

Why Are Programming Languages Sites So Ugly? - sgdesign
http://sachagreif.com/why-programming-languages-sites-are-ugly/

======
olalonde
> [...] PHP is an old language [...] More modern languages like Python or Ruby
> have somewhat decent sites.

Just a nitpick but PHP (1995) is not older than Ruby (1995) or Python (1991).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_(programming_language)>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language)>

------
hermanhermitage
I think its in the eye of the beholder.

The Go site looks fine to me, whilst <https://github.com/404> is downright
ugly.

EDIT: I notice how the OP link is a horrid design too. This has to be a troll.

~~~
sgdesign
Would love to know what's so horrid about my site's design.

~~~
hermanhermitage
Hopefully you'll ignore my opinion - its all in the eye of the beholder from
my perspective :) (The basis of that not being UX - thanks to whomever raised
that random distraction, but about Beauty / Ugliness as cited in your
headline).

You aren't going to please everyone all the time, and certainly your design
gets a reaction from me.

My assessment is made in the context of you assessing other designs - hoist
with your own petard if you will. This heightens the situation - that is I'd
expect an exemplary design on a page willing to comment on others.

The number one turn off for me would be the choice of font. It certainly comes
of as playful and dare I comment on Mark's work (for I shall) - I do not think
that quality of font is suitable for body text. No it's not in the comic sans
league, but it evokes unpleasant sensations. This could be the font itself or
font rendering on Chrome on the Mac. Quite frankly I find it horrid.

Next for me is the typographical structure. The spacing is aggressive and
draws attention to the font - which is undesirable for me given my reaction to
the font. All your headings have what appears to be the same amount of white
space above and below. It feels rather generic and rushed.

Finally the elements on the right hand side are too dominant for my liking and
draw focus away from the article. Perhaps as they contain advertising material
that is the intent. But it doesn't do much for me.

Take it all with a grain of salt, I think it was Keith Richards who had a
comment about opinions being like... :)

------
anigbrowl
They're a reflection of the people who create them (rimshot).

Honestly, I blame Unix/Gnu (<http://www.gnu.org/>). Most programmers are
command-line oriented and think GUIs are a distraction. It doesn't bother them
that most newbies have no means of discovering features absent menus and
suchlike, and that means design takes a backseat on their websites too.

I personally thought the go website was a lot better than most; at least it's
(semantically) accessible, even if it's cartoonish.

~~~
k3n
I agree with you, and would add that the precursor to the modern full-featured
browser-based WWW was a CLI-based web (Lynx et. all), whereby the only means
of formatting text were akin to what you get out of a word processor
(linebreaks, bold, italics, etc.).

Also, most programmers (like those making the languages) aren't designers, and
when they try to be, very bad things can happen[1]. Could they hire a
designer? Probably not, seeing as most of those projects are FOSS, and the
maintainers get paid nothing for their efforts.

There's also the fact that the maintainers of those languages, and likely a
majority of the users, would prefer development efforts be focused on the
language itself and not its website.

[1] [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/11/this-is-what-
happen...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/11/this-is-what-happens-when-
you-let-developers-create-ui.html)

------
Detrus
The current Go homepage is surprisingly good functionally and aesthetically.
PHP, Clojure, Haskell sites look like monolithic corporate website templates
aesthetically.

The main problem is with the author who can't appreciate good design when it
doesn't fit his trendy aesthetic sensibilities.

------
archgoon
What are the problems with Go's website? If the website appeals to the target
audience, than it's designed correctly.

~~~
sgdesign
Maybe the problem is precisely the target audience. The current site only
appeals to a very specific kind of people.

~~~
archgoon
Let me rephrase:

What are some specific objections that you have with the Go website?

~~~
sgdesign
If you can't compare the Go site and, say, <http://git-scm.com/> and see which
one is better designed, then I don't think anything I can say will change your
mind. It's just a general feeling, specific objections are not important. But
here are a few anyway:

-There is no logo to establish a brand identity

\- The mascot looks amateurish

\- There is no thought given to typograph or colors. Contrast this with the
Git site where, for example, body copy is not pure black to avoid a harsh
contrast.

\- The documentation uses a fluid width layout which hurts readability on wide
screens

~~~
simanyay
Why don't you link to git-scm circa 2009 (when Git started getting popular):
[http://web.archive.org/web/20090303081943/http://git-
scm.com...](http://web.archive.org/web/20090303081943/http://git-scm.com/) No
brand identity? Mascot (or whatever it is in the header) looks amateurish? No
thought given ot typograph? And somehow Git managed to kick everyone's ass.
Here's a hint how: by being better than all other version control systems and
not by having the prettiest website.

~~~
minikomi
I love the old git site to be honest. Less eye candy but far more direct in
achieving what it does. Hard to knock the domo-kun-esque mascot - with a
"you'll get it when you're ready" in-joke to boot.

------
zalew
> Having the PHP site in your design portfolio would open doors with a lot of
> people.

That's true for beginners with a weak portfolio. Experienced ones don't care
about php, they have commercial projects in there.

> Plus, a lot of designers are already spending their time working for free
> anyway. If you don’t believe me, just look at the number of Instagram
> redesigns or iTunes icons on Dribbble.

Hey, let's try to find a programmer who will code your website for free. Lots
of them do stuff for free anyway, just look on github and bitbucket.

Now seriously (I am aware there are a lot of generalizations in there, but I
think they are not far from the most common):

The thing is, just like coders publish opensource, designers publish icons and
redux because it's their cause, their branch, their market. And just like you
wouldn't code a random designer's project while publishing lots of libraries
for other programmers, he won't design yours while publishing fonts and icons
elswhere to prove something.

Second, while programming in commitee works (in general), webdesign by
commitee doesn't and always results in crap. And experienced designers have
the 'my way or the highway' approach anyway.

Third, most designers just don't get opensource quite well, while most
opensource gurus just don't get design quite well. The former ones don't feel
why they should do it, the latter ones don't feel the need to make use of the
ones who would even if they are there.

If a designer finds a programmer who will work for free, 99% chance he's very
unexperienced. The same comes to getting a designer for free.

ps. let's see how the Django redesign works out
[https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/django-
de...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/django-
developers/2Xy7SZAOc7E)

~~~
sgdesign
I would love to prove you wrong, so let's hope somebody contacts me to
redesign their site through this article.

~~~
zalew
It would be even better if you started up a trend of designers making cool
websites for opensource projects, for free. A gang of opensource designers,
that's an awesome idea.

I'm really surprised reading a lot of comments about not seeing what's wrong
with php or golang sites. Ugh.

------
twog
Sacha,

If you are interested, I would love to team up with you to contribute an open
source design and I will do the markup. As a developer, I have long hated the
design of many sites. After the awesome redesign of <http://git-scm.com/> I
wanted to make contribute another design to one of the terrible OSS sites that
are out there. What do you say, are you interested in teaming up?

~~~
twog
My portfolio is at <http://twogiraffes.com>

------
halefx
Just FYI, PHP has had a redesign in the works for a long time.
<http://prototype.php.net/>

~~~
sgdesign
Much nicer!

------
Alexandervn
It's not about being "ugly" and needing help to become "beautiful". It's what
you are trying to tell people.

Partly, it's a good thing if these sites look a bit amateurish, because they
should look grassroots. It should look like: wow, I can join this. It should
look authentic.

A nice example of this is www.drupal.org (where you can join) versus
www.drupal.com (where you should "buy").

The new Git website is very nice. But is also a very mature project. It
doesn't need help from thousands of people. It needs a lot of consumers and
maybe some brilliant minds to share their ideas.

What the Go website tells: this is a very young project (not even a logo), we
have some backing from Google (hence the name and the colours), we have
something good (by calling it "easy" and "reliable"), but we could need your
help (by still calling it "The Project") and you might want to _try_ (look you
can even try it top-left on our homepage) this if you are curious and want to
have fun (see our goofy, eye-rolling, mascot).

------
k3n
It's like an unwritten maxim: the more technical a site is, the more basic its
design. A corollary might be: the more in-demand (famous) a person is, the
more basic their site will be.

Here's some "homepages" from programming gurus:

Dennis Ritchie: <http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/>

Brian Kernighan: <http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/>

Bjarne Stroustrup: <http://www.stroustrup.com/>

Richard Stallman: <http://stallman.org/>

~~~
minikomi
Don't forget <http://norvig.com/>

~~~
k3n
Hah, yes, there's tons out there.

------
luriel
I think the main Go site could be improved, but i quite like the new version
of the Go tour:

<http://tour.golang.org>

------
melvinmt
Sorry, your active link colors distracted me. What were you saying?

Ergo, I can't be bothered to look at funny 404 cartoons when I'm trying to
read documentation.

~~~
saiko-chriskun
active link colors distracted you? what? so.. you don't use syntax
highlighting in your editor?

and what exactly does a 404 page have to do with a page with actual content.

------
the_cat_kittles
It kind of reflects the aesthetic of the given language itself, to some
degree- for instance, <http://docs.python-requests.org/en/latest/index.html>
<http://flask.pocoo.org/> both seem clean in the way python is, visually.

~~~
yen223
That website for Requests to me is a great example that you don't have to
choose between being beautiful and being functional.

~~~
kenneth_reitz
<3

------
geoka9
There's another reason, I think.

Making a site look fashionable (and web design is really like the clothes
industry in that sense) will require the authors to revisit it avery year or
so, whenever the design fad du jour changes.

While black text on white background is like jeans and t-shirts - not too hip,
but always acceptable.

------
laumars
What a stupid article. Looking pretty is far less important than being
functional. And his site is the perfect example of that; it looked pretty, but
the content only took up a 50% column of the total viewable space (and that's
without having my browser window set to full screen). His site would be
terrible for productivity driven sites like PHP's manual.

Also I reject his premiss that language sites need to be pretty to attract
developers. You pick a language based on it's suitability for a project, not
whether it has lashes of CSS3 and bespoke type-faces. To even suggest
otherwise is painfully superficial.

There's an old adage: less is more. And I think that's very true when
discussing sites that are designed to serve content rather than sell content.

------
maratd
> PHP is an old language, a relic of a bygone era!

> And there’s some truth to this.

> More modern languages like Python or Ruby have somewhat decent sites.

Ruby and Python were both around way before PHP. Get your story straight, Mr.
Hater.

~~~
sgdesign
I'm confused if you're accusing me of hating on PHP, or Ruby & Python, or all
of them. In any case I'm sure you know what I mean, there's clearly a move
away from PHP and towards Ruby & Python, at least in these parts.

~~~
ChiperSoft
Ruby & Python are growing, but not at the cost of PHP. New developers are
choosing non-PHP languages when moving into the market.

------
ChiperSoft
How can you give the PHP site a hard time for looking old and then praise
Python's modified WikiMedia layout?

The point of all of these sites is to maximize functionality and make language
information easy to get at. All that maters is UX, graphical niceties don't
improve on that, and no one serious about learning a new language is really
going to be dissuaded by "ugliness".

But the real answer to the title question is simple: They're made by
programmers, not designers.

~~~
yen223
PHP's main page is a good example of how _not_ to design a main page.

\- The first thing the user sees is a _massive_ wall of text. The whole site
looks visually cluttered. Everything is arranged haphazardly.

\- The more useful parts (e.g. the introduction, documentation links, download
links) are hidden away in small corners of the site.

\- The relatively useless Events and News sections take up >80% of the site.

Python's site looks slightly better, but not by much.

~~~
Akram
Because the best way to browse the enormous PHP site is via Google search.
Type in your query and Google will point you to the specific page you are
looking for.

~~~
ryankey
The PHP site doesn't need a massive facelift, but honestly, this is actually a
bit of a problem. The site is basically just a hosting of the resources
already, why not make it easier to find things from inside the site?

------
freestylesno
I think a big part of it has to do with the fact that a lot of the people
using the languages are engineers or like minded people.

------
samrat
I think the Python Software Foundation was asking for redesign proposals for
the Python site a while ago; so we might see some improvements for the Python
site. I don't find the Python site particularly ugly, but I think the docs
could improve a lot. Same goes for a lot of other python frameworks that use
the default Sphinx template.

------
Akram
Design is irrelevant when it comes to programing sites. We programmers want to
get straight to the code and some times design becomes a distraction. I have
no issues with the Go site and even the PHP site. It is great until I can
quickly find what I'm looking for.

~~~
frechg
If the design is a distraction then it is bad design. Good design would help
you easily and happily "get straight to the code".

------
geoka9
Because they contain documentation and have to be fast and readable. While
modern web-design, it seems, is bent on creating slow sites with barely
readable gray letters on off-white backgrounds.

------
sgdesign
Note: this post was inspired by this discussion on the Go thread yesterday:
<http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=4548144>

------
labizaboffle
A lot of Ruby sites are nice, like:
<http://guides.rubyonrails.org/getting_started.html>

------
simanyay
Look at this site: <http://kernel.org/> Design is plain, the mascot looks
amateurish, there is no logo to establish brand identity. They don't know how
to sell anything, this will never catch on.

~~~
sgdesign
Perfect example of a strawman argument. Nobody said that bad design was
preventing something from catching on at all. I said that good design would
_help_ something catch on.

~~~
simanyay
Except that you did:

> I know you pretend like you don’t care, but I’m sure that down deep you’re
> wondering why NodeJS is getting all the attention instead of you.

------
Daniel_Newby
But! but! but! Django has a pony!!!

<http://djangopony.com/>

~~~
zalew
the actual django page is being redesigned
[https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/django-
de...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/django-
developers/2Xy7SZAOc7E)

