Re: fortran.com web site

dpb <none@xxxxxxx> wrote:

viper-2 wrote:
...
Before you're persuaded by the utility though, you need to be
attracted to the site. When I found fortran.com a couple months ago,
the site seemed to square with my then (incorrect) perception that
there was little excitement about a language on its way out.

Maybe not flash dpb, but the site could use a facelift!
...
I guess it depends on whether one is attract by glitter or
utility/content.
...
As Gary says, where's the payback to the site owner to justify the
cost/effort?

And where is the skill to do such a facelift? Just saying that it needs
one doesn't help and can well be counterproductive.

I have lots of experience over almost 4 decades of seeing what many
people did to even text, as in those old-fashioned book things, to help
to try to give it a "facelift". Almost invariably, a big mistake that
amateurs in typesetting make is to use too many fonts and styles. It
makes their documents garish and hard to read. Typesetting professionals
are familiar with this. This isn't new to the web. I get the impression
that it wasn't new in the typesetting business 4 decades ago when I
first started learning about such things.

That's about the kind of thing you are likely to get if you just tell
someone to jazz up their web site. Unless they are actually skilled in
the artristry of such things, that's likely to get translated into
distracting clutter. If they were skilled in such things, likely they
already would have done it. So I conclude that there isn't much benefit,
and likely more harm, in just saying to jazz up the site, unless it
comes with an offer to actually do it (and then the site owner would
have to deal with the question of whether he trusted the offerrer's
judgement).

Hiring out such things professionally is no guarantee of quality work
either. There seem to be a lot of people who take some course in how to
put lots of fancy glitter on a web site and then try to hire themselves
out as web designers. They don't necessarily have a clue about how to
design something that actually is attractive, but they know how to add
all kinds of flourishes and figure that the more they add, the more it
must be worth.

P.S. I know I'm no good at such things. I'll claim it to be a good point
that at least I know my limitations in this area.

--
Richard Maine | Good judgment comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgment.
domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: MY SEPTEMBER SPEAKING SCHEDULE
    ... I'd say that one word you need to be sure to include is that 3-letter one starting with s and ending in x (trying not to attract people searching for the word) ... course, you already have business cards to hand out, right? ... which I figured out after downloading free software to ... My new Home of the Red Fox web site ...
    (sci.med.transcription)
  • Re: MSDN
    ... Build both an installable product and a web site that do what MSDN was ... Attract enough traffic so that Microsoft will notice ...
    (microsoft.public.vc.mfc)
  • Re: c++ programming evironment
    ... version that he can download for free if he digs through the MSDN ... web site. ... They do, from time to time, have such things to attract ...
    (Fedora)
  • PHP Classifieds
    ... AJ Classifieds empowers your online community with effective tools to ... attract and retain more visitors to your web site. ...
    (alt.php)
  • Classified Software
    ... AJ Classifieds empowers your online community with effective tools to ... attract and retain more visitors to your web site. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)