[ocaml-infra] Migrating to the new ocaml.org design

[Amir Chaudhry]

Hi everyone,

Ashish, Christophe, Philippe and I have been discussing the new ocaml.org site design and how we should migrate to it.

You can see the current design up at http://ocaml-redesign.github.io and the idea for merging this into the main site is the following:

1. We fork the current site into a new branch on the main GitHub repository (the new branch would be called 'redesign').

2. We clean up and replay our git commits on this new branch.  This gets us to the current redesign site but in an 'official' place.  

3. We build a live version of the redesign branch (like we already have) and ask the community to review it and report any bugs or problems. We triage those bugs to identify any blockers and work on those first.

4. After one week (7 days), and after blocking bugs have been fixed, we merge the site into the main branch.  This would effectively present the new site to the world.  

During the above, we would not be able to accept any new pull requests on the old site but would be happy to accept them on the new branch.  Hence, restricting the time frame to one week.

As I mentioned in earlier emails, the above is only intended to merge the *design* and *toolchain* for the new site.  Specifically, we've created new landing pages, have new style sheets and have restructured the site's contents as well as made some new libraries [1, 2].  The new toolchain means people can write files in markdown, which makes contributing content a lot easier.  

Since the files are on GitHub, people don't even need to clone the site locally to make simple edits (or even add new pages). Just click the 'Edit this page' link in the footer to be taken to the right file in the repository and GitHub's editing and pull request features will allow you to make changes and submit updates, all without leaving your browser [3].  

There is still work to be done on adding new features but the above changes are already a great improvement to the site and are ready to be reviewed and merged.

[1] http://pw374.github.io/posts/2013-09-05-22-31-26-about-omd.html
[2] http://pw374.github.io/posts/2013-10-03-20-39-07-OPAMaging-MPP.html
[3] https://help.github.com/articles/creating-and-editing-files-in-your-repository

Best wishes,
Amir