|
| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +layout: post |
| 3 | +title: "A new look for rust-lang.org" |
| 4 | +author: The Rust Core Team |
| 5 | +--- |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +Before 1.0, Rust had a reputation for changing the language on a near-daily |
| 8 | +basis. By contrast, the website has looked pretty much the same. Here’s the |
| 9 | +first version of rust-lang.org, seven years ago (courtesy of [the WayBack |
| 10 | +Machine](https://web.archive.org/)): |
| 11 | + |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | + |
| 14 | +In 2014, three years later: |
| 15 | + |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | + |
| 18 | +If you visit <https://rust-lang.org> today, you'll see this: |
| 19 | + |
| 20 | + |
| 21 | + |
| 22 | +Over time, we’ve grown to love it. It’s simple. Minimal. Familiar. |
| 23 | + |
| 24 | +## Improving the content |
| 25 | + |
| 26 | +But we can always do better. For example, the website suffers from what we |
| 27 | +call “the fireflower problem.” First formulated by [Kathy |
| 28 | +Sierra](http://seriouspony.com/), and made into an image by Samuel Hulick: |
| 29 | + |
| 30 | + |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +We want Mario to use Rust, the fireflower, and turn into the ever-awesome |
| 33 | +Fire Mario. But there’s a corollary here: it’s better to say “we will make |
| 34 | +you into Fire Mario” than it is “we sell fire flowers.” |
| 35 | + |
| 36 | +(As an aside, we had a [community discussion on this |
| 37 | +topic](https://brson.github.io/fireflowers/) back in 2016.) |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | +In other words, this list: |
| 40 | + |
| 41 | +- zero-cost abstractions |
| 42 | +- move semantics |
| 43 | +- guaranteed memory safety |
| 44 | +- threads without data races |
| 45 | +- trait-based generics |
| 46 | +- pattern matching |
| 47 | +- type inference |
| 48 | +- minimal runtime |
| 49 | +- efficient C bindings |
| 50 | + |
| 51 | +doesn’t explain what you can *do* with Rust, which leads people to say “Rust |
| 52 | +seems neat, but I don’t know what I would actually use it for.” |
| 53 | + |
| 54 | +## Improving the style |
| 55 | + |
| 56 | +We also like the minimalist style of the current site, but it also may be |
| 57 | +*too* minimal. Furthermore, it has no room to grow; we have more than just |
| 58 | +rust-lang.org these days. We wanted a style that we could use to unify all of |
| 59 | +the websites that we maintain in the Rust project; crates.io being a big one. |
| 60 | +Its “pool table” design feels extremely different than rust-lang.org, which |
| 61 | +is confusing. |
| 62 | + |
| 63 | +Doing this requires care, as we don’t want to make the website huge and |
| 64 | +complicated, but at the same time, using more than black and blue might be |
| 65 | +nice. |
| 66 | + |
| 67 | +## The beta |
| 68 | + |
| 69 | +Today, we’d like to announce a beta of the new rust-lang.org. If you go to |
| 70 | +<https://beta.rust-lang.org>, you’ll see this: |
| 71 | + |
| 72 | + |
| 73 | + |
| 74 | +Its fresh visual design gives us a lot more flexibility in how we get |
| 75 | +information across. It retains the minimalist spirit of the old site, while |
| 76 | +adding some bold color and visual variety. |
| 77 | + |
| 78 | +We hope you like it as much as we do! |
| 79 | + |
| 80 | +### Some highlights |
| 81 | + |
| 82 | +The new site puts the “why Rust?” question front-and-center, and includes |
| 83 | +dedicated pages for the four application domains we targeted in 2018: |
| 84 | + |
| 85 | +- Embedded devices |
| 86 | +- WebAssembly |
| 87 | +- CLI apps |
| 88 | +- Network services |
| 89 | + |
| 90 | +We have also revised the slogan. Historically, it has been: |
| 91 | + |
| 92 | +> Rust is a systems programming language that runs blazingly fast, prevents |
| 93 | +> segfaults, and guarantees thread safety. |
| 94 | +
|
| 95 | +Like the bullet list of features, this doesn't convey what you can *do* with |
| 96 | +Rust. So we've updated the slogan: |
| 97 | + |
| 98 | +> Rust: The programming language that empowers everyone to become a systems |
| 99 | +> programmer. |
| 100 | +
|
| 101 | +We're still not sure we love the term "systems programming," as it seems like |
| 102 | +it means something different to everyone, but this iteration is significantly |
| 103 | +better than the old one. Even if people have different ideas about what |
| 104 | +"systems programming" means, they at least have some idea. "guarantees thread |
| 105 | +safety," not so much. |
| 106 | + |
| 107 | +## Future work |
| 108 | + |
| 109 | +There’s still more work to do: |
| 110 | + |
| 111 | +- Some information on the old site, has not yet been ported over. |
| 112 | +- Translations have regressed. We’re working on adding the proper |
| 113 | + infrastructure here, and hope to be able to start accepting translations by |
| 114 | + the end of the year. |
| 115 | +- We need more polish and testing in a general sense. |
| 116 | + |
| 117 | +Please [file an |
| 118 | +issue](https://github.com/rust-lang/beta.rust-lang.org/issues/new) with any |
| 119 | +feedback you have! We’re also looking for people with abilities of all kinds |
| 120 | +to help maintain the site, and especially people with design, CSS, and |
| 121 | +marketing skills. If you’d like to get involved, please [email |
| 122 | +us](mailto:www@rust-lang.org)! |
| 123 | + |
| 124 | +We’d like to ship this new site on December 6, with the release of Rust 2018. |
| 125 | +Thank you for giving it a try before then, so we can work out any bugs we |
| 126 | +find! |
0 commit comments