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digitalmars.D - Download page needs a tidy up

reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> writes:
So I'm trying to find windows binaries for GDC and LDC...

First place I look is dlang.org/download. Appears to be for DMD... keep
looking.

I look at the GDC/LDC wiki pages. No links to binaries anywhere.
GDC and LDC home pages... no links to binaries.
Github doesn't host binaries anymore...

Where are they?

Turns out there are links to the GDC binaries (hosted on bitbucket) on
dlang.org/download.
...I didn't previously notice they were there, never scrolled down far
enough. The impression you get from the top of the page is that
dlang.orgis just DMD related, and I quickly dismissed it previously

_<


But there's still no LDC binary there... where is it?

This needs to be fixed. You can argue I'm retarded and ignorant, but as an
end user, it should take me no more than 5 seconds to find the download
button.

I suggest, on the front page of dlang.org, there should be a MASSIVE
button: "DOWNLOAD D COMPILERS", and the download page should be tweaked to
be more obviously compiler agnostic.

D1 and DMC consume an unreasonable amount of realestate, hiding GDC/LDC
(surely basically nobody is looking for those?), perhaps they should be
reduced to small test links with the other links down the bottom of the
page?
This will allow room to present GDC and LDC without scrolling.

And why is there no LDC binary?
Aug 21 2013
next sibling parent reply "Brad Anderson" <eco gnuk.net> writes:
On Thursday, 22 August 2013 at 03:07:39 UTC, Manu wrote:

 So I'm trying to find windows binaries for GDC and LDC...

 First place I look is dlang.org/download. Appears to be for 
 DMD... keep
 looking.

 I look at the GDC/LDC wiki pages. No links to binaries anywhere.
 GDC and LDC home pages... no links to binaries.
 Github doesn't host binaries anymore...

 Where are they?

 Turns out there are links to the GDC binaries (hosted on 
 bitbucket) on
 dlang.org/download.
 ...I didn't previously notice they were there, never scrolled 
 down far
 enough. The impression you get from the top of the page is that
 dlang.orgis just DMD related, and I quickly dismissed it 
 previously

_<


 But there's still no LDC binary there... where is it?

 This needs to be fixed. You can argue I'm retarded and 
 ignorant, but as an
 end user, it should take me no more than 5 seconds to find the 
 download
 button.

 I suggest, on the front page of dlang.org, there should be a 
 MASSIVE
 button: "DOWNLOAD D COMPILERS", and the download page should be 
 tweaked to
 be more obviously compiler agnostic.

 D1 and DMC consume an unreasonable amount of realestate, hiding 
 GDC/LDC
 (surely basically nobody is looking for those?), perhaps they 
 should be
 reduced to small test links with the other links down the 
 bottom of the
 page?
 This will allow room to present GDC and LDC without scrolling.

 And why is there no LDC binary?


I tried to fix some of these problems here[1].  Maybe someone can 
take what I did and fix it up enough to be used.

1. https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dlang.org/pull/304
Aug 21 2013
parent reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> writes:
On 22 August 2013 13:18, Brad Anderson <eco gnuk.net> wrote:


 On Thursday, 22 August 2013 at 03:07:39 UTC, Manu wrote:


 So I'm trying to find windows binaries for GDC and LDC...

 First place I look is dlang.org/download. Appears to be for DMD... keep
 looking.

 I look at the GDC/LDC wiki pages. No links to binaries anywhere.
 GDC and LDC home pages... no links to binaries.
 Github doesn't host binaries anymore...

 Where are they?

 Turns out there are links to the GDC binaries (hosted on bitbucket) on
 dlang.org/download.
 ...I didn't previously notice they were there, never scrolled down far
 enough. The impression you get from the top of the page is that
 dlang.orgis just DMD related, and I quickly dismissed it previously

  _<


 But there's still no LDC binary there... where is it?

 This needs to be fixed. You can argue I'm retarded and ignorant, but as an
 end user, it should take me no more than 5 seconds to find the download
 button.

 I suggest, on the front page of dlang.org, there should be a MASSIVE
 button: "DOWNLOAD D COMPILERS", and the download page should be tweaked to
 be more obviously compiler agnostic.

 D1 and DMC consume an unreasonable amount of realestate, hiding GDC/LDC
 (surely basically nobody is looking for those?), perhaps they should be
 reduced to small test links with the other links down the bottom of the
 page?
 This will allow room to present GDC and LDC without scrolling.

 And why is there no LDC binary?


 I tried to fix some of these problems here[1].  Maybe someone can take
 what I did and fix it up enough to be used.

 1. https://github.com/D-**Programming-Language/dlang.**org/pull/304<https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dlang.org/pull/304>


Definitely an improvement!
Although if I were to be critical, I'd say when scrolling the page, I find
the almost random layout of the bright red buttons scattered all over the
place to be rather overwhelming.

I was also briefly confused by the 32bit/64bit scattered everywhere. My
initial assumption was that it specified the toolchain's target
architecture :/
But since it's the compiler's host arch, I'd say that for Windows where
32bit binaries will run on any version of windows and no 64bit binary is
offered, and OSX which has only ever been 64bit, there's no need to write
it for those platforms. It's just confusing.



 Aug 21 2013



 next sibling parent reply "Tyler Jameson Little" <beatgammit gmail.com>  writes:


On Thursday, 22 August 2013 at 03:33:38 UTC, Manu wrote:

 On 22 August 2013 13:18, Brad Anderson <eco gnuk.net> wrote:


 On Thursday, 22 August 2013 at 03:07:39 UTC, Manu wrote:


 So I'm trying to find windows binaries for GDC and LDC...

 First place I look is dlang.org/download. Appears to be for 
 DMD... keep
 looking.

 I look at the GDC/LDC wiki pages. No links to binaries 
 anywhere.
 GDC and LDC home pages... no links to binaries.
 Github doesn't host binaries anymore...

 Where are they?

 Turns out there are links to the GDC binaries (hosted on 
 bitbucket) on
 dlang.org/download.
 ...I didn't previously notice they were there, never scrolled 
 down far
 enough. The impression you get from the top of the page is 
 that
 dlang.orgis just DMD related, and I quickly dismissed it 
 previously

  _<


 But there's still no LDC binary there... where is it?

 This needs to be fixed. You can argue I'm retarded and 
 ignorant, but as an
 end user, it should take me no more than 5 seconds to find 
 the download
 button.

 I suggest, on the front page of dlang.org, there should be a 
 MASSIVE
 button: "DOWNLOAD D COMPILERS", and the download page should 
 be tweaked to
 be more obviously compiler agnostic.

 D1 and DMC consume an unreasonable amount of realestate, 
 hiding GDC/LDC
 (surely basically nobody is looking for those?), perhaps they 
 should be
 reduced to small test links with the other links down the 
 bottom of the
 page?
 This will allow room to present GDC and LDC without scrolling.

 And why is there no LDC binary?


 I tried to fix some of these problems here[1].  Maybe someone 
 can take
 what I did and fix it up enough to be used.

 1. 
 https://github.com/D-**Programming-Language/dlang.**org/pull/304<https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dlang.org/pull/304>


 Definitely an improvement!
 Although if I were to be critical, I'd say when scrolling the 
 page, I find
 the almost random layout of the bright red buttons scattered 
 all over the
 place to be rather overwhelming.

 I was also briefly confused by the 32bit/64bit scattered 
 everywhere. My
 initial assumption was that it specified the toolchain's target
 architecture :/
 But since it's the compiler's host arch, I'd say that for 
 Windows where
 32bit binaries will run on any version of windows and no 64bit 
 binary is
 offered, and OSX which has only ever been 64bit, there's no 
 need to write
 it for those platforms. It's just confusing.


Why not sniff the platform? I think Firefox & Dart websites do 
this. This can be retrieved with navigator.platform: 
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/window.navigator.platform

Of course, the others should be easily accessible.



 Aug 21 2013



  parent reply Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com>  writes:


On 2013-08-22 06:28, Tyler Jameson Little wrote:


 Why not sniff the platform? I think Firefox & Dart websites do this.
 This can be retrieved with navigator.platform:
 https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/window.navigator.platform

 Of course, the others should be easily accessible.


Or just using the user agent, since it has to work on all major browsers.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg



 Aug 22 2013



  parent  "Tyler Jameson Little" <beatgammit gmail.com>  writes:


On Thursday, 22 August 2013 at 07:34:09 UTC, Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 On 2013-08-22 06:28, Tyler Jameson Little wrote:


 Why not sniff the platform? I think Firefox & Dart websites do 
 this.
 This can be retrieved with navigator.platform:
 https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/window.navigator.platform

 Of course, the others should be easily accessible.


 Or just using the user agent, since it has to work on all major 
 browsers.


Right, and doing it server-side would allow users with JS 
disabled to still be supported.

Any support for this would be miles ahead of the current 
situation.



 Aug 22 2013



prev sibling  parent reply Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com>  writes:


On 2013-08-22 05:33, Manu wrote:


 I was also briefly confused by the 32bit/64bit scattered everywhere. My
 initial assumption was that it specified the toolchain's target
 architecture :/
 But since it's the compiler's host arch, I'd say that for Windows where
 32bit binaries will run on any version of windows and no 64bit binary is
 offered, and OSX which has only ever been 64bit, there's no need to
 write it for those platforms. It's just confusing.


The architecture are basically never mentioned for Mac OS X downloads. 
Because everyone assumes universal binaries that will work everywhere.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg



 Aug 22 2013



  parent reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>  writes:


On 22 August 2013 17:33, Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> wrote:


 On 2013-08-22 05:33, Manu wrote:

  I was also briefly confused by the 32bit/64bit scattered everywhere. My

 initial assumption was that it specified the toolchain's target
 architecture :/
 But since it's the compiler's host arch, I'd say that for Windows where
 32bit binaries will run on any version of windows and no 64bit binary is
 offered, and OSX which has only ever been 64bit, there's no need to
 write it for those platforms. It's just confusing.


 The architecture are basically never mentioned for Mac OS X downloads.
 Because everyone assumes universal binaries that will work everywhere.



... what?
Isn't that what I just said?
Did you actually look at Brad's page upgrade?



 Aug 22 2013



  parent  Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com>  writes:


On 2013-08-22 16:01, Manu wrote:


 ... what?
 Isn't that what I just said?
 Did you actually look at Brad's page upgrade?


No, you said it doesn't need to be mentioned since it's only been 
released as 64bit. I was referring to, that in general, most open source 
projects, like D, don't mention the architecture for Mac OS X. Either 
it's a universal binary working on all platforms or it's a 32bit binary, 
works everywhere as well, or it's a 64bit binary because all Mac these 
days can run 64bit binaries.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg



 Aug 22 2013



prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Tyler Jameson Little" <beatgammit gmail.com>  writes:


On Thursday, 22 August 2013 at 03:07:39 UTC, Manu wrote:

 So I'm trying to find windows binaries for GDC and LDC...

 First place I look is dlang.org/download. Appears to be for 
 DMD... keep
 looking.

 I look at the GDC/LDC wiki pages. No links to binaries anywhere.
 GDC and LDC home pages... no links to binaries.
 Github doesn't host binaries anymore...

 Where are they?

 Turns out there are links to the GDC binaries (hosted on 
 bitbucket) on
 dlang.org/download.
 ...I didn't previously notice they were there, never scrolled 
 down far
 enough. The impression you get from the top of the page is that
 dlang.orgis just DMD related, and I quickly dismissed it 
 previously

_<




Also, where's the Linux (FreeBSD?, Mac OS X?) downloads for GDC? 
I get it through my package manager, but it seems there should be 
a download for it as well. If not a binary, then at least a 
tar.gz...


 But there's still no LDC binary there... where is it?

 This needs to be fixed. You can argue I'm retarded and 
 ignorant, but as an
 end user, it should take me no more than 5 seconds to find the 
 download
 button.


Agreed. Some may not be as persistent as you...


 I suggest, on the front page of dlang.org, there should be a 
 MASSIVE
 button: "DOWNLOAD D COMPILERS", and the download page should be 
 tweaked to
 be more obviously compiler agnostic.


I'm not too sure about this. DMD is the reference compiler, so 
people should be using that for learning, then graduate to GDC or 
LDC if they need something faster.


 D1 and DMC consume an unreasonable amount of realestate, hiding 
 GDC/LDC
 (surely basically nobody is looking for those?), perhaps they 
 should be
 reduced to small test links with the other links down the 
 bottom of the
 page?
 This will allow room to present GDC and LDC without scrolling.


+1

Do we really want D1 compilers that easily accessable? I assume 
everyone relying on them already has a copy, and even if they 
need another, they can click on an "Archive" link or something...


 And why is there no LDC binary?





 Aug 21 2013



 next sibling parent  Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>  writes:


On 22 August 2013 13:37, Tyler Jameson Little <beatgammit gmail.com> wrote:


 On Thursday, 22 August 2013 at 03:07:39 UTC, Manu wrote:


 But there's still no LDC binary there... where is it?



 This needs to be fixed. You can argue I'm retarded and ignorant, but as an
 end user, it should take me no more than 5 seconds to find the download
 button.


 Agreed. Some may not be as persistent as you...



Most, I'd imagine. Especially if they're a new user (the most important
kind!) who don't have a vested interest in D.


 I suggest, on the front page of dlang.org, there should be a MASSIVE

 button: "DOWNLOAD D COMPILERS", and the download page should be tweaked to
 be more obviously compiler agnostic.


 I'm not too sure about this. DMD is the reference compiler, so people
 should be using that for learning, then graduate to GDC or LDC if they need
 something faster.



So put it first, but the others should be visible.
The other compilers need to be used. How will people find/report bugs if
they don't use them?

I've also heard many argue that LDC should be the reference compiler. And
I'm inclined to agree.
Either way, they need prominent placement so people know they exist, and
they get tested.



 Aug 21 2013



prev sibling next sibling parent  Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com>  writes:


On 2013-08-22 05:37, Tyler Jameson Little wrote:


 Also, where's the Linux (FreeBSD?, Mac OS X?) downloads for GDC? I get
 it through my package manager, but it seems there should be a download
 for it as well. If not a binary, then at least a tar.gz...


I don't think there have ever been any self contained packages for Posix 
with binaries for GDC.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg



 Aug 22 2013



prev sibling  parent  "Wyatt" <wyatt.epp gmail.com>  writes:


On Thursday, 22 August 2013 at 03:38:26 UTC, Tyler Jameson Little 
wrote:

 Do we really want D1 compilers that easily accessable?


Considering D1 has an entire site of its own[0], why are they 
even there?  Move them to where they belong with a BIG RED BANNER 
saying they're EOL and an "are you sure you want this?" 
confirmation to download them.

-Wyatt

[0] http://www.digitalmars.com/d/1.0/



 Aug 22 2013



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com>  writes:


On 2013-08-22 05:07, Manu wrote:


 Where are they?

 Turns out there are links to the GDC binaries (hosted on bitbucket) on
 dlang.org/download <http://dlang.org/download>.
 ...I didn't previously notice they were there, never scrolled down far
 enough. The impression you get from the top of the page is that
 dlang.org <http://dlang.org> is just DMD related, and I quickly
 dismissed it previously >_<


I had no idea there were GDC binaries on http://dlang.org/download.html


 But there's still no LDC binary there... where is it?


I don't know if they were recently added but they are below the GDC 
binaries.


 This needs to be fixed. You can argue I'm retarded and ignorant, but as
 an end user, it should take me no more than 5 seconds to find the
 download button.

 I suggest, on the front page of dlang.org <http://dlang.org>, there
 should be a MASSIVE button: "DOWNLOAD D COMPILERS", and the download
 page should be tweaked to be more obviously compiler agnostic.


I agree. At the top, of the download page there should be three buttons, 
one for each compiler. Then JavaScript should be used to figure out the 
platform. Of course we need a fallback for when JavaScript is disabled 
or one wants to download for a different platform.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg



 Aug 22 2013



  parent reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>  writes:


On 22 August 2013 17:32, Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> wrote:


 On 2013-08-22 05:07, Manu wrote:

 But there's still no LDC binary there... where is it?


 I don't know if they were recently added but they are below the GDC
 binaries.


Can't see any. I can only see binaries for platforms that nobody uses ;)



 Aug 22 2013



  parent  Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com>  writes:


On 2013-08-22 16:04, Manu wrote:


 Can't see any. I can only see binaries for platforms that nobody uses ;)


I didn't see you mention any platform in the post I replied to ;)

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg



 Aug 22 2013



prev sibling  parent reply "David Nadlinger" <code klickverbot.at>  writes:


On Thursday, 22 August 2013 at 03:07:39 UTC, Manu wrote:

 And why is there no LDC binary?


There are links to the LDC Linux/OS X binaries on the dlang.org 
download page.

As for the Windows/MinGW32 binaries, the last LDC release does 
officially include them (see the release announcement), but the 
MinGW port is still very much in an alpha/beta state.

For example, there is still at least one wrong-code issues with 
80 bit reals, and the test suite does not completely pass yet. 
Somewhat contrary to GDC, in case of LDC there are actual 
released versions that are guaranteed to be stable to a certain 
extent (i.e. the test suite passes on all relevant systems, …), 
and I was afraid that prematurely advertising the relatively 
fresh MinGW port would draw a wrong picture of the overall 
quality.

As the GDC/MinGW binaries are probably not more stable either, 
though, yet are linked on the dlang.org download page, I guess we 
should add the LDC MinGW link to the page as well, if maybe 
qualified with an "experimental" note.

Another issue is that a fairly recent mingw-w64 snapshot is 
needed in addition to the LDC download for GCC (linker, 
libraries). Older ones don't have my necessary fixes yet, and I 
don't know if they have made it into the "original" MinGW 
(without -w64) project yet. What would be the best way to add 
this to the/a download page?

In any case, you are right, the wiki.dlang.org/LDC "landing page" 
definitely needs to be either replaced with a proper homepage 
with download link auto-detection, …, or at least reorganized in 
such a way that the most important links for  new users, users 
wanting to report bugs/… as well as developers are clearly 
presented at the top (the first link in the "Getting Started" 
section would have been what you were looking for).

David



 Aug 22 2013



 next sibling parent  Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>  writes:


On 23 August 2013 07:49, David Nadlinger <code klickverbot.at> wrote:


 On Thursday, 22 August 2013 at 03:07:39 UTC, Manu wrote:


 And why is there no LDC binary?


 There are links to the LDC Linux/OS X binaries on the dlang.org download
 page.

 As for the Windows/MinGW32 binaries, the last LDC release does officially
 include them (see the release announcement), but the MinGW port is still
 very much in an alpha/beta state.


Oh okay. Well it would definitely be worth writing that somewhere.
I knew it worked (more-or-less) on Windows, I've built it from source
before and created working code. But last time I used it there was still no
Win64 exceptions.
My thread is really about the experience as an end-user trying to get a
working compiler; It shouldn't be hard.

For example, there is still at least one wrong-code issues with 80 bit

 reals, and the test suite does not completely pass yet. Somewhat contrary
 to GDC, in case of LDC there are actual released versions that are
 guaranteed to be stable to a certain extent (i.e. the test suite passes o=


n

 all relevant systems, =E2=80=A6), and I was afraid that prematurely adver=


tising the

 relatively fresh MinGW port would draw a wrong picture of the overall
 quality.


I think people would appreciate this, but it's probably worth writing this
clearly on the download page.
A binary marked very clearly as alpha/beta, and perhaps a list of known
issues might be nice for end users to access at a glance.

As the GDC/MinGW binaries are probably not more stable either, though, yet

 are linked on the dlang.org download page, I guess we should add the LDC
 MinGW link to the page as well, if maybe qualified with an "experimental"
 note.


Mmm.
Well, I can't make the GDC binaries work at all... there are missing
dependencies.

Another issue is that a fairly recent mingw-w64 snapshot is needed in

 addition to the LDC download for GCC (linker, libraries). Older ones don'=


t

 have my necessary fixes yet, and I don't know if they have made it into t=


he

 "original" MinGW (without -w64) project yet. What would be the best way t=


o

 add this to the/a download page?


Would it be better to produce a distribution package that includes the
working mingw snapshot? It's quite annoying when a distro package has
dependencies.
I think Windows end-users aren't used to meticulous versioning like Linux
users. Things like version numbers are rarely in the paths/filenames. The
result of this is, they might already have a mingw on their system that
they presume is fine (or don't know is fine), or may be reluctant to
install another instance of a package they already have, thinking it's
basically the same.
Putting everything in the one package sounds more fool-proof to me.

Just a thought that might be convenient for users would be if LDC and GDC
collaborated on a single complete mingw package that included both GDC and
LDC compilers... Perhaps annoying to maintain/coordinate, but I'd say at
this point, most users will end out with both toolchains on their system
anyway, and when you have multiple mingw installations on a machine, the
PATH variable get's kinda awkward.



 Aug 22 2013



prev sibling  parent  Manu <turkeyman gmail.com>  writes:


On 23 August 2013 10:05, Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> wrote:


 On 23 August 2013 07:49, David Nadlinger <code klickverbot.at> wrote:


 On Thursday, 22 August 2013 at 03:07:39 UTC, Manu wrote:


 And why is there no LDC binary?


 There are links to the LDC Linux/OS X binaries on the dlang.org download
 page.

 As for the Windows/MinGW32 binaries, the last LDC release does officially
 include them (see the release announcement), but the MinGW port is still
 very much in an alpha/beta state.


 Oh okay. Well it would definitely be worth writing that somewhere.


And by 'somewhere', I mean, somewhere along the standard download path:
dlang.org -> dlang.org/download.html -> ??? .. and probably at the very top
of the wiki where it's impossible to miss.
Forum posts/blogs probably aren't the best location for critical end-user
facing information :)



 Aug 22 2013