'Cybernetically enhanced' -> 'faster smaller simpler'

mikemaccana commented 5 years ago

The Sapper webpage explains Svelte really succinctly:

I think more people would understand Svelte if https://svelte.dev used the same description.

Faster, smaller web apps

Familiarity: faster and smaller are common concepts. Cybernetic enhancements are not.
Cybernetically isn't a common word - eg doesn't appear in my OSs dictionary. Faster and smaller do appear in the dictionary.
Cybernetically may not be understood by English speakers (personally I thought it involved combining meatware and hardware, but it apparently is about control of systems using technology).
Cybernetically may not be understood by non-English speakers.

Rich mentions the ease of use of use is the biggest draw, so perhaps:

Easily make faster, smaller web apps

May be better.

I know you've had discussions about 'Cybernetically' before, but much like `.svelte` extension I think you might want to reconsider.

antony commented 5 years ago

Faster than what? Smaller than what?

benthillerkus commented 5 years ago

Yeah that tagline is quite deterring. I know when I first visited the website I was like wtf. And I've seen in online discussions people linking the page and in response threads about the ridiculousness of that tagline.

"Cybernatically" sounds 100% like 80s RoboCop corn & 0% like small + fast.

evdama commented 5 years ago

The tagline is more than alright. It's telling you that in fact you're about to enter a new realm that's so advancded, you might even not be able to grasp and handle 'that thing'. You now have to make a decision, stay in your comfort zone of 'softare paradigms' as you know it. Stay save. Or get to know that 'cybernetical' thing, even if there's a risk of total annihilation. Obviously.

If you just look at it wrong, because it's so damn 'cybernetically' advanced, it might just be the end of you, and it will assimilate you and all the rest of the world. It's straight from planet small & fast, and it's here to dominate the future existance of the motherfucking web. Make a decision, but don't argue about naming.

mikemaccana commented 5 years ago

so advanced, you might even not be able to grasp and handle 'that thing'.

I suspect that's not what @Rich-Harris wants to convey, but I'll wait to see what he says.

evdama commented 5 years ago

:)

matter of fact, why care about a tag line, I just found it entertaining others do... bit disappointed though, thought I pushed the button enough for someone to go berserk on my booty :P

RichardOtvos commented 5 years ago

I agree with @mikemaccana . No offense @evdama , but your reply does sound a little elitist (and sorry if you weren't serious, it's Poe's Law). What if you're someone who is developing web apps the first time? This just scared less experienced and would be web-devs away. There won't be paradigm shifts with Svelte if the community stops growing.

As for my own experience, I've seen Svelte's name everywhere, and when I first went to the site, I rolled my eyes in the tagline, and me and one of my colleagues even joked about it, before I started reading @Rich-Harris 's work and realised that this is ingenious.

pngwn commented 5 years ago

I do not think @evdama was being serious.

Regarding the tagline, we have had this discussion before and no-one was able to come up with anything we felt was an improvement so we kept it. I don't like having the same discussion over but I'll add some context here:

Faster and smaller does not fully encompass the benefits of svelte, nor is that statement as straightforward as people seem to think it is; there are many caveats to performance. We want to move away from just marketing Svelte as fast/small, there is so much more to the framework than that. The thing we wish to communicate is that Svelte automatically 'enhances' your code via its compilation process and produces an application. Some of that is related to performance but not all of it, it has everything to do with being a compiler though.

The tag-line isn't meant to be particularly serious, its a bit of fun that, we think, roughly captures what we want Svelte to be. A little robot that optimises your apps in a variety of ways allowing you to write simple, concise code and spits out a performant web-app with none of the extra stuff that you don't need.

mikemaccana commented 5 years ago

The thing we wish to communicate is that Svelte automatically 'enhances' your code via its compilation process and produces an application.

Are you sure? Speaking with Rich on Twitter the main thing he wished to convey was ease of use - Svelte lets anyone make amazing, small, fast web apps.

pngwn commented 5 years ago

as to the tagline, the lack of specific meaning is sort of the point. Svelte is too many things for a tagline that focuses on specific features, like performance or whatever

This is what Rich said many months ago when this was discussed before, and pretty much sums up the conversations we've been having at regular intervals since release.

mikemaccana commented 5 years ago

funnily enough I reached the same conclusion (that being able to write simpler code is the biggest win from compiler-centric design), and am doing a talk on that in Barcelona next week...

This is what Rich said on July 8.

kylecordes commented 5 years ago

From the point of view of people who have money and want software, the overwhelming challenge to address is that software development takes a long time and cost a lot. A pitch that focuses on better results for less time (~money) is strong. Saving production-download bytes is great - yet projects would also happily spend some bytes to save elapsed time and or money.

There is a compelling story around this theme: Svelte comes from a well-known expert working at news organizations with a reputation for producing polished things on a tight timetable.

pngwn commented 5 years ago

Doesn't this all just prove the point that an overly specific tagline wouldn't work? Everyone is saying something different.

benthillerkus commented 5 years ago

So maybe then something like NPM does? We could have some slogans that are randomly selected, kinda like this:

the s stands for small l is for lean You are are Svelte!

Besides that: IMO the most important thing about Svelte is the accessibility. It's almost easier to build and layout in Svelte with it's component wide CSS namespaces than in vanila html+css. Svelte is really great for newcomers, so keeping domain specific terms and such low would be super nice!

kazzkiq commented 5 years ago

Here is how I would feel reading this description for the first time if I didn't knew Svelte:

Svelte: Cybernetically enhanced web apps

"Ok, what the heck does that means? Is it a new bundler like Webpack? Does it make web apps or enhance my current ones? Is it back-end or front? Well... whatever k bye, *closes tab and goes to the next random lib/framework*"

It's a cool phrase, but doesn't explains anything at all. I feel that even "We're like React, but faster and smaller" would be more meaningful (just an edge example, please don't adopt it).

mikemaccana commented 5 years ago

"Everyone is saying something different."

Really? I see some common themes emerging. Hence filing the issue.

pngwn commented 5 years ago

The only common theme I see is a few people in this thread don't like the tag-line.

So far we have had:

faster, smaller

less code / simpler code

make more money for your corporate overlords

mikemaccana commented 5 years ago

Yeah, faster smaller and simpler is the common thread. Nearly every person who has had a suggestion has chosen some variant of that. *

* One other person wants it to be something really dank as a joke.

dceddia commented 5 years ago

The thing that excited me most about Svelte initially was how fast it was, then how simple the code looked, and then how small it was. (Also: the REPL being lightning-quick really helped show how fast it really is!)

Thinking back to my initial experiences with React, it was the same kind of thing - it felt faster and more fun than the AngularJS code I was working with. "Oh wow, you mean I don't have to spend a ton of time hand-optimizing directives? It only renders the stuff that changed? Magical!" I think Svelte is a further enhancement on that idea. Super fast by default.

I really like the visual of a little robot making your code better, like @pngwn said:

A little robot that optimises your apps in a variety of ways allowing you to write simple, concise code and spits out a performant web-app with none of the extra stuff that you don't need.

But I just imagine being at a conference and someone turning to me and saying, "You've gotta try Svelte! It's so ____!" I don't think they'd say 'cybernetically enhanced'.

As was said earlier, Svelte is way more than just "fast" and "simple", but I think you want a quick 'hook' to get people in the door. Once they try it they'll realize all the other great stuff, but having a word or two that summarizes why it's worth their time is important, I think.

Get devs excited, and they can potentially sell it to the biz types later. I don't think going directly for "this will save you time and money" is aiming at the right audience, not yet anyway. Devs want fast, simple, small, fun to work with. I think Svelte ticks all those boxes. (maybe also "batteries included", and Svelte seems to fit that more than e.g. React)

I think if I had to boil Svelte's appeal down to one word, it'd probably be "fast". I might even say it seems "optimized by default". Something that touches on the idea that Svelte is fast + small + simple out-of-the-box, no tuning required.

arxpoetica commented 5 years ago

You've motivated me to now say "It's cybernetically enhanced" when people ask me about Svelte.

shavyg2 commented 5 years ago

How about compile time optimized.

It's true
It's simple

My preference would be Compile time optimized web apps for the overlords tho 😉

brucou commented 5 years ago

@pngwn I understand the feeling of not being productive when revisiting things over and over. That said, there seems to be quite the number of people who do not completely identify with the tag line. Or maybe there isn't that many people, just that they are all here :-)

In any case, I liked better the framework that compiles itself away because it exactly is what it is. What I also think is that developers may not be the best for finding tag lines. If @Rich-Harris has access to some marketing people from the nytimes, or elsewhere, that could be a good side projects to ask them to come up with a few tag lines and put it up to proposal to the community (knowing that you will always pick what you guys prefer -- the community can be wrong).

Another idea I have is to add an animation next to the title. Right now, you have:

Svelte
<tag line>                                big S

Write less code       No virtual DOM          Truly reactive

A nice animation may be able to complement the tag line and the text to express the cybernetic enhancement so people get it. Maybe some

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