[m-rev.] for review: About page on new web site (two patches)

Paul Bone paul at bone.id.au
Mon Apr 29 16:42:08 AEST 2013


On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 04:00:44PM +1000, Peter Wang wrote:
> From 87320c2fd48796c44b88797b545c3b73b665a683 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Peter Wang <novalazy at gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:27:08 +1000
> Subject: [PATCH 1/2] Replace top-level About page by "features" page.
> 
> The About page contained placeholder text from Wikipedia.  When I tried
> to rewrite it, I only ended up reiterating the same points as on the
> features page.  Move the features page up to the top-level.
> 
> The introductory paragraph is different, and more or less lifted from
> Mercury papers.  It says Prolog once instead of three times.

Thanks, I started to make a similar change on the weekend and then gave up
when I decided I really just wanted to replace the wikipedia text.

> diff --git a/include/about.inc b/include/about.inc
> index 2d520de..8f666a1 100644
> --- a/include/about.inc
> +++ b/include/about.inc

> +	<p>
> +	Mercury handles dynamic data structures not through Prolog's
> +	assert/retract but by providing several abstract data types in
> +	the standard Mercury library that manage collections of items
> +	with different operations and tradeoffs.
> +	</p>

I suggest avoiding the unnecessary comparison to Prolog.  Most people
comming to the website arn't going to be farmiliar with Prolog anyway (they
might have heard of it and been forced to use it, but that will be all).


> +	</li>
> +
> +	<li>
> +	<h3>
> +	Mercury is a strongly typed language.
> +	</h3>
> +	<p>
> +	Mercury's type system is based on many-sorted logic with parametric polymorphism, very
> +	similar to the type systems of modern functional languages such
> +	as ML and Haskell. Programmers must declare the types they need
> +	using declarations such as
> +	</p>

I'd try to 'dumb this down' a bit too.  I don't know myself what a
many-sorted logic is.  I do know what DU-types are.

> +The Mercury compiler compiles Mercury programs to C, which it uses as a
> +portable assembler. The system can exploit some GNU C extensions to the
> +C language, if they are available: the ability to declare global
> +register variables, the ability to take the addresses of labels, and
> +the ability to use inline assembler. Using these extensions, it
> +generates code that is significantly better than all previous Prolog
> +systems known to us. However, the system does not need these
> +extensions, and will work in their absence.
>  </p>

"...the system does not need these extensions, it will work in their
absence"

Consider using the <code/> tag for the code samples (as well as pre).

> 
> From 82f3d300c43f41d530e6a72c50d1aff94b2289b2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Peter Wang <novalazy at gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:33:16 +1000
> Subject: [PATCH 2/2] Rename About "overview" page to "motivation".
> 
> about/include/motivation.inc:
> about/motivation.php:
> include/menubar.inc:
> 	As above.
> ---
>  about/include/motivation.inc |  111 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  about/include/overview.inc   |  111 ------------------------------------------
>  about/motivation.php         |   10 ++++
>  about/overview.php           |   10 ----
>  include/menubar.inc          |    4 +-
>  5 files changed, 123 insertions(+), 123 deletions(-)
>  create mode 100644 about/include/motivation.inc
>  delete mode 100644 about/include/overview.inc
>  create mode 100644 about/motivation.php
>  delete mode 100644 about/overview.php
> 

This whole change is fine.  I certainly agree with the spirit of both
changes.

Thanks.


-- 
Paul Bone
http://www.bone.id.au



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