I know a decent bit about the history of the place but I'd love to hear some testimonials if you have any. Please be honest.
I moved from Pittsburgh to New Orleans in 2011-ish and I love it here. I currently live on the North Shore, but I lived in Orleans Parish for a while.
The developer community is small, but it depends on where you're coming from, I guess. A lot of people here see the region as being on the forefront of things, but when I was in Pittsburgh everyone had the same idea. I figure that most regions have this opinion of themselves, but I feel like it was more true in the case of Pittsburgh. Maybe I see it less because I'm outside of the city now? shrug
Where are you coming from?
Are you looking for more info on the job market? Companies to work for? Meetups? Or something else?
Feel free to drop me a line via email—it's in my HN profile.
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I'm not really active in the New Orleans "dev scene" but there is a small one as I understand it. There's a group that meets in the CBD for a weekly hack night - I went years ago and found it not to my tastes (mostly frontend javascript/css at the time) but I've been meaning to go back and check it out. There's also a NoFun (Nola functional programming) group I've been meaning to stop by, but they don't meet as frequently from what I can tell.
New Orleans is a really cool city that has a unique vibe. The food is excellent and varied, and there're some great bars and music. A lot of times it feels deceptively like a small town, and it's easy to forget that it's not the safest city.
Tulane is a beautiful campus and in a very nice part of uptown. (My wife and I both went there)
To sum up: City - Awesome, Dev Scene - Not as awesome, but I might just not be trying hard enough!
Something that I find interesting that not many people know about greater New Orleans is that there is a very large asian (especially Vietnamese) population. I go to the asian market across the river almost weekly, and you can get some of the best Bahn Mi in New Orleans. (This is largely because of the Catholic church aiding refugees during the Vietnam war - New Orleans has an interesting history!)
Happy to see some New Orleanians on HN!