I constantly wonder what life was like, then, for the earliest inventors, scientists, and curious minds in our history. Surely they didn't have many people to bounce ideas or build things with. How did they find the strength to persist in their interests? These days, it's far easier to quit when you cannot find community since you can distract yourself with many kinds of entertainment instead; and with bleak economic outlook everywhere, the very act of persistence itself can feel rather pointless.
It is an amazing time for programmers
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Re: It is an amazing time for programmers
#12I also want to communicate with someone and have programming conversations. There's no one around me to talk about programming with. I'm the only programmer around. Aside from AI and books, I sometimes want to talk with a real person.
In most places there are software meetups, in my area there are many at meetup.com. I once started one myself, that later got taken over and is still quite big. Actually a lot of fun, and at the time we would even get sponsoring offers quite quickly.
Re: It is an amazing time for programmers
#13Why stop at these people. You might as well reach out to Elon Musk, Tim Cook, and Jansen Huang. There's more to life than tech companies. Why not reach out to the president. It takes less effort than you might think to reach out to anyone in the world. It is truly a small place.
Re: It is an amazing time for programmers
#14I constantly wonder what life was like, then, for the earliest inventors, scientists, and curious minds in our history. Surely they didn't have many people to bounce ideas or build things with. How did they find the strength to persist in their interests? These days, it's far easier to quit when you cannot find community since you can distract yourself with many kinds of entertainment instead; and with bleak economic…
They wrote a lot of letters to each other. That's effectively how the Royal Society started, as the formalization of a network of letter writers
Re: It is an amazing time for programmers
#15I also want to communicate with someone and have programming conversations. There's no one around me to talk about programming with. I'm the only programmer around. Aside from AI and books, I sometimes want to talk with a real person.
I (software engineer) have lived with a software engineer for 14 years. We (half jokingly, somewhat seriously) refer to non-software engineers as "real persons", or human-humans.
Re: It is an amazing time for programmers
#16I also want to communicate with someone and have programming conversations. There's no one around me to talk about programming with. I'm the only programmer around. Aside from AI and books, I sometimes want to talk with a real person.
In most places there are software meetups, in my area there are many at meetup.com. I once started one myself, that later got taken over and is still quite big. Actually a lot of fun, and at the time we would even get sponsoring offers quite quickly.
I don't have that kind of gathering on side. There are no programming meetups. It's an industrial area. My job mostly involves programming equipment operation using WinForm and WPF. I sometimes wish there were such meetups too. Around here, it's all factories
Re: It is an amazing time for programmers
#17I also want to communicate with someone and have programming conversations. There's no one around me to talk about programming with. I'm the only programmer around. Aside from AI and books, I sometimes want to talk with a real person.
I found great enjoyment from https://late.sh/ . I'm not as active as I would like to be but the small community is still active enought that there is basically always someone around to chat with.
thanks!
Re: It is an amazing time for programmers
#18I constantly wonder what life was like, then, for the earliest inventors, scientists, and curious minds in our history. Surely they didn't have many people to bounce ideas or build things with. How did they find the strength to persist in their interests? These days, it's far easier to quit when you cannot find community since you can distract yourself with many kinds of entertainment instead; and with bleak economic…
I would say that a big part of research in Ye Old Days was either your local peers and colleagues but especially it was exchanging letters with the known Big Names in their respective fields. It is not without reason that nowadays that correspondence between researchers is a great source of insight.
Re: It is an amazing time for programmers
#19I also want to communicate with someone and have programming conversations. There's no one around me to talk about programming with. I'm the only programmer around. Aside from AI and books, I sometimes want to talk with a real person.
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Re: It is an amazing time for programmers
#20I also want to communicate with someone and have programming conversations. There's no one around me to talk about programming with. I'm the only programmer around. Aside from AI and books, I sometimes want to talk with a real person.
I gave away an old switch to a guy on Gumtree. He mentioned he was building a machine cabinet. We got talking. He's now my home lab shoptalk guy, and we meet in the pub every other month.
I gave away an old PCB to a guy in gumtree. We got talking. He's now my 3D printer shop talk guy, and we meet at the pub every other month.
It's surprisingly easier to foster your own hacker space if you trade goods in those circles.
Best part is that Gumtree/Craigslist/Kleinanzeigen let you define a radius to meet these people, so they're all local
I'd advise against the "Im lonely..." angle in seeking out these connections, go more for the "hey I've got this thing you might want..." style patter, even if the former is true.
And always use protection.