Like many web frameworks and libraries, the front page did not make it clear to me what the heck a Fizzgum is or why I should care. The tag line, "The power of an entire Operating System at your fingertips," told me basically nothing.
On the other hand, the "Is Fizzygum for me" page in the docs was wonderful! Good job to whoever wrote it. While not really discussing what Fizzygum is, it nonetheless gave a series of really good examples and guidelines as to whether I should bother investigating further for my use case. So many tools and libraries promise to be all things to all people and shy away from pointing out what they're NOT good for, and so I really appreciate that page. Good job.
I doubt this is a new trend and it doesn't seem very surprising. Being able to communicate "the point" of what you're doing to someone who doesn't know anything about it is a skill that is hard to acquire and hard to maintain for anyone.
It's important for all of us to stress its importance though. Anyone who wants to create something new probably have to constantly polish that skill.
> > the front page did not make it clear to me what the heck a Fizzgum is or why I should care
> This is a very depressing trend of late.
Yes, it's a maddening trend.
I have to evaluate many smaller company offerings and it has become crazy how most websites fail to communicate anything at all about what the product actually does.
Give me architectural diagrams and call sequences, high level API descriptions, etc. I want a page that will tell me what it actually does and what I, prospective user, need to very specifically do to use it or integrate with it. But no, none of that info is available 90+% of the time.
I blame it on how the website has transitioned from engineering to marketing. Way back, we'd get a website packed with information about what the product does and how to use it. Sure, it was ugly but whatever. I could spent 20 minutes reading and get a thorough understanding of how the product works.
Today websites are very pretty, smooth logos and lots of scrolling. But no info. Drives me crazy.
On the other hand, the "Is Fizzygum for me" page in the docs was wonderful! Good job to whoever wrote it. While not really discussing what Fizzygum is, it nonetheless gave a series of really good examples and guidelines as to whether I should bother investigating further for my use case. So many tools and libraries promise to be all things to all people and shy away from pointing out what they're NOT good for, and so I really appreciate that page. Good job.