update 2: Am I the only one to want a (js based client side) repl + tutorial and side docs as the basis of any language website ? the new layout is a bit lighter than the old, but it looks like they're selling cookies. Sorry to be ranty.
I'm of the belief that you should reveal as little information as possible regarding your web stack. This alone indicates that they're running Django, although that could probably could have been guessed pretty easily considering it is Python.org . Also, from a security perspective, I would prefer to have the admin site only accessible from an internal network, perhaps on a subdomain, and require people to use a VPN to make any sort of admin changes.
He's not saying you should rely solely on obscurity for security. He's saying that, in addition to other basic security precautions, the use of obscurity is a good idea. The less a potential attacker knows, the better.
The reason for serving the admin under a non standard URL is rather to get rid of requests issued by robots who are not clever enough to realize it's open source. It's similar to not having your SSH server listening on port 22, which is a pretty common thing to do. Shouldn't be relied on for security, but it declutters log files.
It couldn't hurt, but you shouldn't have to rely on obscurity. Then again it's Python's home page, so it'd be pretty easy to guess that it's probably using Django (especially now that it supports 3). Also it's kind of a dick move to maliciously attack a project as beneficial as Python.
One comment: As the main feature goes between code examples, the box grows. This makes the rest of the page jump around - which is frustrating if the viewer happens to be reading it or clicking links.
The link in the middle of the page goes to jobs.python.org which doesn't exist. Chrome's "Did you mean" recommends python.org/jobs/ but that gives a pretty looking 404 at least.
Yeah, they've got a whole lot crammed in there. I remember this being something a lot of people were complaining about when the PSF asked for feedback a number of months ago.
The individual UI components look fine, but I agree it's a bit too crowded. Though to be quite honest I don't care how the site looks, Python is awesome regardless.
Completely agree. Probably they started with something much simpler, and different people demanded that more essentials were added until it became a bit cluttered, but it's very hard to take things out once they are there.
If I had any criticism it would be this - leading with the code is great, but there are too many menus and too many choices.
Design is often an Achilles' heel of software projects, because if a project is very good, some people tend to think that design is irrelevant because people will still use it. And sometimes they do, but it probably scares a good number of people off.
It's good to see an exception of this rule. They probably needed to hire a professional designer to make this happen, but it was worth it.
In point of fact two companies were the primary contractors for the redesign of python.org, but since I am no longer in the loop I will commend you to wait for an upcoming PSF blog post that will give the details. Design was indeed a major input to the project.
IMO (as a designer), they definitely did. There are a few little niggling issues that catch my eye, like the menus looking like they are too low down because of the line above being light, and below being dark (they should be up 1px IMO), but otherwise it doesn't look bad.
You may not like what they've come up with, but this is not amateur work. That's not to say I love it or don't think it can be improved, but it bears all the hallmarks of a design which has gone through several designers along with a lot of stakeholders adding in what they see as essentials and perhaps making the design messier than it was originally. Getting agreement on these things is sometimes hard, and if lots of people are involved, it can lead to a slightly cluttered feel, esp. on a home page.
I do think it's refreshing that they lead with code samples, that's a really nice idea, and overall think it is looking pretty good (esp. compared to the previous site).
If anything they need to pare it back some more and let the essentials speak rather than cluttering it with too much information, but I don't think I'd describe it as amateur, and if you're going to do so, you should make a far more substantial critique to explain what you consider professional to be.
And thet day has finally come, first php.net and now python.org. But the site although looks nicer, is just too much in my face and my lazyness just make me leave it before even think to explore it.
I also had to go to preview.python.org to see this.
My first impression was very favourable. The design is clean and well implemented for the most part.
The menu design is quite effective, except that most of the first panel, under About, seems like low priority background information that won't interest most visitors. I would have thought promoting the material on getting started, and on major areas like downloads and documentation, would be the highest priorities here.
I tend to think having basic code examples high up on a programming language's home page is a good thing, and I like the general idea here. However, if it were me I'd move away from the automatic switching to something with manual controls to cycle through the examples. As others have noted, the content below keeps moving, along with all the usual problems that make carousels a bad idea.
It's a shame they're still using the Flux font in places. I get that it's traditional, but it's simply not a very good font, and it brings an amateurish feel to an otherwise very professional-looking page.
Please track issues with the samples / etc here: https://github.com/proevo/pythondotorg it's all open source and I will be moving it to the official python org tonight
It's shaping up nicely. I appreciate it's a responsive design, but please consider the code example slideshow is broken on resize. Also, consider increasing spacing, the content is too crammed below the header.
I thought I'd find a ton of comments about how awful it is, surprised. More than one part of the page strained my eyes to read. The code samples and success stories are the worst. Websites are made to be read, if you make that hard you've failed at design. Needs to be a lot simpler. If this stuff was fixed it'd be awesome though
Yep, I wasn't able to get to everything. I had to update a ton of the content via the Django admin without a source checkout (which is now available), so I couldn't grep for placeholder text. We'll get it all straightened out.
Thanks for not making it all flat like thousands of other sites these days. But it could use a site wide nitpicking by an anal graphic designer to tweak things like typography, margin, spacing, alignment. Things are not quite perfect.
My exact thoughts too - "thank god, a site redesign that doesn't think a colour gradient is the devil". I like the philosophy of 'digitally authentic', but that doesn't lock you into being flat. Can't wait for that fad to be over.
126 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 214 ms ] thread>>> from __future__ import division
present http://web.archive.org/web/20140219035142/http://python.org/
past http://web.archive.org/web/20131130224018/http://python.org/
update : http://preview.python.org/ in case you see the old
update 2: Am I the only one to want a (js based client side) repl + tutorial and side docs as the basis of any language website ? the new layout is a bit lighter than the old, but it looks like they're selling cookies. Sorry to be ranty.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5389656
VPN and the like would be nice but not hardly required.
Also, does Ruby's official site run on rails?
One comment: As the main feature goes between code examples, the box grows. This makes the rest of the page jump around - which is frustrating if the viewer happens to be reading it or clicking links.
I guess that got ignored.
The bottom of the page is pretty wacky, in particular: http://i.imgur.com/jZ6bUZu.png
If I had any criticism it would be this - leading with the code is great, but there are too many menus and too many choices.
It's good to see an exception of this rule. They probably needed to hire a professional designer to make this happen, but it was worth it.
Indeed.
You may not like what they've come up with, but this is not amateur work. That's not to say I love it or don't think it can be improved, but it bears all the hallmarks of a design which has gone through several designers along with a lot of stakeholders adding in what they see as essentials and perhaps making the design messier than it was originally. Getting agreement on these things is sometimes hard, and if lots of people are involved, it can lead to a slightly cluttered feel, esp. on a home page.
I do think it's refreshing that they lead with code samples, that's a really nice idea, and overall think it is looking pretty good (esp. compared to the previous site).
If anything they need to pare it back some more and let the essentials speak rather than cluttering it with too much information, but I don't think I'd describe it as amateur, and if you're going to do so, you should make a far more substantial critique to explain what you consider professional to be.
Colours and fonts are better, but there's too much detail on the homepage imho.
Include what platform you are using, what version of what browser and which specific icons look like what.
My first impression was very favourable. The design is clean and well implemented for the most part.
The menu design is quite effective, except that most of the first panel, under About, seems like low priority background information that won't interest most visitors. I would have thought promoting the material on getting started, and on major areas like downloads and documentation, would be the highest priorities here.
I tend to think having basic code examples high up on a programming language's home page is a good thing, and I like the general idea here. However, if it were me I'd move away from the automatic switching to something with manual controls to cycle through the examples. As others have noted, the content below keeps moving, along with all the usual problems that make carousels a bad idea.
It's a shame they're still using the Flux font in places. I get that it's traditional, but it's simply not a very good font, and it brings an amateurish feel to an otherwise very professional-looking page.
http://i.imgur.com/fvYGWvi.png
I love the new site.
Great design, with only minor issues.