python.org's redesign

I'm weighing in a bit late to the game with this one as python.org released its new design some time ago and was viewable at beta.python.org a while before that, but I wanted to voice my stern disapproval. I'm a hater, I know, I'll write something nice about something soon.

The stupid little nested sidebar is slow as hell and requires a page reload. While I have it bookmarked (and favorited) 90% of the time I end up at python.org is to get to the documentation. How do I get there now? Click, wait for page reload, click. And what shows up in the sidebar? Everything and its brother. I'm sure somebody took a poll of what the developers felt were the most important documentation sections and then put all those in the menu.

Aside: I would now like to make the statement that the reason we are still lacking an ideal web development model in Python is because Python developers have no idea what the web is. They can't really be using it very much and they certainly have no idea how to create a web page.

The navigation is offensive. It is a first-year web developer job that the maker will look back upon after he's read one book on the subject of web design and claw his own eyes out in repentance. It's a click-to-see-your-options fiesta, and nobody's dancing. I don't know what that metaphor meant either.

The styling, likewise, shows off a strong love for not paying attention to any style or design literature, classes or people. I don't know who these Pollenation guys are, but the entire value of their site exists in the top left corner (their logo is classy) and I don't think they should have been allowed to turn python.org into a marketing site.

"NASA uses Python...?" What the hell are they trying to sell? I'm sure NASA also uses Fortran, Java, COBOL and ASP, this stupid little box taking up screen real estate means nothing, if you are going to try to namedrop at least use a list of contributors. Replace all this stupid marketing crap with a link that says, "if you are trying to impress your boss who doesn't code this is the page for them." We all love Peter Norvig but we also know that that quote is useless to anybody not trying to sell consulting and could much better serve the community if it were replaced with a link to a featured project.I'm trying to accept the logo, I really am.

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