Continuing the discussion happened on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16878675
I think some of the other sites you linked are great examples.
So move the elevator pitch for Clojurescript to the top of the page. “Clojurescript is a compiler for Clojure that targets Javascript” is an explanation technically, but you might want to write something more about why you’d use Clojurescript.
For example, the first words you see on Elm’s site are “A delightful language for reliable webapps.”. So you’d use Elm to make webapps, and it should be enjoyable to use. Ruby says “A dynamic, open source programming language with a focus on simplicity and productivity. It has an elegant syntax that is natural to read and easy to write.” Note how none of these focus on how the language is implemented; most users don’t care. The language could have a compiler written in Brainfuck to compile to Lua, but that’s all under the hood.
So write a sentence or two about why a programmer would choose Clojurescript for a task. What kinds of things does Clojurescript do well?
Also, I’d suggest motivating the snippets the way Elm does, where the user isn’t left guessing why a snippet is there. It’s explicitly explained.
I’m not a native English Speaker and I need some help… need some sentences for http://clojure-script.org/ .
ClojureScript is a robust, practical, and fast programming language with a set of useful features that together form a simple, coherent, and powerful tool.
I’m not sure what you plan to add over the standard clojurescript.org.
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The word “beginners” may not be quite right to focus on. The Elm and Ruby examples are elevator pitches, not necessarily targeted to a beginner programmer or a beginning ClojureScripter. The audience is “people who don’t know what ClojureScript is”, but who have either twenty years experience in webdev and are interested in trying CLJS, or who have ten years experience in C and are trying to figure out what CLJS is, or who are middle managers who will never write code and want to know more about their stack.
The official site seems to already have a nice elevator pitch for ClojureScript:
ClojureScript is a robust, practical, and fast programming language with a set of useful features that together form a simple, coherent, and powerful tool.
The design of the official clojurescript.org catches the eye with that high-level explanation of why you’d want to use it. It only switches to a technical description in the body text:
ClojureScript is a compiler for Clojure that targets JavaScript. It emits JavaScript code which is compatible with the advanced compilation mode of the Google Closure optimizing compiler.
I wouldn’t suggest using the same phrase as the official site. Perhaps the audience you’re aiming for would do well with something similar but shorter.
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Adjectives is good at telling new comers what ClojureScript is. Lots of things can fit them. Thus it’s not a good choice in my case.
Not the biggest fan of the official one, too many fluff words, seems like it could be used to describe any programming language equally.
What about:
ClojureScript is an elegant language for a more civilised age. It brings interactive development, functional programming, immutability, and meta-programming to the world of Web and Node development.
Current version… I’m trying to make it short:
ClojureScript is a dialect of the Lisp and a general-purpose language with an emphasis on functional programming, that runs on JavaScript.
How about:
ClojureScript is a modern, functional & immutable data-oriented language with a great standard library that compiles down to self-contained & compact Javascript bundles. Based on Clojure, it brings Lisp’s elegance and meta-programming to the Javascript ecosystem.
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This sounds nice. I added it as the first paragraph in http://clojure-script.org/ But I’m still using a shorter version as the elevator pitch.
You should submit a pull request to the official site to have theirs replaced by this one. It is way better.
Also, they just copied the one from Clojure, which would also deserve a rewrite in my opinion.
Edit: Actually, yours would work great for Clojure too:
Clojure is a modern, concurrent, functional & immutable data-oriented language with a great standard library that compiles down to Java byte code. It brings Lisp’s elegance and meta-programming to the Java ecosystem.
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