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Re: Show HN: Ask a Dev

#61

Post by tshedor »

andrewstuart wrote: post #56

"Hey why use this? It's the same as Slack?" "Hey why use this, it's the same as IRC?" "Hey why use this, it's the same as a mailing list?" These are the sorts of things people say to lazily kill any new idea. "Hey why use this new fangled 'google.com'? It's the same as Alta Vista." "Hey why use this new fangled 'google.com'? It's the same as grep." People say this stuff because it makes them feel smart. Folks, not al…

Our goal is explicitly not to communicate via the Internet. Sure we'll promote online and use a Slack group to organize our mentors, but we're not taking on SO or IRC or Slack.

There's something to be said about coworking spaces and working remote from a cafe. We crave the company of other people.

Re: Show HN: Ask a Dev

#62

Post by ori_b »

komali2 wrote: post #39
akurilin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to overstate the value I've gotten out of Freenode IRC over the years. The #postgresql channel is chock-full of contributors and PG gurus willing to generously spend time explaining concepts and best practices. A real gem. Same thing with #clojure and #haskell . ##networking is great as well. Pretty amazing to drop into the same channel for 6-7 years in a row and see the same faces every time. One of the fi…

I still am not sure the best way to "IRC," I remember back in the day having it running in a program on Windows but lordy knows what the "preferred" method is now. I've noticed that StackOverflow now has a chat feature which is very IRC-ish and relatively helpful, if a bit empty at times.

> but lordy knows what the "preferred" method is now.

Who is this 'lordy', and why are they telling you what your preferences are? IRC is just a protocol. You can use the old clients you used to use[1], keep a command line client running in a screen session on some vps[2]some shiny web based client[3], or you can write your own in a couple of days if none of the other options appeal to you. I took the last option[4]

[1] https://hexchat.github.io/ [2] https://irssi.org/ [3] https://kiwiirc.com/ [4] https://eigenstate.org/software/ircmyr

Re: Show HN: Ask a Dev

#63

Post by tshedor »

CodeSheikh wrote: post #46

Would love to see a chapter in NYC maybe with a more broader languages and frameworks. For example say I am currently struggling with Spring Boot framework and Stackoverflow.com is a good place to tailor my question there but sometimes we don't necessarily get our questions answered in a timely manner there. Having someone who has plenty of experience with Spring Boot could guide me on the right direction. Sure I can…

We've gotten a number of requests for mentors in NYC (and Boston) but no mentors yet. Please holler at us if you're on the east coast.

Re: Show HN: Ask a Dev

#64

Post by Rondom »

molloy wrote: post #43
komali2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still am not sure the best way to "IRC," I remember back in the day having it running in a program on Windows but lordy knows what the "preferred" method is now. I've noticed that StackOverflow now has a chat feature which is very IRC-ish and relatively helpful, if a bit empty at times.

The "preferred" method is to use some sort of bouncer (znc) along with running a CLI client (irssi, weechat) in a session manager (screen, tmux) on a remote server. Weechat includes its own bouncer, and I would recommend somebody to start with it over irssi. I only fairly recently switched to weechat from znc + irssi because I wanted to try weechat.el as I wasn't happy with the state of using screen in eshell, and I…

Quassel is also an alternative, for those that prefer a GUI-client

Re: Show HN: Ask a Dev

#65

Post by dvt »

codingdave wrote: post #60
andrewstuart wrote: post #56

"Hey why use this? It's the same as Slack?" "Hey why use this, it's the same as IRC?" "Hey why use this, it's the same as a mailing list?" These are the sorts of things people say to lazily kill any new idea. "Hey why use this new fangled 'google.com'? It's the same as Alta Vista." "Hey why use this new fangled 'google.com'? It's the same as grep." People say this stuff because it makes them feel smart. Folks, not al…

> People say this stuff because it makes them feel smart. Or because they really don't see any new value. When launching a new product, it isn't the general public's job to get on board with your vision. It is your job to communicate the value in a way that connects with your audience, and makes them want to use your product.

> Or because they really don't see any new value.

Value is a misnomer. There's no inherent value in 90% of the stuff that blows up. What's the "value" in Facebook? It's even hard to see today, think about how hard it was to see in 2006.

"Value" is the same nonsense idea as "solving a problem" that startup wantapreneurs are so obsessed with -- what problem did Snapchat really solve? What problem did FB solve that Myspace didn't? What problem did Google solve that Yahoo didn't?

Sometimes it's just about being different (Pinterest), being controversial (Snapchat), being novel (AirBnB), and having fun (reddit). Sometimes it's about cleaning up UX (Facebook), or making things just a bit easier to find (Google). But above all, it's about the right place, right time, and right execution. Fortune favors the bold.

Re: Show HN: Ask a Dev

#66

Post by shafyy »

dvt wrote: post #65
codingdave wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People say this stuff because it makes them feel smart. Or because they really don't see any new value. When launching a new product, it isn't the general public's job to get on board with your vision. It is your job to communicate the value in a way that connects with your audience, and makes them want to use your product.

> Or because they really don't see any new value. Value is a misnomer. There's no inherent value in 90% of the stuff that blows up. What's the "value" in Facebook? It's even hard to see today , think about how hard it was to see in 2006. "Value" is the same nonsense idea as "solving a problem" that startup wantapreneurs are so obsessed with -- what problem did Snapchat really solve? What problem did FB solve that Mys…

Solving a problem and providing a new, better way of doing something are really two different sides of the same coin. Put differently, you don't have to solve an explicit problem. You can also solve a latent problem.

Who are you to judge "wantapreneurs"? Of course, there is something such as "value"!

Re: Show HN: Ask a Dev

#67

Post by dvt »

shafyy wrote: post #66
dvt wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or because they really don't see any new value. Value is a misnomer. There's no inherent value in 90% of the stuff that blows up. What's the "value" in Facebook? It's even hard to see today , think about how hard it was to see in 2006. "Value" is the same nonsense idea as "solving a problem" that startup wantapreneurs are so obsessed with -- what problem did Snapchat really solve? What problem did FB solve that Mys…

Solving a problem and providing a new, better way of doing something are really two different sides of the same coin. Put differently, you don't have to solve an explicit problem. You can also solve a latent problem. Who are you to judge "wantapreneurs"? Of course, there is something such as "value"!

> Solving a problem and providing a new, better way of doing something are really two different sides of the same coin.

I'm going to contend that they are two fundamentally different things. Inventing the internal combustion engine and working at Honda on their 2019 model are two very different things.

Re: Show HN: Ask a Dev

#68

Post by pavel_lishin »

cpt1138 wrote: post #9

I think IRC does half or more of this. Usually there are channels for specific things with a lot of varied experience and expertise. For instance in the #xml channel on Freenode, some very heavy hitters in the XML world frequent the channel. It also allows you to contribute back for the more basic questions that might get asked. I like the personal contact in the abstract but it suffers from huge latency (have to wai…

I think there's a flipside to that latency, though - you may have to wait awhile, but once you connect, there's almost zero latency. When you're face to face with a person, you're not wondering if they stepped away from the keyboard to get a cup of coffee, or investigate whether their cat knocked over a christmas tree, or if their internet went down. You know their work didn't just page them with a critical error. The conversation goes much faster once it starts.

Re: Show HN: Ask a Dev

#70

Post by yeukhon »

I had been to some NY local meetup like this before. That didn't work out well. AFAIR, probably two or three devs would be there to help answering questions like "how do you do this in Django" sort of thing, since a lot of people found face-to-face help valuable.

So what didn't go well even when there was a low volume of seekers? Say there was only five people seeking help, and two volunteers to help. If someone had a "good" question, the helper could be stuck by the seeker's side for a while. 1-1 model would be nice. If you were a frequent seeker, you could build a bound/friendship with a helper, so that helper would more likely come to help you since he/she would be familiar with your questions already. See the problem there? Then for the newcomers, they came in finding themselves lonely in the corner, desperately trying to get someone to help. Eventually I found some helpers like to spend time have causal talk with certain seekers, while spending much less time on others, which was very unfair to those who came to seek help.

IRC has both noise issue and focus issue. Too many chitchats going on in the background, and too many people trying to answer the same question (which is a great to see people are happy to help), but all end up arguing. So sometimes, I just message privately to keep the conversation healthy and productive.

Either way, for quick questions like "how do you do this" or "what does this error means", IRC/Slack/Discord/Stackoverflow works fine. Face-to-face is a better option for as long as there is an adequate helpers available and when helpers are discouraged from causal talk to avoid the Dining philosophers problem.

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