Uh, are ypu talking about continuos integration?

Here's the SDL feature list. It's quite verbose.

I think that's good.

I'll try to join you in doing all the work when I have more time.

Before we set up the new front-page and features-page, we should (re)move all that outdated stuff from the website. Posted some of it earlier here ("DIGMID").

Yes. Or, at first, maybe you could elaborate a bit on how this should work, Phrasz?

SiegeLord, I see your point, my text is a bit too much like the one of SDL. I saw your draft and it's fine for me as welln, apart from maybe a few details. Let's see what other people say though.

That seems reasonable.

I just didn't feel like figuring out how to get the wiki not to prettify the asterisk.

Sure, it's all fluff... whatever sounds least offensive.

On the contrary, I think that's Allegro's main selling point. Compare this to, e.g. SDL, where you can't even rotate a bitmap without dropping into OpenGL (as far as I can tell, correct me if I'm wrong).

I like what's going on. I particularly like having an introductory paragraph followed by a bulleted list. It cuts to the point. That said...

... neither Allegro nor potential users should be guilty until proven innocent. Consider the following:

Versus:

The former knows his way around a grill. The latter suffers from arthritis or mental retardation... You forget that he can cook a great steak. It doesn't matter at that point.

I would take the general ideas already in place and tweak them:

... And here is why, and I think this is really important: An introduction only needs to reveal just enough information to entice a potential user into taking the plunge. Delving too far into particulars only increases the chances for a "deal-breaker" to surface--but once you have a user, he might discover that another, altogether unforeseen feature makes Allegro too hard to resist (and that the "deal-breaker" wasn't really a deal-breaker at all).

I am not the most authoritative source in the world when it comes to persuasion. However, I earned a diploma in communications and have experience advertising for a living. I believe the above introduction will do very well for Allegro.

Well, that's certainly more along what I had in mind...thou I'd tune a bit down the general tone, dropping it into its context. With just a tiny little bit more of introduction.

In practice, I'd consider some small tweaks:

into

and

Result:

I've basically removed the "dreams" part. While I perfectly agree that it delivers enthusiam and "hype", I also feel it's a bit out of context for the target audience.

Thank you. I'm happy for some approval, though I didn't come up with that on my own so much as I merely tweaked what was already being said.

Those are some good observations. In hindsight, the "dreams" line may have gone a little overboard, but its role is important. At the same time, the substitution of "discover" in that last bullet works well, too.

A good compromise might look like the following (changes in bold, with edits to the original as well):

... Reasons: Listing only works with all bases covered (as in the portability bullet). A C programmer with absolutely no intention of using Allegro with a scripting language, for example, could look at that binding list and say, "Hey, I wonder why Perl's not on there..." That shouldn't matter to him.

Also, a bulleted list really shouldn't exceed seven items, so I combined two bullets.

Lastly, this is going to sound awful, but... it's important to make the reader feel smart, even when he's stupid. Short, to-the-point sentences featuring keywords accomplish this. A sentence can never be too short, but it can be too long. Inactive verbs (be and its conjugated forms) should be avoided. Consider the following:

Versus:

The former says more about the man's position than it does the man himself. As "the town mayor," Bill could sit at a desk all day and do nothing. When Bill "leads the town," however, he takes action.

Anyway, the above introduction works even better than the first. Thanks for the input. The new one strikes a better balance, and I honestly don't see a lot of room for improvement.

One, final thought: Please, please, please let us stop thinking about Allegro's "target audience." Show Allegro for what it is, in terms that anyone can understand. Then, let the "target audience" decide who they are. If someone sees the term "C++" and doesn't know what it means, they will turn away naturally. But it would be a shame to have someone perfectly capable of using Allegro turn away, simply because he didn't consider himself part of the "target audience."

Ah, there's that "target audience" again... Well, I should let you know that I agree: Catering is bad.

Do you feel the current description is stupid, though? I don't. It's succinct. The thing is: Even (especially?) intelligent people enjoy things that are easy to understand. It lets them focus on the real problems.

I would never cater to anyone. It goes against my principles. But I do think it's important to express oneself in a way that reaches the optimal number of people. Stupid people find a way of weeding themselves out; we don't need to do that job--and on Allegro's introductory page of all places.

@Gideon:
You don't seem to get my point (my fault). I don't think your description is stupid, neither do I think we should have complicated sentences there.
If something is as .... "advertising" as your text, I feel being manipulated and treated like being a stupid person. I don't enjoy that at all.
Allegro isn't cornflakes or some TV series, that's what I meant with "target audience".

Edit: Well, whatever. It's better than the current front page, so, meh.
Edit2:
Try to express it differently:
Allegro5 is really good. We don't need to persuade anyone, it suffices to convince people.

Right. That's why we're doing this!

My point is just that sounding too "advertising", i. e. too much fluff could turn off some people ... like myself, for example.

And I feel that this could be especially the case among more "low level programmers" in general. Of course, I might be wrong there.

If everyone agrees with you, it's fine for me.
It's better than the current front page.

I miss the fact that it can easily be integrated with native OpenGL / Direct 3D. You shouldn't have to read the manual to get to know.

Every C library should hold up a sign saying "standards"? Well, I doubt it.

I'd say the API is intuitive / easy to use. "highly integrated" and "consistent through add-ons" seems to be the same to me.

I still think we don't need to be appearing as if we'd desperately need to sell something. We don't want anybody's money. AFAIK, only few people here have made finished games with Allegro5. There are easier paths. Allegro5 is low level. I feel especially with those keywords, not to mention the "dreams", "you want" etc. the text somehow misrepresents it. Today, it's for people who already more or less know what they're doing, let's be realistic about that.

Here's my attempt at changing things (see reasons below):

I thought the introduction was factually wrong, and we don't have any award winning anything . I rephrased the first point to emphasize my pet peeve. For the next point, I like 'versatility' more than 'standard'. I didn't really understand what was meant by 'Allegro grows as you see fit', so I said something similar instead. We don't support Unix, this isn't 1970's.

The rest were minor nit picks. I note that many of those statements can still be easily mis-interpreted... but I guess the expertise in lying is something you can respect from marketing types .