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Ask HN: Are there any HN-like communities for programming discussions? (b'') similar stories update story
13.0 points by minimalismhuh | karma 14 | avg karma 0.78 2020-12-31 18:36:43+00:00 | hide | past | favorite | 13 comments

I don't like Stack Overflow, but I need an alternative to it. HN is where I genuinely feel safe and happy! Is there anything programming related that resembles the HN community?

So with "HN-like" I mean: with the HN community guidelines enforced. Also, it should be friendly and welcoming like HN.

I know I am getting annoying, but I am really desperate in this matter. I really need a community like this for programming discussions and help.

Topics of interest: C, C++, graphics programming.

I know it is utopia, but I also hope for a HN-esque YouTube, Amazon, Google etc. I am rehashing this yet again, but you can see/sense that I really, really want this to happen!

Or let me rephrase this to: do you know any other community like HN?

Also: sorry for the annoyance (of rehashing myself constantly).

Have a nice and happy New Year! :)



view as:

Lobsters[0] is pretty good.

[0] https://lobste.rs/


Does it syndicate content from HN or just happen to post a lot of the same links/content?

Yeah but you need an invite to participate

If you don't like SO then you may not like this idea, but IRC [1] is still alive and kicking. It's much smaller now because of discord and slack, but many of the highly technical people are still there. I am not on there very much these days mostly because some pockets are very much like SO in that, there is a bit of elitism and sub-culture specific etiquette. Just my opinion, some channels are great

[1] - https://freenode.net/


I need to get back on the IRC.

It used to be the whole internet to me.

Back in the 90s, I could never understand the appeal of www, when the IRC was so fun and interactive.

One of my worst tech predictions ever: "oh that web thing? That'll never take off. Who wants to just download and look at a bunch of formatted documents? You can already do that with a word processor".


"You can already do that with ..." is a kind of prediction anti-pattern. If often reveals someone who doesn't really understand the pros and cons of different methods or the hidden costs of the existing way of doing things.

>It's much smaller now because of discord

discord itself also hosts a ton of very lively programming communities.


Reddit is your best bet.

Some language subs are horrible, but the smaller ones are often great and informative.


Twitter could be one but will need some crafting.

Refine the accounts you follow based on friendliness, information quality and relevance. Might end up making a nice little community. Spread friendliness yourself and attract friendly people to follow you.


Future of coding is a cool programming community that discusses graphics C and C++ occasionally. A lot of the focus is on visual programming, end user programming, esoteric languages and no code/low code. Lobster.rs as suggested is pretty good for general technical discussion but graphics on a non-surface level rarely comes up.

For graphics and C++ Twitter is probably the best option, follow some important graphics folks (say Peter Shirley, Angelo Pesce or John Carmack) and you'll get some interesting threads. There are also some good graphics programming Reddits. A lot of the best discussion happens in invite only places for me now, having some contacts in the industry helps there.


gamedev.net forums have always been a civil place with a lot of industry experts hanging around. You don't have to be a game developer, though, you can discuss any general graphics and programming questions. Unfortunately it has been going down in popularity every year.

One place I enjoy is the DevChat slack. It's not in the format of HN, but the people are friendly like HN. https://join.slack.com/t/devolio-devchat/shared_invite/zt-bx...

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