Ask HN: Single site for programmers - is it possible? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Single site for programmers - is it possible?

11 pointspankratiev22 comments

Where any programmer can share his posts, discuss ideas and projects with the other programmers who have same interests? Where will be hackers with different interests, but will not information overload for each member. In this case you have not to visit a lot of different sites, blogs and forums. You will have just one.

Actually, it is my dream. What do you say?

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From reading the description above, I don't get the sense that pankratiev has fully fleshed out what he/she is looking for. What is the goal of the site? If the answer is "to be the one stop shop for programmers so they don't have to visit any other programming-related site" I would be pretty concerned. That sounds like a "throw in the kitchen sink" mentality that goes directly opposite to the lean/agile/customer development.

+1 Jason, my name is Vladimir. You've made a very good remark. Yes, this was a very general question. But I have strict description of my idea. I will prepare detailed article about my idea and would like to share it with folks on HN. And I would like to send a link to you.

I'd say your dream is a good one, but it's going to take some serious work in design. Each of HN, StackOverflow, reddit, etc. have a unique feel to them, their own strengths and weaknesses. But none of them really do this right (or you wouldn't be asking). There are unsolved problems in making a monolithic programmer site while still keeping niche areas vibrant. I don't see any coding roadblocks.

I think about the idea of such site for three years. Actually, this idea just sits in my head. One day last year I've decided to implement it. The site was launched recently and it is in closed beta for now. Main problem - explain the idea of the site to the people.

Well it can be done... With a RSS app in steroids.

By steroids I mean it could track specific links and post information directly from it. As for filtering, there are already some apps that can filter thru entries like NetNewsWire (http://netnewswireapp.com/ OSX/iPod/iPad only though).

Yes, it can be done in such way if you want to use data from the existing sites. But I've made the site with a new approach to programmer's community.

Might want to check out http://forrst.com/

> Forrst is a community of passionate developers and designers focused on helping themselves and others get better at their craft, providing thoughtful critiques, and sharing their knowledge to build better applications and websites.

I know about Forrst. As for me - it contains too much redundant graphics. And it is strange that posts are closed for non registered users. This is totally unacceptable for me because if I submit a post - I want to share it with anyone.

You can mark your post as public and then anyone can see it.

Why did I read this as Singles site for programmers? My next thought was of a certain Flight of the Conchords song.

I think what you're talking about is a combination of Hacker News, StackOverflow and StackExchange:Programmers

On these sites you cannot add your notes, thoughts or code snippets, I mean that they don't give you freedom that you have on your own technical blog. In addition, the main problem for me that on these sites is present some information overload - I cannot filter feed from unwanted posts (e.g. I am not interested in flash, ruby or php, but I have to see such topics because I have not any ability to filter them). And as I said - I want just one, I don't like to visit several sites every day but I have to.

Those plus GitHub, then.

My question was about one site, which will be central place for programmers. And as I said - it is just my dream. I want ask hackers what they can say about it. Do you really like to visit a lot of sites every day? Or it is just because you have not any alternative?

IMO, the reason it doesn't exist is that "no information overload" and a site as the one you describe, "a central place", are mutually exclusive.

I have an idea of filtration posts by tags, it can remove the problem of information overload. I will prepare an article with description of my idea and submit it to HN.

+1. I think what you should build is a layer over these websites, sort of like a Planet(http://www.planetplanet.org/).

You can also mention Yahoo Pipes and other tool for filtration RSS-feeds. Just googled: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/6_ways_to_filter_your_r...

But such layer/aggregator will not have flavor of community, it will not have "soul".

And in addition - there is no convenient way for me to get notifications about new comments in posts which are interesting for me. I just want to see the new posts (filtered from unwanted) and new comments in one simple page, no more.

Sounds like an opportunity for a startup that's willing to do a bunch of web scraping: offer a grand unified update notification service for a wide variety of sites. It would involve a lot of non-sexy work, but that's not exactly a bad thing.

No, I want to do something else. Actually I did the site with the features which I want, but it is hard to get traction. I just want to know who else has such problems and want such site.

Fragmentation isn't nearly as bad as a monopoly. I'm happy with the proliferation of sites for everything, even if it's messy.

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