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?
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
Despite several attempts to move off, the center of gravity is still there.
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.
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!
And tbh I use private channels on disco.
Vague/useless contribution of an alternative
here's a penny, bot
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.