Ask HN: What would make your life better?

I find most guides are aimed at beginners following an example, and aren't always the best resource to get through an issue when I'm stuck on one detail.

The alternatives are browsing the actual documentation, which can be hard to navigate when you are still learning.

The last option is to ask questions on coding forums, which is where I have had the most success. The main problem is the asyncronous nature of clarifications or follow up questions.

I'd love an app or site where I can post a question to a forum, with a link to a realtime chat session I can monitor for the next few hours and interact with people interested in the topic / question.

I've had a few great experiences on irc channels where a string of questions would turn into a tech talk by someone who understood things in detail. Or someone bored found my problem interesting enough to walk me through step by step until things clicked.

Maybe your site/app could give users a URL to paste into their posts, similar to people linking pastebin examples. It should handle the creation / removal of rooms and possibly archiving in case people want to save a transcript for reference.

If it focused on doing one thing well, I'd use it. I probably wouldn't switch to a new 'general' forum just for the feature though, unless it had a large community to go with it. (stackoverflow network for example)

Whatever you do, good luck and thanks for taking the time to give back.