Join an online tech community

Dear new developer,

A big part of your job is keeping up to date with new technologies and happenings in the tech world. This can sometimes be a distraction, because there is all kinds of new stuff coming out all the time, whether from big companies releasing new tools or platforms, people publishing interesting code or articles on their experiences, or marketing from smaller companies. I avoid this distraction by relying on a community to do some filtering for me. Obviously that means that you need to find the right community, otherwise the filtering won’t be effective.

If you know the exact type of technology you want to focus on (say React Native or Haskell for web development), you can sign up for an email list(s) related to the projects. Or you can go to github and start to follow the issue lists. Or if you know people involved in the project, you can follow them on Twitter. Matt Raible, a prolific developer and blogger, once mentioned that he learns a new technology by unfollowing everyone he is following on Twitter, then following only people talking about the technology, so that his Twitter feed is rich with focused information.

However, if you aren’t sure exactly what to focus on, a more general community might be a better fit. These ebb and flow over the years but they also cross pollinate, so if you join one and a few years later it feels like it is not as active, be on the lookout for the up and coming community to jump to.

Slashdot was the first focused online web based community one I ever took part in. I enjoyed the discussions and linux focus. Recently I’ve moved on to Hacker News, which has a nice mix of technology, science business and politics that I enjoy. But there are other great options like Reddit (where you can find any subgenre you want, but you may want to stick with the big reddits like /r/programming), Stackoverflow (for programming q&a), and lobste.rs (which is less business and more technology focused).

Whatever community you join, whether it is a specific project or a general link sharing site like Hacker News, make sure you actually become a member of the community. Just like the value of a meetup is in who you meet time after time, visiting an online community just once is unlikely to be valuable. And be especially wary of self promotion (this Reddit page has some great guidelines about how to be an effective member of an online community, but seek out such guidance wherever you land).

Once you find and join a community, take part in it. Comment, submit links that you find interesting, and visit it. Be ready to be offended or hurt by some comments, especially if you say something dumb. I have definitely said dumb things or spoken on topics that I wasn’t fully informed about. I feel a flush of shame, leave the community alone for a few hours,and then come back and apologize or acknowledge my mistake. It’s unpleasant but part of the package.

The more pleasant part of the package is being exposed to new things. If it solves a problem you see, you may want to discuss bringing a new technology or piece of open source software into your work. Your work may have policies around new technology, but it never hurts to bring it up and discuss whether it may be applicable. You also may find interesting commentary and perspective on the technology you are already using at work, and sharing that can be a good way to help the team get better with it.

It’s also fun to occasionally submit something, whether an interesting open source project, an article on your blog, or something else you’ve seen. I’ve done that a few times and it’s nice when a submission blows up and becomes popular. It’s also a nice way to say “thank you” to someone who has written something interesting and help them out–I can think of multiple submissions that were interesting articles written by people I knew and when the submission got popular, the people were thankful I’d posted it.

In summation, find an online community, participate it in, and you will reap the rewards.

Sincerely,

Dan