Ask HN: Where do all the web devs talk?
15 points
3 hours ago
| 7 comments
| HN
I've been using Twitter / X for a good decade now, and while I've found it's a great place to connect with native app dev communities (I'm well connected with the React Native scene), I really struggle to connect with any web devs.

There are a few big names like Adam Wathan who are pretty active on Twitter of course, but considering how widespread web dev is, I see precious few up-and-coming web devs coding in public.

So, where are they? I have explored BlueSky a bit, but again it feels a bit like tumbleweeds (though maybe that's just my luck as a small account).

Are web devs more old-school, posting on bulletin boards and forums? Or is X still the answer, and I'm just getting aggressively packed into a different bubble?

… Or is it all realtime communication, like Slack and Discord, these days?

asimovDev
4 minutes ago
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I browse my LinkedIn feed (yeah, I know) and I often see discussions pop up between people from my network, albeit nowadays it's mostly about AI tools.

I see discussions pop up on /r/webdev on reddit, but not a super active subreddit.

on 4chan there used to be /wdg/ (maybe there still is, but i haven't been to that website in years at this point)

I bet a lot of discussions happen on Slack servers for specific frameworks, but I don't have a lot of experience with using those except asking questions in the #questions channels

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MrDresden
4 minutes ago
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[delayed]
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rozenmd
4 minutes ago
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Twitter, still.

Despite several attempts to move off, the center of gravity is still there.

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King-Aaron
1 hour ago
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No one of any real purpose or substance should be using Twitter, at all, and really that should have become apparent years ago.

Disco and Slack have been my go-to for some time, though I've been connecting more and more with local devs at pub meets because online discourse is just dire at the moment.

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politelemon
1 hour ago
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I think it's quite telling then, that a large amount of links posted on HN are sadly still to xitter
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tommica
1 hour ago
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And what discord and slack channels would you recommend?

Twitter is not really substantive, that is true, bit it is quite valuable in learning about something existing in the first place. For example yesterday I learned that "niri" DE exists from a random comment to a tweet, and it is quite an amazing tool!

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King-Aaron
1 hour ago
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Twitter is absolute garbage and all their users are either racists, bots, or simply garbage people. And I'm not really sorry to be that blunt, it's a platform owned by a straight up criminal and has been promoted heavily towards like minded people, and after all the events of the last few years I have nothing but poor opinions of anyone still on there.

And tbh I use private channels on disco.

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colecut
16 minutes ago
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unreasonably judgmental rant against your solution

Vague/useless contribution of an alternative

here's a penny, bot

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tkel
14 minutes ago
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It's OK to criticize without offering solutions
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King-Aaron
6 minutes ago
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Found the kind of person I am talking about.
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Bedlow
58 minutes ago
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I'm only a casual dev but I see a lot of chat on Reddit, or Lemmy, the fediverse alternative. There's tech folk also using Matrix.
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phendrenad2
11 minutes ago
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I think that X was the big web dev community, and as soon as it was taken over by rocket man, people scattered to the wind. I think most, however, didn't actually go anywhere and just decided to be less social.
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kittikitti
1 hour ago
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I've found that layoffs and RTO have multiplied the toxicity of development communities. People will openly threaten to call your HR department if you say something wrong. Developers and engineers aren't trying to get better, they're just harming each other in a loop until the most evil one survives. It's cut-throat but not even in a good way, just extremely anti-social and aggressive.

I don't recommend any development communities. If you want to try Discord, many people who will try to get you fired are available to chat with. I talk with long time friends who are developers but it's mainly really sad conversations.

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