Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Where do you go for hacking help?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 31 posts

Re: Ask HN: Where do you go for hacking help?

#22

Post by gsiener »

epi0Bauqu wrote: post #18

I'm thinking of starting (with mdakin) a help instance akin to the MIT help instance. It would be a live chat system that has a UI designed to not let you use focus. No idle chatter, just crowd sourced Q/A. The intention is to have a core group of hackers essentially leave it on all the time and answer when available. When it works, it is much faster and often more useful than forums/Google. If interested in beta-tes…

Have you looked at Fluther (http://fluther.com) at all? They're building something of this nature (but w/o a specific hacker slant). I know they're planning on releasing an IM interface shortly along with an API.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you go for hacking help?

#23

Post by gsiener »

epi0Bauqu wrote: post #18

I'm thinking of starting (with mdakin) a help instance akin to the MIT help instance. It would be a live chat system that has a UI designed to not let you use focus. No idle chatter, just crowd sourced Q/A. The intention is to have a core group of hackers essentially leave it on all the time and answer when available. When it works, it is much faster and often more useful than forums/Google. If interested in beta-tes…

PS as a side note, I think an issue with this format that I see on irc is similar to telling a crowd of people "someone, call 911." No one is really compelled to answer if they think someone else will...

Re: Ask HN: Where do you go for hacking help?

#24

Post by Tichy »

alex_c wrote: post #13
Tichy wrote: post #6

Not that I have used it much, but my impression was lately that such things have moved to IRC (rather than usenet)?

Just wondering, does your nickname originate from Stanislaw Lem by any chance?

Yes it does ;-) "Star Diaries" was my favorite book as a kid.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you go for hacking help?

#28

Post by lacker »

Google is the #1 resource if your question is the sort that can be summarized in a few words. Like if you want information about a particular function in a particular library, or to read how to integrate two different systems. Google is also the way to go if you have an error message and you can quote it to find people talking about the exact error message.

For some problems, though, it's harder to search for an answer. For example, a question of good javascript style for a particular thing you are trying to do. For this sort of thing I ask friends of mine.

There's also generally mailing lists and forums that are appropriate for your specific topic. Stack Overflow too if your question doesn't fit nicely into a topic. The problem with these is that you generally don't get an immediate answer, and you might not get an answer at all, so you have to kind of ask your question, then keep trying on your own anyways, or do something else for a while. So this is definitely not as good as the instant methods. You also are more likely to get bad advice if it's not from someone you trust.

I never use books to solve specific programming problems. Much too slow. Maybe if they were searchable.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you go for hacking help?

#29

Post by sokoloff »

gsiener wrote: post #23
epi0Bauqu wrote: post #18

I'm thinking of starting (with mdakin) a help instance akin to the MIT help instance. It would be a live chat system that has a UI designed to not let you use focus. No idle chatter, just crowd sourced Q/A. The intention is to have a core group of hackers essentially leave it on all the time and answer when available. When it works, it is much faster and often more useful than forums/Google. If interested in beta-tes…

PS as a side note, I think an issue with this format that I see on irc is similar to telling a crowd of people "someone, call 911." No one is really compelled to answer if they think someone else will...

zephyr -i help

at MIT had almost exactly the opposite problem: people were charged up/competing to be the first one to provide the correct answer. It worked shockingly well, as a consumer and it was fun to kill some time as a supplier of answers. (My time at MIT all pre-dates the interwebs, so I can't directly compare/contrast it to a world with Google as an option.)

Post reply on HN