Things that need fixing in the new Squeak Website [Was [squeak-dev] [ANN] The Squeak Website]

Best,

Fabio

On Sat, Jul 4, 2015 at 4:49 PM Eliot Miranda <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi Both,

   first and foremost warm congratulations and deep thanks; this is truly lovely and communicative.  It looks great.

Here are a few things I think really need fixing:

1. Features.  The Features page /must/ have a More... link that links to Projects.  The current page can give the mis-impression that the only application-oriented feature is support for Web Development.  But the Projects page is rich with more features, and the More... link will reach it quickly and is in keeping with the More... links on the front page.

2. "interpreting" in "There are several fast Squeak VMs that also support other languages of the Smalltalk family. Meta-tracing, just-in-time compilation, stack-to-register mapping, and aggressive in-line message caching yield efficiency in interpreting Smalltalk byte code." must read "executing".  The VM doesn't interpret Smalltalk code most of the time.

3,  One project glaring in its absence from the Projects page is:

    "VMMaker

     The framework for creating the virtual machine.  This is a Smalltalk program called the simulator that is used to develop the VM using the full power of the IDE, and a Smalltalk-to-C or Smalltalk-to-JavaScript translator that produces the sources for the production VM.  So even the VM is implemented in Smalltalk!"

I would use the Cog Squeak VM icon for this: http://squeak.org/img/dev/interpreter.png

Alternatively, if you want to keep this on the Development page, "Build Your Own VM" needs to come first, stating that all the other projects, Cog, SqueakJS, Interpreter VM etc are variations on VMMaker.  I think the VMMaker paragraph shoudl read

    "Build Your Own VM

     VMMaker allows any programmer to develop a customized virtual machine for any platform.  VMMaker comprises the VM simulator that is used to develop the VM using the full power of the IDE, and a Smalltalk-to-C or Smalltalk-to-JavaScript translator that produces the sources for the production VM."

Here are some quibbles.  Personally I find the "It's Smalltalk!" paragraph is missing one of the most essential things, that the system is implemented in itself.  So I would either extend it to read something like

    "Everything is an object. Objects collaborate by exchanging messages to achieve the desired application behavior. The Smalltalk programming language has a concise syntax and simple execution semantics. The Smalltalk system is implemented in itself, the compiler, debugger, programming tools and so on being Smalltalk code the user can read and modify.  Novice programmers can get started easily and experts can engineer elegant solutions at large."

or I would add a new subsection in Features that states

    "It's Smalltalk All The Way Down!

    Typical dynamic language implementations hide key components such as the compiler in the virtual machine.  Smalltalk is different; it implements everything except the execution engine in the system itself. The compiler, the class system, the exception system, the programming tools are all Smalltalk and can be read and extended by the programmer.  Smalltalk is truly an open system.  Smalltalk supports developing one's own programming tools as one programs; it really is a meta-programming system!"

and have it displace the Fast Virtual Machine section, which can happily live on the Features page.

Another quibble is that Lively, Frank and arguably Newspeak aren't Squeak projects.  They're systems in their own right and one can't merely load them into Squeak.  They either use Squeak as an implementation vehicle, in Newspeak's case rendering the original system non-functional, or they are hosted on an entirely different platform.  I wonder if they would work better in a Related Projects section.  I would also have a link to Pharo as a sibling system with a different philosophy.

Finally another quibble is that Terf isn't described as being a version of Croquet oriented to wrads business communication.  

Wow, I /love/ this new site.  Thank you so much!

On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 5:40 AM, Tobias Pape <[hidden email]> wrote:

Dear Smalltalkers

I am pleased to announce new look of the Squeak Website

        http://squeak.org

Personally, I want to thank Fabio Niephaus, who invested a lot
of effort into the new site.

Within the next week, the source for the site should be arrive
at our github organization[1] so that changes can be easily done
via pull requests.

Best regards
        -Tobias


[1]: https://github.com/squeak-smalltalk/

--

best,

Eliot