hibbs.com Mon Feb 21 14:13:24 2005 From: curt at hibbs.com (Curt Hibbs) Date: Mon Feb 21 14:09:36 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: <421A2F98.3040903@mktec.com> Message-ID: Zach Dennis wrote: > > Martin Ankerl wrote: > > > Gentoo.org had a webpage redesign contest quite a while ago > > This sounds like a good idea. Why not do some mockups that are not fully > functionality and we can go from there with implementation of the design? If anyone wants to post mockup images as part of this brainstorming exercise, please do. All input to the core design team would be welcome whether that input is in text or graphical form! Curt From ruby-lists at lypanov.net Mon Feb 21 14:26:43 2005 From: ruby-lists at lypanov.net (Alexander Kellett) Date: Mon Feb 21 14:23:03 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Choose the Core Team In-Reply-To: <421A2A1B.6070700@whytheluckystiff.net> References: <6a275c97a3772825b0a21cc79ad6e0b9@lypanov.net> <6a6506460502210748352f77dd@mail.gmail.com> <421A0B5B.5080502@mktec.com> <421A2A1B.6070700@whytheluckystiff.net> Message-ID: <851b91054914717e3716472d44feb46e@lypanov.net> On Feb 21, 2005, at 7:36 PM, why the lucky stiff wrote: > This is great and seems very compatible with the design we're looking > for on Ruby-Lang. I like the art. It would be very cool, very > different to have some line art incorporated into the header. It's > worth trying on a mockup, I'd say. we need a voting system so i don't have to +1 all of why's posts anyways, +1 :P Alex From blaumag at gmail.com Mon Feb 21 14:36:05 2005 From: blaumag at gmail.com (Michel Martens) Date: Mon Feb 21 14:32:20 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Choose the Core Team In-Reply-To: <851b91054914717e3716472d44feb46e@lypanov.net> References: <6a275c97a3772825b0a21cc79ad6e0b9@lypanov.net> <6a6506460502210748352f77dd@mail.gmail.com> <421A0B5B.5080502@mktec.com> <421A2A1B.6070700@whytheluckystiff.net> <851b91054914717e3716472d44feb46e@lypanov.net> Message-ID: <6a6506460502211136551f3505@mail.gmail.com> As I promote myself as a programmer and most of my clients are references, the only portfolio I have is that on www.soveran.com. What I will do now is create a small sample and send it to the list as soon as I get it done. Michel. On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 20:26:43 +0100, Alexander Kellett wrote: > On Feb 21, 2005, at 7:36 PM, why the lucky stiff wrote: > > This is great and seems very compatible with the design we're looking > > for on Ruby-Lang. I like the art. It would be very cool, very > > different to have some line art incorporated into the header. It's > > worth trying on a mockup, I'd say. > > we need a voting system so i don't have to +1 all of why's posts > > anyways, > +1 > > :P > > Alex > > _______________________________________________ > vit-discuss mailing list > vit-discuss@rubyforge.org > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/vit-discuss > From chneukirchen at gmail.com Mon Feb 21 15:00:29 2005 From: chneukirchen at gmail.com (Christian Neukirchen) Date: Mon Feb 21 14:57:08 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Choose the Core Team In-Reply-To: <851b91054914717e3716472d44feb46e@lypanov.net> (Alexander Kellett's message of "Mon, 21 Feb 2005 20:26:43 +0100") References: <6a275c97a3772825b0a21cc79ad6e0b9@lypanov.net> <6a6506460502210748352f77dd@mail.gmail.com> <421A0B5B.5080502@mktec.com> <421A2A1B.6070700@whytheluckystiff.net> <851b91054914717e3716472d44feb46e@lypanov.net> Message-ID: Alexander Kellett writes: > On Feb 21, 2005, at 7:36 PM, why the lucky stiff wrote: >> This is great and seems very compatible with the design we're >> looking for on Ruby-Lang. I like the art. It would be very cool, >> very different to have some line art incorporated into the header. >> It's worth trying on a mockup, I'd say. > > we need a voting system so i don't have to +1 all of why's posts > > anyways, > +1 > > :P I like that one very much too, +1 > Alex -- Christian Neukirchen http://chneukirchen.org From todd at slack.net Mon Feb 21 15:27:07 2005 From: todd at slack.net (Todd Grimason) Date: Mon Feb 21 15:19:29 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Other usability stuff. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050221202707.GA22302@detroit.slack.net> * Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng [2005-02-21 10:21]: [snip] > Insights from these: people hate being made to feel stupid, so > design error processes so as not to cause that feeling. Get the An excellent reference on this topic: "Defensive Design for the Web", from 37signals (Basecamp crew) http://www.37signals.com/book/ Excellent book for those working on webapps (since developers often strongly influence [if not totally handle] presentation of errors and forms interactions). -- ______________________________ toddgrimason*todd-AT-slack.net From todd at slack.net Mon Feb 21 15:42:53 2005 From: todd at slack.net (Todd Grimason) Date: Mon Feb 21 15:35:14 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Getting Started [was Now, where were we?] In-Reply-To: References: <20050220.170835.45867350.maki@rubycolor.org> <20050221045704.GA76426@topi.cc> Message-ID: <20050221204253.GB22302@detroit.slack.net> * Christian Neukirchen [2005-02-21 08:55]: > >> * form a team to design the appearance > >> * form another team to choose the CMS > >> * create prototype on that CMS [lots of snip] > What are the requirements for the CMS? > > I think we need to focus on the (future) contents and the structure of > the site first before we can choose a CMS. Content and structure > also strongly influence the design, too. I think this is a key point - the initial 3-phases (now 2?) don't directly address IA, or more broadly "user experience [UX]". This is likely to be a bigger task than all the others if it's to be done well. If it's not done well the best-looking site in the world isn't much use - you don't need to look around the web very much to find many examples of beautiful, but totally unusable sites. Ideally, there should be thought on personas or "user types", task-based or info-based navigation, etc. I realize a balance of addressing these issues without becoming bogged down and never finishing is needed, but if they're not at least explicitly acknowledged they'll arise in messy form at some point. Examples of task-based might be: Learn: Intro to Ruby, Resources for learning, tutorials, etc. Participate: mailing lists, support groups, user groups, rubyforge, etc. Documentation: ruby-docs, proposals, etc. Download: ruby, projects, extensions, etc. That's an ad-hoc quick list, but the idea should be clear. So to sum up, Christian is raising a vital point - IA/UX is key to the whole project. It doesn't need to drown out everything else and grind the project to a halt, but it needs to be done as well as possible given the realities of time and resources... -- ______________________________ toddgrimason*todd-AT-slack.net From curt at hibbs.com Mon Feb 21 15:59:36 2005 From: curt at hibbs.com (Curt Hibbs) Date: Mon Feb 21 15:55:54 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Getting Started [was Now, where were we?] In-Reply-To: <20050221204253.GB22302@detroit.slack.net> Message-ID: Todd Grimason wrote: [snip] > Examples of task-based might be: > > Learn: Intro to Ruby, Resources for learning, tutorials, etc. > Participate: mailing lists, support groups, user groups, rubyforge, etc. > Documentation: ruby-docs, proposals, etc. > Download: ruby, projects, extensions, etc. > > That's an ad-hoc quick list, but the idea should be clear. > > So to sum up, Christian is raising a vital point - IA/UX is key to the > whole project. It doesn't need to drown out everything else and grind > the project to a halt, but it needs to be done as well as possible > given the realities of time and resources... Excellent points! Curt From florgro at gmail.com Mon Feb 21 17:24:10 2005 From: florgro at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Florian_Gro=DF?=) Date: Mon Feb 21 17:30:55 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Re: [OT] RedHanded CSS (was Re: Accessibility aspects of design.) In-Reply-To: <421A287A.9060404@whytheluckystiff.net> References: <421A287A.9060404@whytheluckystiff.net> Message-ID: why the lucky stiff wrote: > Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng wrote: > >> I have had problems on the redhanded site, which I tried to raise >> with _why ... I suggested adding 'margins: auto;" to the stylesheet. > > I've worked on changing this, but simply adding 'margins:auto' or the > like doesn't fix the problem in all browsers. I'm sympathetic to your > plight. What makes RedHanded difficult is the amount of code in our > posts. I will fix this, just waiting for a bright idea. Is overflow: auto not an option? From nospam at lunacymaze.org Mon Feb 21 15:49:10 2005 From: nospam at lunacymaze.org (Ghislain MARY) Date: Mon Feb 21 17:44:48 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <421A4946.8020409@lunacymaze.org> Hi, Curt Hibbs wrote: > Let's use this thread to do some brainstorming on the ruby-lang-org site. > > - What should is be/do/look? > - What should it not be/do/look? > I believe there are 4 points that we should think of: - Accessibility, as it has already been discussed a little in an other thread. - Internationalization, which is not the best quality of the current ruby-lang.org site. I think we should have a system which enables us to have teams for each languages to translate the content easily. It would be great to not only have an english and a japanese site, but also several other languages (according to users available for translation), for example french, italian, korean (on the main site and not somewhere else on the web) and so on... - Clarity. By that I mean ease of navigation and the ability to find what you search without having to spend hours for this. This includes a good visual design (colors, logos, all these sorts of things), and a good content design. It would be great to have significative urls instead of things like http://ruby-lang.org/en/20020101.html which means nothing to the user going to see the page. - Conformity to the XHTML and CSS standards. Here's my little contribution. Ghislain From hgs at dmu.ac.uk Mon Feb 21 18:54:59 2005 From: hgs at dmu.ac.uk (Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng) Date: Mon Feb 21 18:51:27 2005 Subject: [OT] RedHanded CSS (was Re: [Vit-discuss] Accessibility aspects of design.) In-Reply-To: <421A287A.9060404@whytheluckystiff.net> References: <421A287A.9060404@whytheluckystiff.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 21 Feb 2005, why the lucky stiff wrote: > Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng wrote: > >> I have had problems on the redhanded site, which I tried to raise >> with _why ... I suggested adding 'margins: auto;" to the stylesheet. > > I've worked on changing this, but simply adding 'margins:auto' or the like > doesn't fix the problem in all browsers. I'm sympathetic to your plight. Supporting all of them is tricky. > What makes RedHanded difficult is the amount of code in our posts. I will > fix this, just waiting for a bright idea. When I widen the browser that column doesn't drift to the left, I get lots of space on the left. Don't know if that helps... Thanks for looking into this. In other respects your setup works well, and maybe Hobix could play a role in the new ruby-lang.org (said he, dragging it back on topic, a bit!) > > _why Thank you, Hugh From blaumag at gmail.com Mon Feb 21 23:29:42 2005 From: blaumag at gmail.com (Michel Martens) Date: Mon Feb 21 23:25:55 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Choose the Core Team In-Reply-To: References: <6a275c97a3772825b0a21cc79ad6e0b9@lypanov.net> <6a6506460502210748352f77dd@mail.gmail.com> <421A0B5B.5080502@mktec.com> <421A2A1B.6070700@whytheluckystiff.net> <851b91054914717e3716472d44feb46e@lypanov.net> Message-ID: <6a65064605022120292077cbe9@mail.gmail.com> I've put some screenshots of my work at http://www.soveran.com/portfolio From curt at hibbs.com Tue Feb 22 06:30:25 2005 From: curt at hibbs.com (Curt Hibbs) Date: Tue Feb 22 06:26:40 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Choose the Core Team In-Reply-To: <6a65064605022120292077cbe9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Michel Martens wrote: > > I've put some screenshots of my work at http://www.soveran.com/portfolio Very nice -- simple, uncluttered designs! I like them. Curt From james.britt at gmail.com Tue Feb 22 09:56:44 2005 From: james.britt at gmail.com (James Britt) Date: Tue Feb 22 09:52:58 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Checking in In-Reply-To: <421548C7.5060105@gmail.com> References: <421548C7.5060105@gmail.com> Message-ID: <5b1d0c600502220656621f5b49@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 18:45:43 -0700, James Britt wrote: > Just saying hello, and verifying that I'm on this list. > > I got some confirmation E-mail that said I could go to some site to > check.set my settings. SO I go visit, take a look, and leave. > > Next thing I know I;m getting a message that I'm unsubscribed. Turns out , I *was* unsubscribed, but not before being allowed to to post a message. Go figure. > > Frickin' Python tools .... Indeed. James From todd at slack.net Tue Feb 22 10:42:41 2005 From: todd at slack.net (Todd Grimason) Date: Tue Feb 22 10:34:56 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Choose the Core Team In-Reply-To: <6a65064605022120292077cbe9@mail.gmail.com> References: <6a275c97a3772825b0a21cc79ad6e0b9@lypanov.net> <6a6506460502210748352f77dd@mail.gmail.com> <421A0B5B.5080502@mktec.com> <421A2A1B.6070700@whytheluckystiff.net> <851b91054914717e3716472d44feb46e@lypanov.net> <6a65064605022120292077cbe9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050222154241.GA23416@detroit.slack.net> * Michel Martens [2005-02-21 23:33]: > I've put some screenshots of my work at http://www.soveran.com/portfolio semi-OT: what's an 'isologo'? Makes me think 'isotope'... which makes me think maybe this is a literal translation of 'logotype'? Nice work by the way... -- ______________________________ toddgrimason*todd-AT-slack.net From blaumag at gmail.com Tue Feb 22 11:01:21 2005 From: blaumag at gmail.com (Michel Martens) Date: Tue Feb 22 10:57:33 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Choose the Core Team In-Reply-To: <20050222154241.GA23416@detroit.slack.net> References: <6a275c97a3772825b0a21cc79ad6e0b9@lypanov.net> <6a6506460502210748352f77dd@mail.gmail.com> <421A0B5B.5080502@mktec.com> <421A2A1B.6070700@whytheluckystiff.net> <851b91054914717e3716472d44feb46e@lypanov.net> <6a65064605022120292077cbe9@mail.gmail.com> <20050222154241.GA23416@detroit.slack.net> Message-ID: <6a65064605022208016ea4b13e@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 10:42:41 -0500, Todd Grimason wrote: > * Michel Martens [2005-02-21 23:33]: > > I've put some screenshots of my work at http://www.soveran.com/portfolio > > semi-OT: what's an 'isologo'? Makes me think 'isotope'... which makes > me think maybe this is a literal translation of 'logotype'? isotype = shape logotype = word isologotype = shapes and words isologo = syntactic sugar (!) for isologotype After a little research, I've found that in English the isotype is usually called "emblem", and the logotype with a not so distorted typeface is called 'brand name'. Even though we have words for 'emblem' (emblema) and for 'brand name' (marca), in Spanish the Greek words described above remain almost untouched, and in a conversation between designers you can hear them all the time. Most people (not including designers) just refer to them all with the generic 'logo' (I think just like in English). > Nice work by the way... Thank you very much! Michel From chneukirchen at gmail.com Tue Feb 22 12:08:11 2005 From: chneukirchen at gmail.com (Christian Neukirchen) Date: Tue Feb 22 12:04:08 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Choose the Core Team In-Reply-To: <6a65064605022120292077cbe9@mail.gmail.com> (Michel Martens's message of "Tue, 22 Feb 2005 01:29:42 -0300") References: <6a275c97a3772825b0a21cc79ad6e0b9@lypanov.net> <6a6506460502210748352f77dd@mail.gmail.com> <421A0B5B.5080502@mktec.com> <421A2A1B.6070700@whytheluckystiff.net> <851b91054914717e3716472d44feb46e@lypanov.net> <6a65064605022120292077cbe9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Michel Martens writes: > I've put some screenshots of my work at http://www.soveran.com/portfolio I like this style of design very much, and I think you should be in the design team. -- Christian Neukirchen http://chneukirchen.org From bg-rubytalk at infofiend.com Tue Feb 22 14:35:44 2005 From: bg-rubytalk at infofiend.com (Ben Giddings) Date: Tue Feb 22 14:31:34 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Accessibility aspects of design. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <421B8990.7090603@infofiend.com> Wow, you guys got off to a roaring start without me. That's great! I think accessibility should be a prime concern, and I'm really happy that the person raising the issue is someone who would actually use the feature(s). I remember a long discussion in ruby-talk at one point about using "captcha"-things to prevent wiki spam. One person mentioned he/she had heard that blind people needed something else, and then a whole bunch of people tried to design something for the theoretical "blind user", but no blind users were ever asked for their opinions. Hugh, what are some examples of sites that are well designed for someone who likes reading with large font sizes? Do you like sites that have a "simple" or "light" option, which is simply H1-H5 tags, HRs and paragraphs, or do you still want the tables/columns etc. but designed so that they resize properly when the font size is changed? In your view, can the presentation issue be solved by CSS, or should there be a completely different rendering of the site for people with low vision? I think this is related to the issue of multiple languages. In one case, you have the same content rendered in two very different ways. In the other case, you have different content rendered into very similar looking templates. Because of this, I think it makes sense to try to address both issues at once. Ben From bg-rubytalk at infofiend.com Tue Feb 22 16:44:51 2005 From: bg-rubytalk at infofiend.com (Ben Giddings) Date: Tue Feb 22 16:40:40 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <421BA7D3.4060307@infofiend.com> Curt Hibbs wrote: > - What should [it] be/do/look? * Appeal to newcomers, and point them at the info they need/want quickly * Promote hot projects (Ruby on Rails should promote Ruby, and Ruby should promote RoR too) * Contain an easy-to-find site map and search engine * Have a few things I don't think exist yet: * Ruby for (Perl|Python|PHP|C++) programmers * A taste of Ruby -- a 10-minute glimpse at the language that gives a hint of the syntax, of what makes Ruby unique, etc * Provide a way for people to find out what's new with Ruby without having to join the mailing list * Have information in many presentations / languages so it is accessible to everybody, even French-speaking PDA-users with limited vision (not to pick on mes amis francais) Ok, and here's a hard one: * Give a reason for *us* to keep using the site I don't know about you folks, but I really have no reason to use the Ruby site. * I get Ruby from my distro * I know to go to RAA or rubyforge for libs/apps * I know to go to ruby-doc.org or rubycentral.com for API docs, or to remember how to use something * I have a whole set of other bookmarks for ruby-related things, few of which point to ruby-lang.org, and few of which are linked to from ruby-lang.org I think with a bit of effort we can consolidate a lot of this information on the ruby-lang.org site. The benefit of this is that even if you're just going there for the quick reference, you might see an announcement about Instiki 3.0 and decide to check it out. > - What should it not be/do/look? * Limited number of links / text on the front page, so you're not overwhelmed with options * Not overly corporate-looking * No ads, if at all possible * No lingering old news from months ago (it makes Ruby seem stagnant) * Don't drive content away (i.e. if possible, get Ruby Weekly News integrated into the site maybe through an RSS feed or something, instead of sending people to the RWN page, that way once someone has glanced at the news they can proceed with downloading Ruby rather than having to hit "back" a few times first) From ruby-lists at lypanov.net Tue Feb 22 17:31:32 2005 From: ruby-lists at lypanov.net (Alexander Kellett) Date: Tue Feb 22 17:27:43 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3223c9cfb0d96cbe29e3a9343ee5adcb@lypanov.net> On Feb 21, 2005, at 6:57 PM, Martin Ankerl wrote: > Gentoo.org had a webpage redesign contest quite a while ago, here are > the results: > http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/infrastructure/redesign-guidelines.xml > The first entry (Aaron Shi) is the winner. IMHO such a design looks > too much like a big coorporation. Ruby should instead be clean, > simple, and have a community. i like http://www.gentoo.org/images/wwwcontest/contest4_front.png actually :) the large "weekly news", "ready for", "preparing to install", "whats.." are a nice touch :) Alex From ruby-lists at lypanov.net Tue Feb 22 17:41:25 2005 From: ruby-lists at lypanov.net (Alexander Kellett) Date: Tue Feb 22 17:37:34 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: <421BA7D3.4060307@infofiend.com> References: <421BA7D3.4060307@infofiend.com> Message-ID: <8781da00f170292684ba460465c7cc9e@lypanov.net> On Feb 22, 2005, at 10:44 PM, Ben Giddings wrote: > Ok, and here's a hard one: > * Give a reason for *us* to keep using the site +5 this also means we'll have a reason to keep it maintained integrate a good docs download / search, have interesting links to e.g _why's site, latest releases of major components, etc, and i *know* i would visit ruby-lang.org more frequently :) Alex From todd at slack.net Tue Feb 22 17:53:34 2005 From: todd at slack.net (Todd Grimason) Date: Tue Feb 22 17:45:45 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: <3223c9cfb0d96cbe29e3a9343ee5adcb@lypanov.net> References: <3223c9cfb0d96cbe29e3a9343ee5adcb@lypanov.net> Message-ID: <20050222225334.GA22405@detroit.slack.net> * Alexander Kellett [2005-02-22 17:35]: > > i like > http://www.gentoo.org/images/wwwcontest/contest4_front.png > actually :) > Hmm... http://www.apple.com (valid points though!) -- ______________________________ toddgrimason*todd-AT-slack.net From blaumag at gmail.com Tue Feb 22 18:11:50 2005 From: blaumag at gmail.com (Michel Martens) Date: Tue Feb 22 18:08:02 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: <20050222225334.GA22405@detroit.slack.net> References: <3223c9cfb0d96cbe29e3a9343ee5adcb@lypanov.net> <20050222225334.GA22405@detroit.slack.net> Message-ID: <6a65064605022215117b44b158@mail.gmail.com> I know it will look better than how it sounds, but in my opinion the final redesign should feel and look more like a weblog than like a corporate website. The community now is not on ruby-lang, but on this list, on RedHanded, on LoudThinking, etc. I guess LoudThinking gets more hits than the Ruby on Rails weblog, mainly because the news are on the main page and that's what people like us always look for. Of course, on the same level of importance are "Brief description and Intro", "Language reference" and "Ruby download". I've written this with more details at http://vit.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl?RLOrgProjectGoals. On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 17:53:34 -0500, Todd Grimason wrote: > * Alexander Kellett [2005-02-22 17:35]: > > > > i like > > http://www.gentoo.org/images/wwwcontest/contest4_front.png > > actually :) > > > > Hmm... http://www.apple.com From hgs at dmu.ac.uk Tue Feb 22 18:24:59 2005 From: hgs at dmu.ac.uk (Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng) Date: Tue Feb 22 18:21:40 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Accessibility aspects of design. In-Reply-To: <421B8990.7090603@infofiend.com> References: <421B8990.7090603@infofiend.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 22 Feb 2005, Ben Giddings wrote: > Wow, you guys got off to a roaring start without me. That's great! > > I think accessibility should be a prime concern, and I'm really happy that Thank you. > the person raising the issue is someone who would actually use the > feature(s). I remember a long discussion in ruby-talk at one point about > using "captcha"-things to prevent wiki spam. One person mentioned he/she had > heard that blind people needed something else, and then a whole bunch of > people tried to design something for the theoretical "blind user", but no > blind users were ever asked for their opinions. People don't always identify themselves, and they can be hard to find. > > Hugh, what are some examples of sites that are well designed for someone who > likes reading with large font sizes? Do you like sites that have a "simple" I might have to get back to you on that. Basically, if you design a site without regard to font size, it will usually work. When you make widths and spacing explicit, it gets difficult. One of the things about multiple columns is getting screen readers to do the right thing. I've not played with any recently, but this was certainly a problem in the past, and people reading a 40 char braille display can have fun with that sort of thing, too. Especially if the rendering was done by a 'web by email' program which was written to show layout in plain ASCII. There are more ways to browse the web than one first thinks. > or "light" option, which is simply H1-H5 tags, HRs and paragraphs, or do you HTML 2 :-) Most of my pages are like that actually, though in HTML4. But I'm not trying to attract people, except in so far as I try to provide useful info. > still want the tables/columns etc. but designed so that they resize properly > when the font size is changed? In your view, can the presentation issue be Yes, things should just work. But there are so many browsers out there -- let's see: lynx, links, w3m, netrik , the old linemode browser, netscape 4 (I've not managed to build Mozilla Firefox on Solaris yet), plume, MMM [I think], and that's just what come to mind without searching. Some of these are OLD! > solved by CSS, or should there be a completely different rendering of the > site for people with low vision? It may be necessary to do both to cover everyone, but CSS should be the way to go. If you are familiar with "A list Apart" they have CSS "black belts" who can do wonderful things in a few lines. For heaven's sake generate both renderings automatically though, so they don't get out of synch. But with the Pragmatic Programmers' contributions to our lives, you knew that :-) > > I think this is related to the issue of multiple languages. In one case, you > have the same content rendered in two very different ways. In the other > case, you have different content rendered into very similar looking > templates. Because of this, I think it makes sense to try to address both > issues at once. Yes, I see your point, though the differing text directions can make this fun, I imagine. Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese... I'm still trying to understand how one is meant to use Unicode in Vim on Windows. > > Ben Hugh From todd at slack.net Tue Feb 22 18:38:25 2005 From: todd at slack.net (Todd Grimason) Date: Tue Feb 22 18:30:36 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] content refreshness or lack of [was Brainstorming] In-Reply-To: <6a65064605022215117b44b158@mail.gmail.com> References: <3223c9cfb0d96cbe29e3a9343ee5adcb@lypanov.net> <20050222225334.GA22405@detroit.slack.net> <6a65064605022215117b44b158@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050222233825.GB22405@detroit.slack.net> * Michel Martens [2005-02-22 18:16]: > I know it will look better than how it sounds, but in my opinion the > final redesign should feel and look more like a weblog than like a > corporate website. The community now is not on ruby-lang, but on this It seems like the options (besides 'boilerplate' like download, docs, etc.) are vaguely these three: 1) aggregator (of the distributed community, i.e. (mostly)ruby blogs, forge, etc.) 2) actively edited pointers to articles, ruby mentions, new apps built with ruby, etc., in addition to ruby releases and conferences, etc. 3) less often updates for "bigger" news, ie. conferences, new ruby releases and/or patches, etc. (like php.net) === First option is likely the least work on a daily or near-daily basis, but is chaotic and a bit too trusting methinks. You could end up with "I'm a new dad!" or something as the first entry (someone mis-categorizes something on their blog). Second obviously requires a fair bit of ongoing work - though if it was split up like a group blog, ie. slashdot, that would lower workload and (hopefully) keep it fresh. But this approach is high-maintenance - if postings start often then lag it looks dead. Third is probably in-between the other two for workload, and IMHO kind of what people would expect to see. I've never really gone back to perl or java sites in the past for anything but docs and/or downloads. I don't know that the 'official site' is really a place for chatty community stuff - pointers to it definitely - but maybe not a host for it. I think this is also the most realistic regarding the balance of resources, and making sure it doesn't look like an abandoned site (automated feeds of news and code will help too). Sorry if I've crushed any dreams. Well it's not my decision so I can influence the crushing of dreams but not actually do it. But that's my opinion for what it's worth (~3 cents) -- ______________________________ toddgrimason*todd-AT-slack.net From ruby-talk at whytheluckystiff.net Tue Feb 22 18:50:54 2005 From: ruby-talk at whytheluckystiff.net (why the lucky stiff) Date: Tue Feb 22 18:41:39 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: <421BA7D3.4060307@infofiend.com> References: <421BA7D3.4060307@infofiend.com> Message-ID: <20050222235054.GA92223@topi.cc> Ben Giddings (bg-rubytalk@infofiend.com) wrote: > > Ok, and here's a hard one: > * Give a reason for *us* to keep using the site > > I don't know about you folks, but I really have no reason to use the > Ruby site. > * I get Ruby from my distro > * I know to go to RAA or rubyforge for libs/apps > * I know to go to ruby-doc.org or rubycentral.com for API docs, or to > remember how to use something > * I have a whole set of other bookmarks for ruby-related things, few of > which point to ruby-lang.org, and few of which are linked to from > ruby-lang.org > > I think with a bit of effort we can consolidate a lot of this > information on the ruby-lang.org site. The benefit of this is that even > if you're just going there for the quick reference, you might see an > announcement about Instiki 3.0 and decide to check it out. > Yeah, totally. This and what Michel said about where the discussion is happening. This is the reason I generally don't announce software releases on RedHanded. Or anything you see on RWN. RedHanded normally centers around peculiarities, hacks, obscure references to rubyist lexicon, all that. I always envisioned ruby-lang.org covering all the mainstream stuff, that way RdHd doesn't go extinct. I think it would be cool if we had editors on the main site who weren't above inciting a hair of opinion and discussion. NOT concerning Ruby vs. Blank. AND NOT concerning techniques. More like: "Here's a new RCR of interest -- what do you think?" or "It's been a year or so since any extensions have been added to Ruby stdlib -- take any away or add any??" That sort of thing. _why From james.britt at gmail.com Tue Feb 22 19:15:07 2005 From: james.britt at gmail.com (James Britt) Date: Tue Feb 22 19:10:26 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: <6a65064605022215117b44b158@mail.gmail.com> References: <3223c9cfb0d96cbe29e3a9343ee5adcb@lypanov.net> <20050222225334.GA22405@detroit.slack.net> <6a65064605022215117b44b158@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <421BCB0B.80909@gmail.com> Michel Martens wrote: > I know it will look better than how it sounds, but in my opinion the > final redesign should feel and look more like a weblog than like a > corporate website. The look should be driven by the purpose; I don't see a real value in having the Ruby "home page" be or look like a blog. If there is a news item, I expect more people would read that section via an RSS feed than by actually visiting the site. > The community now is not on ruby-lang, but on this > list, on RedHanded, on LoudThinking, etc. What makes you think this? James From james.britt at gmail.com Tue Feb 22 19:32:57 2005 From: james.britt at gmail.com (James Britt) Date: Tue Feb 22 19:28:17 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: <421BA7D3.4060307@infofiend.com> References: <421BA7D3.4060307@infofiend.com> Message-ID: <421BCF39.1050908@gmail.com> > Curt Hibbs wrote: > >> - What should [it] be/do/look? > > * Make it easy to get and use Ruby * Be easy to maintain * Have room for growth * Focus on serving a well-defined target audience, not trying to be all things to all users * Serve more as a portal, referring users to more specialized resources, than be the Ruby uber-host * Look like what it is; rather than craft a look, first decide what the site's reason for being is, and let the look come out of that. James From blaumag at gmail.com Tue Feb 22 19:49:03 2005 From: blaumag at gmail.com (Michel Martens) Date: Tue Feb 22 19:45:14 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: <421BCB0B.80909@gmail.com> References: <3223c9cfb0d96cbe29e3a9343ee5adcb@lypanov.net> <20050222225334.GA22405@detroit.slack.net> <6a65064605022215117b44b158@mail.gmail.com> <421BCB0B.80909@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6a65064605022216492caf6e26@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 17:15:07 -0700, James Britt wrote: > The look should be driven by the purpose; I don't see a real value in > having the Ruby "home page" be or look like a blog. If there is a news > item, I expect more people would read that section via an RSS feed than > by actually visiting the site. The look should be driven by the purpose, I agree. My premise was "Why would I go to ruby-lang?", and I sketched some ideas on the wiki (http://vit.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl?RLOrgProjectGoals). Of course you can have different expectations based on your experience. About RSS: I'm subscribed to many feeds, including those from RedHanded, Loud Thinking, Too-Biased and Francis Hwangs site. In every case, I first discovered interesting content on their respective websites. The website precedes the syndication. I visit them often, because I also like to see the real thing. Again, this is my opinion, not an axiom. > > > The community now is not on ruby-lang, but on this > > list, on RedHanded, on LoudThinking, etc. > > What makes you think this? Among other things, this conversation. But don't get me wrong: I don't thing it would be a good idea to move everything there. Instead, my approach would be the opposite: paraphrasing the "Less Software" idea, I'm after "Less Information". Again, more on this is available at the wiki. Michel. From dblack at wobblini.net Tue Feb 22 20:51:57 2005 From: dblack at wobblini.net (David A. Black) Date: Tue Feb 22 20:48:10 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: <421BCF39.1050908@gmail.com> References: <421BA7D3.4060307@infofiend.com> <421BCF39.1050908@gmail.com> Message-ID: Hi -- On Tue, 22 Feb 2005, James Britt wrote: > >> Curt Hibbs wrote: >> >>> - What should [it] be/do/look? >> >> > > * Make it easy to get and use Ruby > > * Be easy to maintain > > * Have room for growth > > * Focus on serving a well-defined target audience, > not trying to be all things to all users > > * Serve more as a portal, referring users to more > specialized resources, than be the Ruby uber-host > > * Look like what it is; rather than craft a look, > first decide what the site's reason for being is, > and let the look come out of that. I agree strongly with all these points. David -- David A. Black dblack@wobblini.net From martindemello at gmail.com Tue Feb 22 21:38:33 2005 From: martindemello at gmail.com (Martin DeMello) Date: Tue Feb 22 21:34:50 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] content refreshness or lack of [was Brainstorming] In-Reply-To: <20050222233825.GB22405@detroit.slack.net> References: <3223c9cfb0d96cbe29e3a9343ee5adcb@lypanov.net> <20050222225334.GA22405@detroit.slack.net> <6a65064605022215117b44b158@mail.gmail.com> <20050222233825.GB22405@detroit.slack.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 18:38:25 -0500, Todd Grimason wrote: > > 3) less often updates for "bigger" news, ie. conferences, new ruby > releases and/or patches, etc. (like php.net) > > Third is probably in-between the other two for workload, and IMHO kind > of what people would expect to see. I've never really gone back to > perl or java sites in the past for anything but docs and/or > downloads. I don't know that the 'official site' is really a place for > chatty community stuff - pointers to it definitely - but maybe not a > host for it. I'd second this - I think the primary purposes of ruby-lang should be (i) A place for newcomers to get a good introduction to the language and (ii) The official site for ruby resources (sources, platform binaries, documentation, tutorials, advocacy material, faqs, 'real world ruby' stories, links to application repositories and the wiki, etc) martin From bg-rubytalk at infofiend.com Tue Feb 22 22:08:11 2005 From: bg-rubytalk at infofiend.com (Ben Giddings) Date: Tue Feb 22 22:04:57 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: <20050222235054.GA92223@topi.cc> References: <421BA7D3.4060307@infofiend.com> <20050222235054.GA92223@topi.cc> Message-ID: <18c277632eb572fd1b35da0afd3251d5@infofiend.com> On Feb 22, 2005, at 18:50, why the lucky stiff wrote: > I think it would be cool if we had editors on the main site who weren't > above inciting a hair of opinion and discussion. NOT concerning Ruby > vs. Blank. AND NOT concerning techniques. > > More like: "Here's a new RCR of interest -- what do you think?" or > "It's > been a year or so since any extensions have been added to Ruby stdlib > -- > take any away or add any??" > > That sort of thing. I think that would be great, and we could have a blog-like area, or at least a place where there are things to discuss -- on the other hand, I strongly think that the front page shouldn't be that blog. It should maybe have some (2 or 3) announcements or other newsy type things, but it should really be geared towards people who aren't yet part of the Ruby community. Why? If you're not part of the Ruby community, but have heard about this "Ruby" thing, you will probably go to ruby.org (and be sad) then you'll ask Google where to find Ruby and it will drop you at http://www.ruby-lang.org/ From there, you can discover what Ruby is. If you're a seasoned programmer, you can find the "Ruby for ___ programmers" link. If you're new to programming, you can find the "Gentle Intro to Ruby" link. Etc. On the other hand, if you're part of the Ruby community, you should have no trouble remembering that the Ruby weblog / announcements / hot projects page is actually at http://www.ruby-lang.org/news/ or http://news.ruby-lang.org/ or even http://news.ruby-lang.org/current-events/. Or you might remember that to get there you go to the main page, click on "What Is Ruby" then click on "Community". If you're just getting into Ruby, you may not know these URLs, but you'll probably be willing to spend a couple of minutes poking around the site until you find the "current events" or "news" section, and then you'll bookmark it. Either way, I don't think we should design the "splash page" (for lack of a better term) for ourselves. We should design it for people who end up there because they don't know where else to go. The added benefit of this approach is that if we all get busy, or something happens, and the current-events section doesn't get updated for a few months, the "splash page" won't look like an abandoned weblog. Ben From james.britt at gmail.com Wed Feb 23 00:02:37 2005 From: james.britt at gmail.com (James Britt) Date: Tue Feb 22 23:57:59 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: <6a65064605022216492caf6e26@mail.gmail.com> References: <3223c9cfb0d96cbe29e3a9343ee5adcb@lypanov.net> <20050222225334.GA22405@detroit.slack.net> <6a65064605022215117b44b158@mail.gmail.com> <421BCB0B.80909@gmail.com> <6a65064605022216492caf6e26@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <421C0E6D.6030007@gmail.com> Michel Martens wrote: > > >>>The community now is not on ruby-lang, but on this >>>list, on RedHanded, on LoudThinking, etc. >> >>What makes you think this? > > > Among other things, this conversation. Interesting. I get the feeling that vit is driven by a small but vocal group who were motivated, for various reasons, so band together and do something about ruby-lang.org. But I'm far from convinced that it represents anything approaching a community consensus. I don't have hard numbers, but the number of people reading ruby-talk has grown quite a bit (based on my recollection of some ruby-talk threads), and many, many people prefer (or only have time) to lurk. Of course, community consensus isn't needed to change ruby-lang.org, only the consent of those who run it. But I would hope that every reasonable effort is made to discover the true users of the site and find out what they want and expect. I know that this can be hard. I've made numerous solicitations for feedback on ruby-doc.org, but have not gotten anywhere near the response I would have preferred. However, based on what responses I have got, the opinion of the site is different from how some have recently characterized it. So some care should be taken that this group doesn't become too insulated and self-selecting. It is tempting to look at the particular communities one happens to inhabit and believe that this is where the action is. *A* community is now on this list, on RedHanded, on LoudThinking, etc. But not *the* community. And the people frequenting RedHanded, LoudThinking, and so on, really don't need a ruby-lang redesign; they already know their way around. It's all those people you never hear from who are the real audience. James From hgs at dmu.ac.uk Wed Feb 23 07:31:24 2005 From: hgs at dmu.ac.uk (Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng) Date: Wed Feb 23 07:27:43 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Accessibility aspects of design. In-Reply-To: <421B8990.7090603@infofiend.com> References: <421B8990.7090603@infofiend.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 22 Feb 2005, Ben Giddings wrote: > Hugh, what are some examples of sites that are well designed for someone who > likes reading with large font sizes? Do you like sites that have a "simple" A couple of examples, 'close to home' http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/ppbook/extracts/rule_list.html a striking example of more complicated layout that just works, though the whole of the site is accessible. I can't remember anything that stood out as not being accessible, anyway http://poignantguide.net/ruby/index.html works very well with large print. Only slight difficuly is the font choice for some parts -- e.g. on that page "Read This Paragraph" and the paragraph itself has rather small "leading" (vertical gaps between the lines) compared to what I'd expect, which makes it a bit more difficult to pick the word/letter shapes out. That may be more of a problem for (some kinds of) dyslexics, if I understand what dyslexics have told me. But generally the text flowing works very well even into the story, even with the sidebars. Tested with letters as tall as the width of my thumb (not wishing to scratch the screen with a proper measuring instrument!) bigger than I usually use. HTH Hugh From chneukirchen at gmail.com Wed Feb 23 07:14:57 2005 From: chneukirchen at gmail.com (Christian Neukirchen) Date: Wed Feb 23 07:58:13 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: <421BA7D3.4060307@infofiend.com> (Ben Giddings's message of "Tue, 22 Feb 2005 16:44:51 -0500") References: <421BA7D3.4060307@infofiend.com> Message-ID: Ben Giddings writes: > Curt Hibbs wrote: >> - What should [it] be/do/look? > > * Appeal to newcomers, and point them at the info they need/want quickly - Downloads - Pickaxe - Online RDoc - Links to various mailing lists, IRC channels, related websites/blogs - Upcoming Conferences? > * Promote hot projects (Ruby on Rails should promote Ruby, and Ruby > should promote RoR too) > * Contain an easy-to-find site map and search engine > * Have a few things I don't think exist yet: > * Ruby for (Perl|Python|PHP|C++) programmers Don't forget our java friends. :-) > * A taste of Ruby -- a 10-minute glimpse at the language that gives > a hint of the syntax, of what makes Ruby unique, etc > * Provide a way for people to find out what's new with Ruby without > having to join the mailing list RSS/Atom feeds are a must if you want people to come back. RWN should possibly get it's own ML and feeds. > * Have information in many presentations / languages so it is > accessible to everybody, even French-speaking PDA-users with limited > vision (not to pick on mes amis francais) Multilanguage is essential for better acceptance. > Ok, and here's a hard one: > * Give a reason for *us* to keep using the site > > I don't know about you folks, but I really have no reason to use the > Ruby site. > * I get Ruby from my distro > * I know to go to RAA or rubyforge for libs/apps > * I know to go to ruby-doc.org or rubycentral.com for API docs, or to > remember how to use something > * I have a whole set of other bookmarks for ruby-related things, few > of which point to ruby-lang.org, and few of which are linked to from > ruby-lang.org I have to admit it's quite the same here... most of the time I only refer newcomers to ruby-lang.org. I think ruby-lang.org should primarily made for newcomers to have them everything needed at a glance, but still stay useful to advanced users. (I dunno about other sites, but how often to hard-core pythonists or perlers go to their language site?) > I think with a bit of effort we can consolidate a lot of this > information on the ruby-lang.org site. The benefit of this is that > even if you're just going there for the quick reference, you might see > an announcement about Instiki 3.0 and decide to check it out. Maybe a planet.ruby-lang.org would be a nice thing to have for community building/binding, too. >> - What should it not be/do/look? > > * Limited number of links / text on the front page, so you're not > overwhelmed with options > * Not overly corporate-looking > * No ads, if at all possible > * No lingering old news from months ago (it makes Ruby seem stagnant) But provide archives, of course. > * Don't drive content away (i.e. if possible, get Ruby Weekly News > integrated into the site maybe through an RSS feed or something, > instead of sending people to the RWN page, that way once someone has > glanced at the news they can proceed with downloading Ruby rather > than having to hit "back" a few times first) See above about feeds. -- Christian Neukirchen http://chneukirchen.org From blaumag at gmail.com Wed Feb 23 08:12:07 2005 From: blaumag at gmail.com (Michel Martens) Date: Wed Feb 23 08:08:19 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: <421C0E6D.6030007@gmail.com> References: <3223c9cfb0d96cbe29e3a9343ee5adcb@lypanov.net> <20050222225334.GA22405@detroit.slack.net> <6a65064605022215117b44b158@mail.gmail.com> <421BCB0B.80909@gmail.com> <6a65064605022216492caf6e26@mail.gmail.com> <421C0E6D.6030007@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6a65064605022305122c19d253@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 22:02:37 -0700, James Britt wrote: > *A* community is now on this list, on RedHanded, on LoudThinking, etc. > But not *the* community. And the people frequenting RedHanded, > LoudThinking, and so on, really don't need a ruby-lang redesign; they > already know their way around. It's all those people you never hear > from who are the real audience. James, sorry to put it this way, but If you read what I wrote on the wiki, you already know that for the use case of "all those people you never hear from" I thought of me going to lua.org or haskell.org. I now what I look for when I want to learn a new language, so it was easy to write it down. You can do the same, write about why would you go to ruby-lang. The ruby-lang design looks to me a lot like a weblog (a bloated one). I first got there about a year ago, and I had not problems learning Ruby. It doesn't look like a website of a dead language even though there are roughly two posts each month. My proposal is not about moving ruby-lang to Blogger: I think of how would I like it to be and in my mind I see an accesible reference, a brief introduction, a download ruby link and news provided by people with great writing skills like matz, _why, etc. The newcomer will read the introduction, jump into the documentation if he liked what it saw, and maybe download Ruby. I would go there to check an updated version of the "Ruby Class and Library Reference" or to read matz or _why's thoughts. From dblack at wobblini.net Wed Feb 23 08:25:30 2005 From: dblack at wobblini.net (David A. Black) Date: Wed Feb 23 08:21:40 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] content refreshness or lack of [was Brainstorming] In-Reply-To: References: <3223c9cfb0d96cbe29e3a9343ee5adcb@lypanov.net> <20050222225334.GA22405@detroit.slack.net> <6a65064605022215117b44b158@mail.gmail.com> <20050222233825.GB22405@detroit.slack.net> Message-ID: Hi -- On Wed, 23 Feb 2005, Martin DeMello wrote: > On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 18:38:25 -0500, Todd Grimason wrote: >> >> 3) less often updates for "bigger" news, ie. conferences, new ruby >> releases and/or patches, etc. (like php.net) >> >> Third is probably in-between the other two for workload, and IMHO kind >> of what people would expect to see. I've never really gone back to >> perl or java sites in the past for anything but docs and/or >> downloads. I don't know that the 'official site' is really a place for >> chatty community stuff - pointers to it definitely - but maybe not a >> host for it. > > I'd second this - I think the primary purposes of ruby-lang should be > (i) A place for newcomers to get a good introduction to the language > and (ii) The official site for ruby resources (sources, platform > binaries, documentation, tutorials, advocacy material, faqs, 'real > world ruby' stories, links to application repositories and the wiki, > etc) I would be cautious about the centralization (physically) of resources, as well as about the notion of "official" resources. Physical centralization doesn't make sense for many things -- especially advocacy material, which should be as far-flung as possible, but also documentation and tutorials. (I can't think of any reason to go to the trouble of moving the online Pickaxe, Why's Poignant Guide, Chris Pine's "Programming through Ruby" site, etc., to a single server; it would just be busy-work). Similarly, things that are not on the ruby-lang.org server must not be cast in the role of second-rate or unimportant. This is where the notion of "official" materials can be counter-productive. The official site should point with pride and joy to the great things that have been done, and continue to be done, around the net on behalf of Ruby. The community has already outgrown -- or simply not bothered with -- a strict official/non-official division, particularly along server lines. In short, I'd describe it not as "the official site for Ruby resources", but as "the Ruby homepage, which includes some resources" -- leaving it open-ended. David -- David A. Black dblack@wobblini.net From james.britt at gmail.com Wed Feb 23 09:04:07 2005 From: james.britt at gmail.com (James Britt) Date: Wed Feb 23 08:59:27 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] Brainstorming In-Reply-To: <6a65064605022305122c19d253@mail.gmail.com> References: <3223c9cfb0d96cbe29e3a9343ee5adcb@lypanov.net> <20050222225334.GA22405@detroit.slack.net> <6a65064605022215117b44b158@mail.gmail.com> <421BCB0B.80909@gmail.com> <6a65064605022216492caf6e26@mail.gmail.com> <421C0E6D.6030007@gmail.com> <6a65064605022305122c19d253@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <421C8D57.3080809@gmail.com> Michel Martens wrote: > On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 22:02:37 -0700, James Britt wrote: > >>*A* community is now on this list, on RedHanded, on LoudThinking, etc. >>But not *the* community. And the people frequenting RedHanded, >>LoudThinking, and so on, really don't need a ruby-lang redesign; they >>already know their way around. It's all those people you never hear >>from who are the real audience. > > > James, sorry to put it this way, but If you read what I wrote on the > wiki, you already know that for the use case of "all those people you > never hear from" I thought of me going to lua.org or haskell.org. I > now what I look for when I want to learn a new language, so it was > easy to write it down. You can do the same, write about why would you > go to ruby-lang. I read that page. That's not quite what I was referring to. Yes, the newcomer is probably the critical target, but there are others, too, the many people who are not among the dozen or so posting on RedHanded or LoudThinking. When I read a post on this lists that assert, for example, "The idea of giving an official look, ruby-lang.org subdomains, or a common header to community sites has been brought up a lot.", I have to wonder. A lot? Hardly. Perhaps within a certain sub-group of Rubyists, but it's hardly been a frequent topic in the main. My concern is that there may be a narrow perspective overly influenced by those who just happen to be more vocal. The question "Why would you go to ruby-lang?" may have things backwards. It may be better to determine what resources the full Ruby community needs, and figure out where they should be. Then we'll have a better idea of what belongs on ruby-lang.org. Offhand, I would sort of expect to be able to go to ruby-lang.org and quickly find out where to download the latest version. But I would not think or want to go there to read quirky blog entries, even from matz. James From james.britt at gmail.com Wed Feb 23 09:07:06 2005 From: james.britt at gmail.com (James Britt) Date: Wed Feb 23 09:02:24 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] content refreshness or lack of [was Brainstorming] In-Reply-To: References: <3223c9cfb0d96cbe29e3a9343ee5adcb@lypanov.net> <20050222225334.GA22405@detroit.slack.net> <6a65064605022215117b44b158@mail.gmail.com> <20050222233825.GB22405@detroit.slack.net> Message-ID: <421C8E0A.1020807@gmail.com> David A. Black wrote: > > > I would be cautious about the centralization (physically) of > resources, as well as about the notion of "official" resources. > Physical centralization doesn't make sense for many things -- > especially advocacy material, which should be as far-flung as > possible, but also documentation and tutorials. (I can't think of any > reason to go to the trouble of moving the online Pickaxe, Why's > Poignant Guide, Chris Pine's "Programming through Ruby" site, etc., to > a single server; it would just be busy-work). > > Similarly, things that are not on the ruby-lang.org server must not be > cast in the role of second-rate or unimportant. This is where the > notion of "official" materials can be counter-productive. The > official site should point with pride and joy to the great things that > have been done, and continue to be done, around the net on behalf of > Ruby. The community has already outgrown -- or simply not bothered > with -- a strict official/non-official division, particularly along > server lines. > > In short, I'd describe it not as "the official site for Ruby > resources", but as "the Ruby homepage, which includes some resources" > -- leaving it open-ended. Well put. James From bg-rubytalk at infofiend.com Wed Feb 23 10:02:18 2005 From: bg-rubytalk at infofiend.com (Ben Giddings) Date: Wed Feb 23 09:58:47 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] content refreshness or lack of [was Brainstorming] In-Reply-To: References: <3223c9cfb0d96cbe29e3a9343ee5adcb@lypanov.net> <20050222225334.GA22405@detroit.slack.net> <6a65064605022215117b44b158@mail.gmail.com> <20050222233825.GB22405@detroit.slack.net> Message-ID: <5aeedd7078e85f462ec894cafebac04f@infofiend.com> On Feb 23, 2005, at 08:25, David A. Black wrote: > I would be cautious about the centralization (physically) of > resources, as well as about the notion of "official" resources. > Physical centralization doesn't make sense for many things -- > especially advocacy material, which should be as far-flung as > possible, but also documentation and tutorials. (I can't think of any > reason to go to the trouble of moving the online Pickaxe, Why's > Poignant Guide, Chris Pine's "Programming through Ruby" site, etc., to > a single server; it would just be busy-work). > > Similarly, things that are not on the ruby-lang.org server must not be > cast in the role of second-rate or unimportant. This is where the > notion of "official" materials can be counter-productive. The > official site should point with pride and joy to the great things that > have been done, and continue to be done, around the net on behalf of > Ruby. The community has already outgrown -- or simply not bothered > with -- a strict official/non-official division, particularly along > server lines. > > In short, I'd describe it not as "the official site for Ruby > resources", but as "the Ruby homepage, which includes some resources" > -- leaving it open-ended. Ok, but would you agree that there are certain resources that really do belong on the Ruby homepage? I really think that certain things *need* to be there, like the Ruby API and standard library docs. They're one of the first things a newcomer to the language would want to see, and if they're not on the Ruby homepage and up-to-date, a newcomer might not believe they're official. Sure, not everything Ruby-related needs to go on ruby-lang.org, but I think there should be more there than there is now. There should be at least enough to convince people that Ruby should be taken seriously. Newcomers shouldn't *need* to go elsewhere to find important resources. Ben From hgs at dmu.ac.uk Wed Feb 23 10:07:30 2005 From: hgs at dmu.ac.uk (Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng) Date: Wed Feb 23 10:06:30 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] content refreshness or lack of [was Brainstorming] In-Reply-To: <421C8E0A.1020807@gmail.com> References: <3223c9cfb0d96cbe29e3a9343ee5adcb@lypanov.net> <20050222225334.GA22405@detroit.slack.net> <6a65064605022215117b44b158@mail.gmail.com> <20050222233825.GB22405@detroit.slack.net> <421C8E0A.1020807@gmail.com> Message-ID: What should it contain?
    <% ruby_sites.sort_by{|x| x.date}.reverse.each{|site| %>
  • <%= site.title %> [<% site.date %>]
    • <% } %>
i.e a list of sites sorted by last update, most recent first. ISTR ruby-lang used to have a page like this. Hugh From james.britt at gmail.com Wed Feb 23 10:32:17 2005 From: james.britt at gmail.com (James Britt) Date: Wed Feb 23 10:35:18 2005 Subject: [Vit-discuss] content refreshness or lack of [was Brainstorming] In-Reply-To: References: <3223c9cfb0d96cbe29e3a9343ee5adcb@lypanov.net> <20050222225334.GA22405@detroit.slack.net> <6a65064605022215117b44b158@mail.gmail.com> <20050222233825.GB22405@detroit.slack.net>